...I will learn how to knit.
...I will walk across a stage in a cap and gown.
...I will perfect our homemade tomato sauce recipe.
...I will have a job that isn't connected to the military.
...I will see Austin off to school, and be there when he gets home.
...I will have the time to paint my toenails.
...I will grow my own peppermint and brew my own tea.
...I will be able to enjoy a show in NYC with my husband.
...I will feel the sun on my shoulders in a perfect heirloom garden.
...I will take classes for pleasure instead of necessity.
...I will know this struggle has been worth it.

Someday I will breathe  easily.

- Antiope

 
We're having a quiet first night this year - tacos for dinner and s'mores later by the fire. Maybe I'll let myself enjoy a glass of wine. :)

This time last year I was in New York with J and Mer. I haven't seen much of them lately... it's been, what, three months? A damn shame. I need to get up there and see them soon.

Something else I just realized - remember that photo-a-day project I was talking about earlier this week? Yeah. It starts tomorrow. Holy crap. Guess I'll be spending some of tonight creating another site to host my photos. I'll have a link ready for you guys tomorrow, thought it might be a work in progress for a week or so.
     

 
I know, what a silly thing: New Year's resolutions. Does anyone take them seriously?

I do, I suppose, although I always leave mine purposely vague. Some people may resolve to quit smoking or lose 10 lbs, but these are too concrete: by the end of the year, you can measure whether you have quit smoking (are you still buying cigarettes? If yes: then no.) or if you've lost 10 lbs (step on a scale). If you pick something blurry, like "Be nicer to puppies" or "Dance less foolishly at wedding receptions," the result is subject to interpretation, and on December 31 you can choose to congratulate yourself for a job well done, or not.
    

 
Theseus has left for class, the baby is at day care, and I'm alone in the house in complete. silence.

Does that ever feel refreshing to you? Too often I have something on for background noise, whether it is the television or some music. Right now it is quiet enough in the house to hear a cat yawn in the other room and a car move across the bridge down the road. I can hear the wind and all the creaks our house makes. It's lovely, actually. I don't get to enjoy the silence very often (a consequence of having a 7 month old) so I try to savor it when I do.
    

 
I've been away - you probably noticed. A number of trains were rushing toward me and after the resulting, continuous, obvious train wreck, I mentally walked away. I had no other choice. I'd never felt so overwhelmed, so completely drained, so physically tired, so naggingly sick.
    

 
Decided to keep my thoughts to myself.

Turned the television off; focusing on the present, and the future.

- Antiope

 
I have a long post in my head, waiting patiently for my hands to type it out. The last few days Theseus' laptop cord was broken and I hate my own laptop, so I couldn't post anything. Tonight I finally turned on my laptop (we have a new cord for him, also) but my throat is KILLING me and I just want to go to sleep.

This 4-day weekend went by entirely too quickly and I am dreading going back to work tomorrow. Also tomorrow is the beginning of my school-week, so I'll leave at 8 a.m. for work and won't return home from school until 10:30 p.m. Then right to sleep, to go back to work fro 8 a.m. the next morning. I have school three days a week, and only Tuesday is that bad (home by 7:15 the other two days), but still - a long day for me, and a long day away from Austin.

Rushing through these classes while he's still young and won't remember - this is the right thing to do, isn't it?

:(
:(
:(

- Antiope

 
On a scale of 1-10, I'd give this year's garden a 4: a 6 for effort and a 2 for results. So, a 4.

That's not good (let's face it, it's pretty terrible), but I've made peace with it. We really didn't know what we were doing, and we went about a lot of things the wrong way. I wasted $74 in heirloom seeds and only have some starchy corn and a few sad bell peppers to show for it. All the zucchini, cucumbers and tomatoes that produced decently were all purchased at Home Depot after the heirloom seedlings failed.

Some of the major failures, and their reasons (as far as I can tell):
- pumpkins: squash vine borer
- acorn squash: squash vine borer
- hubbard: squash vine borer
- crooknecks: squash vine borer
- butternut: squash vine borer
- zucchini: eventually, yes, squash vine borer
- cucumbers: fertilizer burn/possibly squash vine borer
- watermelon: (unknown)
- potatoes: blight (wish I were kidding)
- eggplant: unknown tiny black beetles
- cabbage: unknown beetles
- strawberries: overcome by weeds/apathy
- sweet peas: swift death, reasons unknown
- peppermint: (unknown)
- soy beans: (unknown)
- heirloom tomatoes: possibly bad gardening soil/unknown
- celery: overcome by weeds/apathy

Really, it's a good thing we weren't trying to live off the garden. It became, unfortunately, a novelty - try this salsa we made with the (Home Depot) cherry tomatoes! - rather than a reliable source of food.

But the more I read (I've been reading a lot about gardening lately), the less sad about it I feel. It would be like trying to make a shirt or a pair of pants without ever bothering to learn how to sew properly. Sure, I could cut some fabric and crudely stitch the pieces together into something vaguely resembling an article of clothing, but it wouldn't be very good, and it wouldn't be very reliable. This was my (our) garden this year. So how can I feel bad when, really, things grew in spite of us, not because of us? It was all wrong from the very beginning. I should eat our (severely over-salted) pickles and be happy to have them.

Next year will be different. Although this year was a near-total fail (rating it a 4 is being generous, in truth), I will always think of it with a mix of fondness and frustration. Why didn't I pick up a damn book sooner?!

- Antiope

 
When I was a teenager, the only way I could fall asleep was if my room was completely silent and pitch-black - I even went so far as to pull the shades to keep the moonlight out. Also had to have my hair down, no jewelry, no pajama pants, and definitely no socks. Plus I had to have my pillow, not just any old bag of feathers or foam.

Any deviation = no sleep.
    

 
...though, to be fair, when am I not thinking about food? ;)