Grouch alert

Cooking...
I was grouchy yesterday and by the time I got home (late) I wasn't getting any less grouchy, so we had what I'd dubbed growing up as the "Christmas Eve Special" because it was what we ate while we decorated the Christmas tree and Christmas Eve Special just sounds better than Christmas Tree Decorating Special. This consists of a very grueling preparation of... kielbasa, sliced cheese and crackers. My hubby likes to add horseradish to it. I like kielbasa with horseradish, but it wasn't working with the cheese for me.




I even broke out the paper plates for this one and pulled out the step stool so I could reach the wine glasses. Due to health complications I can't have alcohol, but caffeine free Pepsi is somehow just that much more enjoyable in a wineglass after a grouchy day! Needless to say, I didn't get around to making my special relishes and olives, but then again, I have time tonight...
Free stuff...

Here are some things that should have cheered me up:






Two Totally Free Finds! Thanks to freecycle.com, I won a very large bag of used nursing scrubs and another bag containing two Batik sheets. Two totally separate offers on the same day. Go me!

Sewing...
Then I learned how to darn socks! I googled it and went to a totally random site and I'm not going to give credit because quite frankly, the directions weren't very good. I'm sure there are others out there if you google them and you'll get better directions!





But it was good enough to get me started and I figured everything else they left out on my own! A good tip I got from the site: In leiu (anyone know how to spell?!) of going out and purchasing a darning egg and needle, a light bulb and the longest sewing needle you have will do the trick too.
Normally I'd use a color matching the sock, but for my first time I wanted to make it easy on myself so I used two contrasting and bold colors. There's actually a few things I see wrong with this darning job, but for my first time, I'm psyched! One tip I learned on my own:






If your sock is long enough, make a loose knot over the end of the light bulb. This keeps everything steady; just be sure not to make the knot so tight that it stretches the sock too much. It should be secure enough that the bulb isn't moving around inside the sock but with ease enough that it isn't pulling at the hole. If your sock isn't long enough, I imagine a rubber band or just tying it off with strong floss or ribbon will do the trick as well.
I felt guilty about laundering my new fabric finds while there was a monster-sized pile of regular laundry to do, so I worked my way through that pile last night and found three more holy socks, so I'll get lots of practice in the next couple of days!

Play time...

Then I played with my camera taking ubber close shots of my shells. So cool!

I can't recall where I found these tiny shells, but I absolutely adore how small and thin they are!




And my very first Lazy Daisy. Room for improvement but not a total failure.

There's something about the texture of finished cross stitch and the softness of the floss itself. I just love it!

Then I pulled out of storage the one piece of my finished cross stitches that I have in my possession. This was supposedly a gift to my hubby after our first year of dating. Yeah, giving a guy a cross stitched pillow case and pillow...not exactly a thrill for him. I quickly got it back! Well it gave me great pleasure to photograph it and recall all of the fun things we did that first year. I think I'll post about that back story separately.



TMI?...

I've been pretty teary these last couple of days and that tells me the depression is here and strong. In thinking about how I'm doing socially, how often I choose NOT to withdraw, and when I do...I also do what I can not to get "sucked under" so to speak; I think I'm doing okay considering. In the past I'd be making excuses not to get together with the ladies this weekend no matter how long it had been since I'd seen them. I'd say I was sick and couldn't help out at church on Sunday. I'd tell the outreach director some story about stress at home and work and say I couldn't take on the furniture ministry right now.
But I'm not doing any of those things. I can't say I'm exceeding expectations in any given area, but I'm not ducking out of LIFE. I'm still staying with it, still fighting. And God, how hard is it?! But I'm not giving up. Not this time. It's not going to steal my life away again!