Thursday, August 30, 2012

Don't Wanna

You know, I totally thought I had a great poker face at work, like when I was feeling down, I thought  people wouldn't be able to tell. Apparently, I can hide the crazy, but not the depression. I've had three people in three different departments ask me if I was okay this morning. And to all of them I actually said "No." I can't believe I did that. I think this means I feel totally comfortable with the three coworkers who asked, and feel like I can confide in them that no, things are not quite okay, and here's why. I didn't go into the whole meds-make-my-brain-fuzzy thing, but I did talk a bit about job dissatisfaction, stress, not sleeping well, and general depression. And you know what? They didn't judge me for being a crazy person (not that I expected them to). Nobody really does, that I know of.

Anyway, I've been thinking all day about how I don't really want to go to knit night tonight, but I don't want to ditch my friends, and I really need to get out of the house, and on and on. I'm stressing out majorly today (more so in the morning than now) because of work, even though it's not an unusually busy day or anything. I think the depression is just lowering my tolerance for stress, and that in turn is causing some anxiety over things that, on any other day, wouldn't even cross my mind. I mean, I ran out of disposable pipets and freaked out. Then I used something else and everything turned out just fine. No big deal, right? Apparently, it was.

But as I said the other day: I'm more or less forcing myself to go to things and blog (look, it's working!) and get up and go to work every morning, so I'll go to knit night tonight. I just might not like it.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Walking On Air

Well, we got our new carpet installed...a while ago.

Have you ever carpeted three rooms, four closets, and two flights of stairs? You have to move EVERYTHING. We had stuff shoved in every little nook and cranny in the house. My bathroom served as book storage:


Makes me look way smarter than I actually am.

Anyway, here's the old carpet. We ripped it up ourselves to save a few dollars.


Here's the end result on the stairs:


We got the super fluffy kind, with the super smooshy pad underneath, and it's like walking around on clouds.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

I Pinpointed It

I've been thinking a bit lately about what has me depressed. It all started at work a few weeks ago...

A new guy started. New Guy is perfectly nice, and this has almost nothing to do with him. HPLC Chemist also has a teeny role in this, but of course it's not at all his fault, either.

So HPLC Chemist is still in school and is always asking me chemistry questions, and I don't know the answers because I've been out of school for five years and because these damn drugs...well, I'll get to that in a moment. Either way, he asks me a question and I have to say "I'm sorry, I don't remember..." and then I feel like a total dumbass.

New Guy is not fresh out of college, but more so than I am, so he remembers things and picks up everything super fast. This is a good thing, for sure. It's also a good thing that HPLC Chemist is always trying to learn more about not just his classes, but his job and the chemistry it entails. These really are good things.

So I feel like an idiot. That's what has me depressed lately. I pinpointed it. Here's the thing: I know I'm smart. I know that. I have a degree in chemistry, for hell's sake.

Have you seen the movie "A Beautiful Mind"? Now, I am in NO WAY comparing myself to John Nash, because holy hell would that be the height of hubris, but in the movie, at one point, he started to take antipsychotic medication and found that he could no longer think clearly, especially on matters mathematical. This is how I feel. I feel dulled. I feel cloudy. I try to do math in my head that used to be so incredibly easy for me and I have to stop and write it down, because I can't hold the numbers in my mind.

I used to be smart. In college, I was in no way a Sheldon Cooper (I didn't go to college when I was 12), but I was at least a Leonard Hofsteder, however you spell his name. I got my degree with minimal effort because things just made sense to me. The math just made sense. Chemical processes made sense. It all just clicked. I loved it all so much. And now it's just lost. All the things I knew, everything I memorized and learned and studied so hard, it's all gone. I don't remember things anymore. And if I try to re-learn something, it doesn't stick.

I feel so stupid. I hate it.

And it doesn't help that I was walking New Guy through how to do my job for when I'm not there (he's going to learn everyone's stuff so he can sub when we're sick or vacationing), and I realized that with few exceptions, I do the same damn thing over and over every single day. I try to tell myself that I work for yarn, and to get myself out of the house every day, and to be social, and I work for the weekend, but I can't help but feel like I've wasted my hard-earned degree with a position as nothing more than a glorified lab tech. Now don't get me wrong; it's a good job. I get paid more than I need, I have great benefits, and for the most part I like my coworkers. But there's no challenge. And I'm not sure I could handle a job that was a challenge, since my mind has turned to muck.

Damn drugs.

But I can never go off of them and hope to have even a shred of a decent life, not to mention a decent relationship with Scott.

Monday, August 27, 2012

This Fridge Is Totally Worth It

So I just kinda realized that I finished my kitchen...like finished finished...and didn't say anything. See? Depression.

So here's the truck pulling up for delivery:



Shiny new fridge:


Shiny new stove:





We already had the dishwasher, countertops, cabinets, etc.:


We got our new fridge and microwave installed (ignore the mess, please):


And the new stove:



THEY ALL MATCH. Everything is so beautiful. I'm really excited about this (well, as excited as you're going to get when you're depressed). I feel like we've accomplished something BIG.

Funny thing about the fridge: we measured it long before we bought it so we would be sure it would fit when we designed the cabinets and had the countertops installed. When they were installed, it looked like it was all installed properly, because the fridge we used to have was a smidge smaller than this new one, so of course it fit just fine.

Well, we went to put the new one in and it didn't fit. Like, at all. Cue panic. It turns out the countertop people installed it very slightly wrong...just wrong enough to make us freak out, apparently. What it took to get it to fit was everyone donning respirators or masks and Scott using his Skil saw to shave down the countertop,


then once he had gotten it shaved down as much as he could without damaging the cabinet, he sanded it, and then he spent probably 20 minutes shoving the damn thing in place. Let me tell you...if this thing ever needs servicing it better not need to come out because that thing is in there. It's funny now but at the time we just about had matching heart attacks.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

I Then ATE A Sno-Cone

Another recent spinning adventure was with my Sno-Cone batt from my knitting group friend. I told myself I wasn't going to buy more fiber except the fiber club, but I saw this and Had. To. Have. It. I mean, THE RAINBOW COLORS.

Here it is on the bobbin:



I tried to get more color control on this batt than others I've spun before. I spun it so whatever I make from it will have four repeats of a blue-green-yellow-orange-pink-purple stripe pattern.


Overall I'm happy with how it turned out. I chain-plied it to keep the color control, and I think it turned out a good weight, and it's pretty consistent, too.

I don't know how long it's going to take me to remember to take before pictures as well as after...

I borrowed the picture from her Etsy shop so you could see how scrumptious it looked, sitting there in front of me, calling my name...it's the big picture in the center.



Saturday, August 25, 2012

Mittens?

I have more than one friend in my knitting group that dyes fiber, either for fun or for a living. I get my monthly club fiber from one of them, and the other brings in braids she's done every once in a while.

Here's one I bought from her:


This one was large enough that I needed two bobbins (which isn't that much, in the spinning world, but it's a lot for a newbie like me).




It ended up in two skeins, and this picture is too dark, but you can see how much I have. It's not the softest wool, so I don't know what I'll do with it. Mittens, perhaps?



My wheel spinning is slowly but surely getting more consistent. I'm sure if I practiced more I'd be better at it by now...

Friday, August 24, 2012

It's Almost Blindingly Pink


I bought myself a new knitting bag. It is shiny hot pink with shinier butterflies on it. I am apparently nine years old.

I also bought a set of nesting pink pouches. I'm using one for each project I have in progress. That way whatever notions I need I have already right there in my hot pink project pouch. I forgot to take pictures of those...I should do that; they're totally adorable.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

I Made Soup! By Myself!

Every couple of weeks Scott and I are now participating in a produce co-op called Bountiful Baskets. Basically, for $15 you get $50 worth of produce, and all you have to do is volunteer every once in a while (which I haven't done yet, since it's at 5 freaking 30 in the morning...). The produce is just like what you would get in a grocery store. Here's the first basket we got:


 (In the brown bag there are peaches and plums)


That's a LOT for $15, riiiiiiight? It lasts us two weeks, usually, since it's just the two of us.

Anyway, it's helped me and Scott to work more fruits and vegetables into our diet, which is definitely a good thing. It's also saving us money. Also, I'm trying cooking. COOKING. ME. It's amazing; I totally made cauliflower cheese soup from scratch and it was almost as delicious as at Zupas!

Anyway, hit up the link above if you're interested and see if there's a co-op near you. They're all over the country, apparently.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

The 80s Are A Blur

I've been looking through my pictures and realizing that I've been making things...many, many things...but not posting because oh look, I'm depressed and boring.

So I've joined this fiber club where every month I get an art batt and a coordinating top. It's always a surprise what we get. I love it! I finally got around to spinning the first month's fiber a little while ago, and wanted to show you all a couple of pictures. Or like ten pictures.

Of course, I forgot to take a picture of the unspun batt because I'm a rock star like that...it was titled "The 80s Are A Blur" for obvious, very colorful reasons.

Here is the batt on the bobbin:




It has a bit of something shiny in it, and you can see on that last one how it catches the light a bit.

And here it is all spun up:


I know, it kinda looks like a clown threw up, but wait and you'll see the end result.

Here's the blue top that came with it, drawn out into thin strips to make it easier to draft:


In progress, going onto the bobbin:


Finished on the bobbin:


Finished and wound into a hank:


And the two together, wound into center-pull balls:


Still kinda looks like clown barf, yes? Well...

It took me several false starts and experiments to decide what exactly to do with this, but it turns out it wanted to be a cowl for Em:


It's not really to my taste, but Em loves ALL THE COLORS and when I showed her the halfway-done cowl she expressed delight in what she saw, so I'm satisfied with the end result of the first month's fiber club fiber.

This is the first time I've actually made something from yarn I've spun. I'm slightly proud of myself!

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

I'll Force Myself Out Of It...Somehow

As you may have noticed, I've been...away.

I didn't really realize what was going on until about an hour ago, when I was reading a post about a friend of mine who is dealing with some depression. I think I'm a bit depressive at the moment.

Why do I think this? Well, I've lost interest in a few things that have brought me joy in the past...one of them being blogging. I feel like I have nothing of interest to say, and I feel like the types of things I share on here are trite and irrelevant to most people, and when you feel that way you don't really want to do anything with the old blog, do you? Nope.

I don't know why I didn't see it before. Not wanting to do certain things, or hang with people much, and having a hard time sleeping, and being stressed at work by things that normally wouldn't stress me out, not wanting to be social...these are all classic Anna Is Depressed symptoms, but apparently it took someone else noticing her own depression for me to notice mine.

So what am I going to do about it? Not a damn thing. I'll force myself to continue to get out of bed in the morning and go to work and talk to coworkers I don't care to talk to. I'll force myself to continue to go to knitting group every week, even if I don't feel like being around people. I'll force myself to knit, crochet, and spin, because I know myself well enough to know that keeping up the routine is always the best thing to draw me out of a funk.

Maybe I'll even force myself to blog more. We'll see how that one works out...

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Chicken Vs. Not Chicken

I feel the need to weigh in on the Chik-Fil-A issue.

First of all, this isn't about the first amendment, like people seem to think it is.It's not about a man who owns a company who has a viewpoint supporting traditional marriage. Good for him. He's allowed to think and do whatever he wants within the law, and like it or not, his opinion is just as valid as mine.

It's about boycotting a COMPANY that funnels money into anti-gay organizations. Organizations that treat gays as less-than-human. Organizations that discriminate and shame gays. A COMPANY, PEOPLE. This guy isn't using private funds for this. He's using COMPANY FUNDS for this.

So if you don't support the company, don't go get delicious chicken.

What am I doing? Not going to Chik-Fil-A. But I'm not making Scott boycott with me. He doesn't give half a damn about politics as I do, and he loves their chicken. And who could blame him? It's damn delicious.

The end. That's all there is to it.

Thoughts?

(My sister is gay, I have friends and friends of friends and family members of friends who are gay, and guess what? They're awesome people who have rights, and who should get more rights, like "regular" people.)