Started knitting too much to blog

I haven't blogged in a while because I've been kind of busy. I'm either caught up in some major knitting project, baking, or this past weekend, I was away, having the time of my life. I swear, I'll put up the pictures of my late October baking at some point.

Because of how wonderful my trip to Boston was, I decided it's time to get serious about getting out of here. While the reasonable thing to do would be to study for the GREs, when full of anxiety, I clean. Hell, I was on the phone with my best friend for two hours today, and I put her on speaker phone so I could bounce around my room at the same time. She and I used to get angry (usually at men) and clean the room when we lived together in college. We both had long black hair that would end up covering the rug. It was horrible; we needed to get angry more often.

Today's "get the hell out" list:

Fake glasses that went to a Harry Potter costume

A rubber bracelet

A watch with a dead battery that I will never replace because the watch was maybe $4

16 books at last count, possibly more

A roll on perfume from Bath and Body Works

3 posters

A washcloth

An assortment of cotton yarn for someone interested in it

a rub-on Harajuko Lovers perfume I was gifted

11 CDs

An ornament

A decorative note pad

A frisbee that once held cookies

9 VHS tapes which almost all contained recorded episodes of Trading Spaces - I was a little obsessed with Vern Yip in the show's heyday

3 DVDs

a key chain

Cords that don't appear to connect to a damn thing I still own

A mirror

A clock whose batteries died years ago

A sewing kit that looked mostly like jumbled up thread and a plastic thimble. I hate thimbles. I can't do a damn thing with one on.

A pencil pouch

A wooden puzzle of an elephant I made in middle school - don't be too impressed, it's three pieces.

A plastic Santa wind-up toy

A yellow fine point Sharpie - what can you possibly do with a yellow pen?

Pounds of construction paper

3 cardboard boxes

4 balls of yarn

That damn lava lamp with the burned out bulb - I'm never going to go look for an appliance bulb, and even if I do, it's not like it's going to class up an apartment

Needless to say, there are finally visible changes in my bedroom. I'm impressed by the sheer WEIGHT of the stuff I was taking out of there. I guess it's the weekend I spent with engineers and chemists, but I'm sort of fascinated by the total volume of crap I own, the pounds of clothes, surface area of all my donations to Goodwill, total free space that's now been cleared in my room, etc.

The cleaning is finally starting to feel like "it looks like I'm moving out." Not that that's inherently my goal or anything, and actually, I do need to scale it back a bit so it looks less obvious, because with another empty book shelf, I'm waiting for the question to be raised, "why are you doing all this anyways?" There's the additional truth that there's just no need to hang on to books I'm not going to read twice/picked up for free or cheap and could just as easily get at the library. There's a couple books that were so moving that I want to hang on to them, but as much as I enjoyed reading it, if I put Cannibal Killers in that category, there is something deeply wrong with me.

I just want it all gone. I just want it to be out of here. I want to be less attached to things. I want to stop spending. The next goal: get health care. I must qualify for low income health care, having no idea from one week to the next what my income is going to be. I'm so tired of thinking about wanting to go to the doctor but being afraid what it'll cost, or wondering if they'd even take me if I'm only paying out of pocket. The only thing that has me dreading applying for this sort of stuff is the part about proving your income. It's not like I can just attach a pay stub and that'll sum it up. Some weeks I make good money, some weeks I make no money. I never know what I'm going to be doing for work, and while I want to say 2 days a week is about average, it's still early in the school year. As they hire more subs, that 2 days a week could be 2 days every 3 weeks. Or I might end up working more, never know. I appreciate the randomness of my job, and I love that I have a variety of experiences, but it's a real bitch to try and plan around it.

Today was a nice day to walk home from work. I had to zip up my jacket and put my fingerless gloves on, but the sun was out and I felt peaceful. I was in a wonderful mood thinking about my weekend and walking is my zen time, anyways. I mean, it won't be once the cold temperatures start, but for now, I like getting what I can out of the ability to be outdoors. It was wonderful in Boston on Saturday - I was actually playing basketball in a tank top with my new friends. Warm and sunny and beautiful there. Couldn't ask for anything better than that. It was an incredible time; I can't stress that enough.

Worked the elementary school today. Had a kid who looked JUST like Kevin Bacon... freaked me out a little. I've got two more half days coming up this week. Not bad since I get to work, but kind of annoying to be up at 6:30 but done for the day at 11:30. Tomorrow's off, barring any 6 am phone calls. I like when the secretary gives me a little reprieve and doesn't call until 6:15. I feel like I'm wasting less time being up that much closer to my alarm time. I value sleep down to the minute, I guess. You'd think I'd go sooner at night. But that's when there's interesting people to talk to, or I can enjoy being left alone downstairs, in control of the remote or just having my alone time.

Grocery shopping and post office tomorrow, I think. Flu shot Wednesday. Let's hope I really did shake that fear of needles after all.