Count-up

Surgery is over! WOOHOO!! Officially on the mend with June 21 marked on my calendar as the day to start running again. Perhaps around the block. With some walking thrown in. But must start somewhere, right? So grateful for my friends and family sending their wishes, prayers and love. My brother is a much better care-taker than I had imagined! I owe Kyle dinner for being with me at the hospital (and HOPEFULLY refraining from taking too many pictures of me all doped up!). I owe Jen and Lisa bottles of wine for driving me to work. And something for Josh...I will come up with something.

Unfortuneately I think I lost my mind when they replaced the ACL. I lost my keys today. ALL OF THEM. Car, apartment, work, association mailbox, bike, mailbox.

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fortunately I got new ones from my landlord who stayed late at the office to wait for me and I have doubles of all but the association mailbox. Here's hoping I wasn't the only one with a key.

Who is the patron saint of lost causes and all lost things??
I could really use some prayers to him/her.

If it wasn't this, it would be something else.

Surgery Countdown

Just a quick note as I finish lunching on this rainy Baltimore day. Makes me wonder if I have "Raining in Baltimore" by the Counting Crows on my iPod...the last time I heard the song was on an episode of Homicide, and the album was close to being on my Top 10 list. But that's another time, another post.

I was originally pissed when I learned that I would have to take the whole week after my surgery off and basically stay put in my apartment. (I don't do well staying in one place.) However, I'm trying to look at it with new eyes - I will actually have time to do all the things I say I want to stay home and do!

Few things?
-Watch some classic movies
-Study for the LEED exam
-Finish knitting my scarf
-Meditate
-Read my LAMs rather than just shove them on the shelf
-Write letters

And most importantly, heal this darned knee!

Happy rainy, melancholy Wednesday to all.

Poems, Prayers, Promises

And I have to say it now

Its been a good life all in all
Its really fine
To have a chance to hang around
And lie there by the fire
And watch the evening tire
While all my friends and my old lady
Sit and pass the pipe around

And talk of poems and prayers and promises
And things that we believe in
How sweet it is to love someone
How right it is to care
How long its been since yesterday
And what about tomorrow
And what about our dreams
And all the memories we share
~John Denver

Well, this post is not really about John Denver, but since I borrowed one of his songs for my title, I felt obligated to share some of its lyrics. He does get it right, doesn't he?

With all my bitching and worrying and prompt freak-out session directly after (thank you Kyle and Yuengling for getting me out of it!) I have to share some of the outcomes.

1) I finally have a date set for my knee surgery!! They could have told me "Come in tonight" and I'd have dropped everything to go get it done. April 21. It really is a nearly perfect date. I won't have to miss too much class, and it is early enough not to affect my friend Kelly's visit in May. The only issues I now have to resolve are my transportation for the two weeks I am not allowed to drive. I should be able to get enough coworkers and friends to take me into work, and this gives me the frightening opportunity to acquaint myself with the Baltimore bus system.

I can start running in July!!!
(3 months prior to Ragnar)

2) 90% have a new place to live!! I heard back from the owners of the house I visited last weekend, and as long as no issues arise before I sign the lease and send them the security deposit, the place is MINE. Well, by rent. But you know what I mean. Have I mentioned how cool this house is??

2 woodstoves
hand-painted bathroom sink
floor-to-ceiling front window (perfect to start an indoor jungle)
roof access
south and east facing windows
NO west windows
kitchen bar unit from an old Baltimore bar
walk-in closet (!!)
1 block from the park

My reaction upon reading the email.

I've been sketching out locations and plans for decorating all day in my mind. And you know what I've come up with? Not a thing. Other than to fill the front window with plants. And put lots of books somewhere.

How cute is this place??

Ok I'm done!! Waaaay too long post, will attempt to keep them snappy.

Paciencia

YIKES! The fates are still demanding my patience!! I won't lie that I am incredibly frustrated with life at the moment. My personality is one that when I know what it is I want, I try to do everything in my power to make that happen, and I don't particularly enjoy turning that control over to the fates.

1) Surgery - It has been two months since I tore my ACL, one month since I began physical therapy, and I STILL don't have a date set for my surgery. I do realize that the office has to put me in the queue and will contact me next week, but seriously, I'm ready to get going already! Ragnar is getting closer by the week! (Ok, so it's end of September, but still...)

2) House - I've officially decided that it's time to move out of the one-room apartment and into a house. Reasons? I cannot live in the same room as my cat any longer (being woken at 4:30 each morning gets old REAL fast), people like to stand on the street outside my building and yell at 3am, I can't open the windows, the apartment next door houses a smoker. The smoke seeps through the very walls of my apartment!

SO, that being said, I've been looking for houses around the Patterson Park area of Baltimore, and have fallen in love with a corner house, complete with hand-painted sink, 2 woodstoves and roof access. The hold-up at the moment is timing - will my June move-in schedule flesh with their maintenance work?? I desperately want to find a house in this area, and the "Bank House" fits all the criteria.

3) Relationships - Probably the most frustrating at all, and definitely the least able to control. I keep telling myself - along with all the other things - that what will happen will happen, and that I can just do my best and pray for the right outcome, whatever that may be.

There are lots of prayers coming from this curly blonde! Ug, so much rests on FAITH.

What to do? What would you do? What would God do?

(sometimes a girl doesn't want to have to work so HARD at life!)

Although that's what life is.

YIKES

Diana Ross

I want her boots!

WANT!

This is my motivation for SO much right now! Oh, my, I cannot stop lusting over this dress from Victoria's Secret.


The colors are perfectly spring, fading into summer, drifting into fall. Light and floaty, perfect for the humid Baltimore summers where the thought of wearing cotton is about as appealing as dipping one's self into a vat of canola oil.

I see myself wearing this, walking barefoot through a field at the vineyard, listening to crisp jazz notes on a summer evening.

Mmmmmmm.....

New cookbook!! May I just say that it is amazing. Picked up Skinny Bitch in a Box this week, and made (almost) vegan chicken noodle soup. Perfect timing as I've gotten sick for the second time this season and was craving a vegetarian version of the soup. "Quorn" is a very chicken-like fake chicken. V. tough to find. I know. I've been a veggie since I was 12. Anyhoo, if you can get past the expletives, those ladies really do know how to put together some healthy, tasty meals. Tonight was potato and butternut squash curry and rice.

Can't wait to start working out to their DVD as well! Too bad that has to wait a few months, as the most I can do at the moment is walk timidly and do my PT exercises. Knee has gotten to an 85% bend! Yay! Did I mention what I did? Tore my ACL. Yup. All the joy and pain (mostly emotional at the moment) that comes with it. I am determined to be the fastest healer they have ever seen, with surgery in April and the Ragnar Relay in September. After all, I did recover from Mono in a month and a half back in college!

Ug, and speaking of PT, I forgot that I have to get up early for it tomorrow, therefore I am 2 hours past my bedtime.

Happy Friday to all!

Fun with PhotoBooth

I've been entertaining myself with the PhotoBooth application this morning, stalling the start of the day until the library opens. Patricia was not likewise amused.

Patricia desperately trying to remove herself from my grasp.

A Little Time

I've been off for a bit due to my coordinative (is that a word?) brilliance. Finally organized a basketball team in town, and then the first game I manage to sprain my knee, resulting in crutches and a leg brace for the past two week. Apparently it is a bad idea to block a girl with your leg. Who knew. Perhaps I should have practiced somewhere in the past 7 years since I last played.... So therefore have not felt much like blogging recently!

I did however take a trip out to Las Vegas for a long weekend over Valentine's Day to see an old friend of mine. Truely, we've known and kept in touch since first grade. Clearly were not able to do all the hiking we had planned, but managed to off-road the crutches a bit!

Up in the red rocks of Valley of Fire with Tweedledee and Tweedledum, my two crutches.

Finds in the Freezer

For Christmas at my grandmother's, my aunt sent us dessert we had never heard of- canneles, a French pastry/dessert. No one, other than myself, much appreciated them at the time (I think we dried them out in the oven), and my grandmother insisted I take a half dozen home- not something I had to be persuaded to do. I rediscovered them in the freezer last night, so I defrosted then heated one in the microwave. I broke through the chewy exterior into the soft, moist center, and thus began my love affair.

Tartelette has a delicious post on her blog concerning canneles. There are at least two French bakeries here in Baltimore that I must check for canneles once my frozen supply runs out.

Lovely, moist canneles

Must call my grandmother and share the discovery!

Warmth on a Budget

As with so many other things, the price of electricity is beyond the desired scope of a girl on a budget. I do all the things I can to keep it down- all CFL lights, no plugged gadgets or appliances, plastic on the windows, heat on low or not at all. Even though I hail from the north and consider myself fairly cold-hardy (ok, who am I kidding, I'm always cold), it gets rough when the temperature is in the 20s and my apartment is only slightly warmer than that, with big old drafty 7' windows.

What to do? I take advantage of my cat as a living heater (this is the first year she has ever slept on my lap.


I have also broken out the wool poncho given to me by my parents' neighbor back in PA, similar to below:


And now I will drink some hot tea and look out the window at the snow...

Local Discovery

One of the great incidental accompaniments to having company is the things they bring with them. I had a friend over for dinner last night (for which I made some great but simple peanut noodles) who brought with him a bottle of wine from Boordy Vineyards, a local winery just north of Baltimore. A good, but not great, bottle of Cabernet- due to the fact that this part of the country is not especially known for producing stellar reds. Regardless, the vineyard is back on my list of places to visit this spring or summer and when I can buy wine again I will be doing my best to put my money in the local economy and support those enterprises. Plus, they have great sketched labels...

Anxiety in the Extreme

My optimism into this foray has been somewhat lacking of late, due to A) the discovery of round 3 of car maintenance and B) tax filing. In Round 1, it was divulged that there is a crack in the exhaust manifold, which basically removes fumes from the engine via the catalytic converter. According to Honda, they must replace the entire system, which will cost upwards of another grand. I almost choked when they told me this. However, according to an auto-proficient coworker, he can replace only the manifold for about $300 in parts and a case of beer. That is definitely worth a trip up I-83 into PA for him to do the work. All I can say at the moment, is that he'd better be able to do it, because I am one more piece of bad news away from just forgetting the car and doing metro with the 6 mile-a-day walk.

Silly me thought that I may get some return on my taxes to help out with all of this, but as is my current fate, I owe the State of Maryland some $175. Seriously?!?

Lessons/positive spin? Getting to know my coworker better (honestly kinda thought him a bit of a redneck- but then again, I am a closet redneck at heart!) and, uh....learning to file my taxes?

Hopefully will have more coming positives!

Impetus

I had to part with nearly $1300 yesterday for the first round of car maintenance. While I was expecting it (granted, for only about a week and a half), the act was still not a particularly pleasant one. Quite the opposite, actually, and thus the impetus for my goal of fiscal responsibility. Certainly the greatest amount of money I have ever spent at one time, and one that is more than I receive in a single paycheck. So now I am left with half my rent for the month and about $36 in cash.

Perhaps the most frustrating part is that there is nothing visibly changed about my car! When I bought it last year with 90,000 miles there was no major maintenance done to it- which I didn't know until about 2 weeks ago- and, as I was buying my first car on my own, didn't know to ask. Fortunately there is nothing majorly wrong with it, just time to replace the timing belt, drive belts, brake pads, brake rotors, flush the brake fluid. Fortunate, but frustrating that I have spent all this money and can't see or feel a difference!

I have until March or so to save up an equal amount to replace the exhaust manifold, flush the transmission fluid, the power steering fluid, 120K service......yikes! Too much car detail that I never really cared to know!

The Fledgling

So, art thou feahered, art thou flown,
Thou naked thing?—and canst alone
Upon the unsolid summer air
Sustain thyself, and prosper there?
Shall no more with anxious note
Advise thee through the happy day,
Thrusting the worm into thy throat,
Bearing thine excrement away?
Alas, I think I see thee yet,
Perched on the windy parapet,
Defer thy flight a moment still
To clean thy wing with careful bill.
And thou are feathered, thou art flown;
And hast a project of thine own.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay