Sleep, one of the coolest things EVER

I had the best sleep last night – almost eight solid hours of rest.  This is one of the thousands of reasons that I will never be Speaker of the House, Secretary of State, or even just the over-acheiver of Eagle Rock.  I love to sleep.  I feel so fabulous when I get enough sleep.  And so crappy when I don’t.

Since finishing my last Clinical Pastoral Education internship in early January, I’m looking around my house and realizing that being so insanely busy for four months and also SLEEPING means that there are still parts of my house that I have not really moved into  yet.  Mostly closets and small piles of things here and there.  It’s so wierd how once a pile of books/papers/whatever sits tidily in a corner for a while, it ceases to even register.  It becomes part of the house’s scenery.

There is one pile in the dining room that has a Japanese writing desk in need of refurbishment, a spanish dictionary, a spa certificate, two journals, and  Tasha’s ashes.  Hmm.  I’m really not sure how to appropriately distribute those things.  Or how they ended up all together in the first place.

I miss the hospital so much it hurts.  It is so hard to finally know what shape of ministry I really love and not be able to do it Right Now.  I’m praying, as ever, that the One Who Is In Charge will help things along and I’ll be back doing what I love sooner rather than later.  In the meantime, I can tidy up around here.

Oh, for frick’s sake.

It has been many, many days since I have posted (eighteen). Honestly, for a few days I was just too wrapped up in my own crap to remember that I had a blog. Then, when I remembered, I didn’t feel like I had anything to say that wouldn’t seriously compromise what I’ve decided are my blog boundaries. This is not an anonymous blog. People know who I am. Hopefully not my address, but my real name and all that.

Suffice it to say that I was in the midst of processing hard things – marriage stuff, ex-wife stuff, step-kid stuff, my own anger stuff – bleh. Ick. It felt too raw to write about anything authentic, and too fake to write about anything light.

But I’m alive, and working through my stuff, poco a poco.

I would like everyone to know the following expenses that occurred in February:

$186 at Trader Joe’s . Twice. (I would just like to add that, entirely coincidentally, is the same price as the CUTEST Coach sandals right now. Ahem.)

$20 because we lost our parking ticket at the Grove parking lot. The guy was an ASS about it, too. When you are not in the category of having cash to spare, this kind of fuck up can make you CRAZY if you let it.

$8 for the tip at Fatty’s, a local vegetarian resto. My friend Shauna treated me and I ate like a pig (albeit a vegetarian pig) and we had amazing Han martinis and everything felt much better afterwards.

$7.50 for a red, cashmere Banana Republic hoodie! I found it at the Salvation Army. A little worn, but who cares!

$29.99 for an infomercial medicine for my dog’s arthritis. I confess – I am a total sucker. I NEVER buy stuff like this, but this ad killed me. They show these dogs that walk and lurch around just like my Tasha, and it broke my heart. Because, you know, MY POOR DOG! Is suffering! I really can’t tell if it is working. I am a little embarrassed that I bought it, but then again, not really.

$0. This was how much I paid for the best prayer I’ve gotten in a long time out at church. This woman Jean prayed for me and it started working on my heart instantaneously. Thank you God for church and prayer.

I’ll try to post something a little more interesting soon. Sorry for the hiatus.

Home Ec – refinishing the table

In the spirit of actually doing what I said I would do – here is a picture of the oak table before I refinished it.

Yeah, nobody can mess a table up like me! Please note the huge, black iron stains from the iron teapot.

Now, here it is today, in all its refinished glory:

I am pretty happy with how it turned out. I decided not to use any polyeurathane, in spite of my husband’s urgings that I do so. That crap is toxic, y’all! So, I just used some all natural wax on it after I sanded it. I know the color is not perfectly even, but it is good enough.  Good enough!  I love not striving for perfection in stuff like this anymore.  I’m trying to save my striving for things that are slightly more important than oak tables.

I’m back, from outer space. . . sanding tables

Dang.  It has been a long time since I posted anything.  I was visiting my parents, who don’t have the innerwebs at their house, and then I had a “cold,” if by “cold” you mean debilitating, life-sucking, depression-inducing, snotty virus.  Ugh.  I feel much better now.

When I got back from living abroad (almost three years in Africa and South America), one of the first things I bought with my “real job” funds was an old, round oak table.  I loved that table so much.  It is heavy and very farmhousey, very un-Pottery Barn.  After I’d had the table for a few years, I had an iron teapot that I used a lot, and I used to clumsily set it on the oak tabletop.  Woops.  This caused dozens of round, black stains from the iron pot.  After the first few, I was like, eh, who cares? I’ll sand it and re-finish it and it will look fine.  Uh.  That would be fine.  Except.  Except I said that to myself over and over again for SIX YEARS.  I took that table with me in no less than six moves in eight years, too.  I’m pretty sure that in the last six years I’ve had a few hours on  my hands that I could have been working on that table.

At last, yesterday, I got the sandpaper, the electric sander and my gumption and took the tabletop out to the garage.  It was so satisfying sanding away the past.  Also, I LOVE messy jobs, so it was fun getting all sandy and dirty.   And my husband helped!  I am used to being around men who, when it comes to projects like this, either a) take care of something for me or b) let me do whatever I want and leave me to it.  It was nice to work on it with someone for a change.

The tabletop still needs to be oiled and I guess it needs some polyeurathane (sp?) too.  It feels so amazing to actually have done something that I’ve been meaning to do for that long.  I am the world’s most fantastic procrastinator. Ever.  I rule the world of procrastination.

I hope this bodes well for 2008.  I hope 2008 is a year of doing things that I meant (or mean) to do, using far fewer of my many procrastination skills.

Pictures of the table to follow.