Billy's wedding pictures

I haven't posted since right before we left to drive to Coeur d' Alene for Billy's wedding. As a surprise for Billy, we arranged for our college buddy LeeAnn to car-pool with us. We also had Brad's fiancee Carin riding with us, as well as the Mimi.

All was well and good until the Mimi got carsick all over the backseat before we'd even picked up Lee! (How can someone who doesn't even weigh 25 pounds yet acheive that level of projectile vomiting?!) Thankfully, this turned out to be a one-time occurrence.

Lee's date Josh had to work and couldn't go to the wedding, so she found a "new date." (Don't put a garden gnome on your wedding registry unless you want something like this to happen.)

After seeing Billy and Sabera married and dropping people off with their respective rides/airports, we headed south to visit Mom and Aunt Tig.

We also visited Palouse Falls. It's most spectacular in March or April when the spring floods are in full force, but it's lovely any time of year.

The canyon below the falls:

Seeing this really makes me want to take up oil painting again, but I'll have to stick with yarn and other non-toxic art mediums for now while Shirley is in the "It's pretty--I wonder what it tastes like!" stage of development.

Actual conversation with my pharmacy

For the first time in my adult life I have a health insurance plan that covers therapy. Needless to say, I've been using many of my sessions to try and trouble-shoot (as my mental health person also has prescribing rights) that fine balance between antidepressant side effects screwing up my life and depression screwing up my life. Since we can't change my wacky schedule, we've been trying to do other things to help with the insomnia.

(This is a vast improvement over my previous system in which I'd go to my primary care doc and complain that Ihateeverbody wasn't working. Wherein he'd sympathize and give me a shiny new pen emblazoned with Noyougotohell and tell me he'd heard good things about its efficacy for depression and did I want some free samples to go with that scrip?)

And when I filled my prescription for a sleeping pill this week, I had the following conversation with the pharmacy intern about side effects and drug interactions:

Me, skimming through attached pharmacy handout: "It says here not to take it with GHB. Isn't that illegal?" (To your average layperson, GHB is best known as a date rape drug.)
Intern: "Well yes, but you're not supposed to take it with it."
Me, succumbing to morbid curiosity: "So what happens if you do?"
Intern: "It can be really sedating."

Extra points to my beloved pharmacy for placing a label on the bottle that says "Warning: May cause drowsiness."

I thought they were on vacation

I thought that, just as pretty much everyone else in the northern hemisphere is appreciating summer by slowing down and doing less, so would the Yarn Pixies. Apparently I was mistaken.

Last night, as I was trying to sleep and failing miserably (I'm going to go back to referring to myself in the first person plural, like I did when I was pregnant with Shirley. Except that this time "we" refers to "me and my sleep disorder.") I was accosted by the Yarn Pixies. They suggested that I could design a surplice-style wrap sweater that was loosely based on those tie-to-fit baby sweaters.

And being gullible and unable to sleep, I took them up on it. So, I'm trying to design a new sweater. Unfortunately, I won't know if it turns out at all like the pictures in my head or the drawings in my notebook until it's finished. But the yarn is amazing and sooo soft, and I'm starting to realize just how much I have under-appreciated the tactile qualities of well-done garter stitch. Beautiful aqua silk yarn to work with, and a lengthy vacation coming up.... yippee!

Mini-vacation!

I had to work Memorial Day Weekend, except for Monday. But because I work night shift, I got paid 7.5 hours of time-and-a-half from 0001 to 0730 on Monday for working Sunday night! Very nice.

Monday was also Brad and Carin's engagement party in Eugene.

I still question Carin's sanity at wanting to marry my brother-in-law, but I'm very happy for them. I was less happy to attend their party, as I got home at 0800, and then woke up at 1130 to ride to Eugene for their party. Fortunately, by the time we arrived, my Pepsi had kicked in and I managed to get through the party without saying too many stupid things.

Then on Wednesday, we piled in the car and went to Crater Lake. Shirley was very happy at getting to climb on a new bed.


We'd planned to meet with friends of ours from San Francisco, but they weren't able to come after all. This was the view from our window at the Lodge:


In spite of the 70-plus degree weather, there was still five feet of snow in places. So we bundled up the Mimi and let her experience lots of snow for the first time in her life. All went well until she ate some.


Apparently snow that's been on the ground for Lord knows how many months doesn't taste very good!


While we were on the trip, I also started on yet another version of the Sonnet cardigan done with my bulky weight handspun yarn. I've got the body completely done and I'm working on the sleeves now.

Dyeing mishap

I decided that what I wanted for my birthday was some purple silk yarn. Alas, I have no money in the yarn budget. But I do have a large cone of teal silk yarn. So I over-dyed it with a lot of red, and the initial result was a lovely eggplant color.
Then I washed it. It bled. And bled. And left purple spots all over the bathtub. And now it's back to teal. :( At least it's much softer after a good bath!

The difference between Brian and Naomi

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Can't sleep

Not like this title is a surprise to anyone, right? At this point, between working nights and new antidepressants and the nasty cold that's been going around our family, I might as well buy a glittery lavender cape and change my name to "Insomnia Queen."

So time to list some major blessings that have happened recently:

Grandma got out of the hospital about three weeks ago. Last I heard, she is back to her normal self, including playing the harmonica.

I passed my six month employee evaluation at the hospital with flying colors! After the lousy experience I had working at Mills-Peninsula, it was very nice to have my supervisors tell me that they thought I was a good nurse and were pleased with my performance. Incredibly affirming!

I have a spinning wheel! (As always, I'm too lazy to get up and snap a picture of it. ) Brian's parents got me one for my birthday next week. It's a Clemes & Clemes modern style-spinning wheel. Mostly indestructible (always a plus with the Mimi around) and works like a dream.