a ball of yarn and a remote control

Smile of the Week..

It's Sunday evening and I am finally getting around to writing this blog post.  I had a great weekend and will be sharing more of that tomorrow, if I can sit down and put keys to screen.

Anyway, I have a great story to tell that happened to me this week that has really made me smile.

If you know me at all, you are well aware that I am all kinds of addicted to Facebook.  I check it entirely too much.  The site is up all day when I am at work and I look at it frequently.  I have even gone so far as to start referring to the status updates (which I love to read) as "reading my stories".  Yes, I need twelve steps.

The best part of the whole site is being able to catch up with old friends and find out what they are doing now.  I have lived in several different areas and am lucky enough to have friends from all over.  These are people who are very special to me from a specific time and place in my life.  I adore having everybody in one place, so that I can chit chat with them and know what is happening in their lives.

This week, I found two of those special people and have reconnected.

I was thinking about my friend Davis a lot one day.  He and I met in a gay teen chat room when I was 19 or so.  We started emailing back and forth and then eventually moved to talking on the phone.  He was going through a lot of the same stuff that I was at the time, so his friendship was very important to me.  We have only been together in person a few times, but I consider him a very close friend.  I lost track of him a few years ago and had wondered about him from time to time.

I was also thinking of my pal Bethany.  She and I met back in the days when I was obsessed with scrapbooking and rubber stamping.  We originally started talking through the boards on AOL and it went downhill from there.  During my flight attendant days, I would fly to Chicago and go to crops and stamping events and then fly back home.  It was great and she became a really close friend.  We lost touch several years ago and I had been thinking about her a lot lately.

Well.. I was patrolling the site one day and decided to look them up to see if they were on the site.  They both were and we quickly started talking. 

There have been several emails going back and forth between Bethany and me, plus I talked to Davis on the phone for a few hours the other night. 

I am so thankful to have reconnected with them.  I am even more thankful that it is like no time passed at all.

I heart Facebook.

So what made you smile this week?

Stay tuned...

Smile of the Week..

I have renewed my dedication to the blog now and will hopefully be posting more frequently.

In doing that, I thought that I would try and go a little old school Oprah and add a bit of gratitude journaling on Saturdays.  It is a good day for thinking back on my week, as I am working and can reflect a bit.

So.. starting now, I am going to talk about something that I am thankful for or that made me smile at some point during the week.  It may be big, small, silly or just fun.  It will help me to find some little bits of joy from my day to day and then hopefully give some of that joy to you.

This week's is going to be a bit silly to most of you, but I got really excited over a book that is coming out on August 11th. 

I have two all time favorite authors:  Wally Lamb and Pat Conroy. 

Wally Lamb put out a book several months ago and I was in absolute heaven.  I got it from the library, started it and never finished.  It was during the time when I was not really reading.  The book interested me, but it just was not the time.  When I finish all of the Sookie books, I am planning to give it another go.

Pat Conroy, on the other hand, has not put out a book since 2002.  It was a book about basketball that held zero interest for me.  I read it, but it was a bit of a chore and that is saying something because I adore this writer.  He played basketball in high school and college, so I can see where his love of the game fueled the writing of this book.  It was well written, but the subject matter did nothing for me. 

His other books are essentially big love letters to the South.  They suck you into them and do not let go until every emotion has been brought up in you.  His new book, South of Broad, seems to be like his older books.  The reviews I have read say that it will be set in Charleston, which I know is going to be good.  (It is cool to me that I can be in Charleston in about 3 hours and have a friend there.. if I get inspired by his words and need to get away.)

So.. when I got an email from one of the bookstores and saw his name, I think I did a little dance.

I just love a good book.. especially when it is by an amazing writer that has not put out a new book in seven years.

That was my smile of the week.  What was yours?

Stay tuned...

Yarn!

I have a new fibery obsession.

Meet Spud and Chloe.

A few weeks ago, I was at work when the new Knitters Review popped into my email.  I opened it and there was talk of a new yarn line from Blue Sky Alpacas.   My co-workers and I oohed and aahed over the new yarn line. 

There was a particular pattern that really caught my eye.   I had to try the yarn to see if I like it, right?  I ordered the pattern and a skein of yarn to examine.

Yup.. it is as soft as it looks.

I even found a fun little pattern to make with the skein.  It involves a household object in a very interesting way.  The revelation of how it is used and what I am making will come later.  It is almost done, so it will be shown soon!

Without a doubt, Spud and Chloe yarn gets an enthusiastic two needles up! 

Stay tuned...

Christopher says..

...that it has been too long since he has made an appearance on my blog.

We shall fix that immediately.

Chris, are you happy now?

I guess not.

Stay tuned...

It's Universal!

Last night,  one of the knitting groups in town and I visited Universal Yarn.  

We are lucky to live so close to such a great yarn manufacturer.  They opened their doors and gave us a tour.  We saw the warehouse, heard about how they ship to customers and stores, toured the design studio area and then hung out for a while.

My pal Michael is the Creative Director for the company and he led us through a yarn tasting after the tour.  We were given little balls of four different yarns and got to swatch them.  As we were knitting away, he told us more about the yarns and showed us some garments made with various yarns. 

Universal Yarns has a lot of great yarns and I honestly had no idea.  There was one from our tasting that I fell in love with and will probably be using in the future. 

Seriously, go check their website.. you will find something you like!

One interesting thing about the tour was where I sat for the tasting.  They have a couch that was made to showcase some of their yarn at a trade show. 

Yes, kids.. that is a couch made of a fun fur-type yarn.

I do not even want to think about how many Muppets gave their lives for that couch.

Eek!

Stay tuned...

Reflections...

One of my favorite songs is called "Best Imitation of Myself" and is by Ben Folds. 

Part of the song goes like this..

"I feel like a quote out of context
Withholding the rest
So I can be for you what you want to see
I got the gesture and sound
Got the timing down
It's uncanny, yeah, you think it was me"

This particular section of the song has been running through my head for weeks now because I identify with it so much.

Lately, I have been having a pretty rough time.  (Before you start worrying, I am making it through and will come out a much better man.  Keep reading.)

It all started a few weeks ago when Adam and I broke up after a five months together. 

I will never speak badly of him, but I was getting to the point where I needed to step away.  There were certain aspects of the relationship that were amazing, but I found myself trying to tailor myself to the expectation that he had of me.  It just wasn't working and it became time to take it down a notch.

We probably should have stayed friends before we bumped it up to more, but we plowed through that and went too fast.  Hopefully, we can make a transition back into a good friendship because I miss him like crazy and am ready for him to be back in my life.

I know that kind of stuff happens to everybody all the time, but it had been several years since I had seriously dated anybody.  I did the breaking up for the most part, but ended up taking it much harder than I had imagined that I would. The thoughts of if I made a mistake or if we could have worked it out just kept running through my head.  I did not sleep much and just was not in a good place for the first few days afterward.

About two weeks ago, we saw each other at a choir concert.  I had a big spell that consisted of about 15 minutes of some good ole ugly crying afterward.  After getting it all out, the sky opened up and I started to feel much better about it all.  (Plus, I went to a bar right afterward and saw that there was life after him.  That helped.)

In all of my reflecting, I realized that my decision was for the best.  I can't spend my time trying to become someone that I do not recognize for another person. 

I have to be me.  Pure and simple. 

Dare I say it... could I be growing up and becoming more mature?  Yikes.

There are a few areas of my life that I think about and wonder why they are not prevalent anymore.  These are things that I used to really enjoy and be excited about, but have ceased to do for some reason or another. 

Maybe I have grown up a bit or whatever, but I miss some of those things.  

In typical J.P. fashion, I made a list of some of those things.  My challenge is going to be integrating those things back into my life and seeing if I still adore them as much as I did. 

There are three big ones that I am going to make public on the blog, so that I can get them out there.  Feel free to hold me accountable.

The first is getting back into the gym.  I had been going pretty much every day until Adam came along.  I have started back and have been going strong with it. I just load my IPod with some knitting podcasts or some bad '90s dance music and go.

I also rejoined Weight Watchers and am happy to report that I am down 3.4 pounds in the first week.  I have been needing to lose some weight and I think this is the perfect time to really make it happen.

Reading has come back into my life, which is a good thing.  I can remember days of rushing to the bookstore in my hometown to see if they had this or that particular book.  I kinda miss that!  

I have gotten myself hooked on the Sookie Stackhouse books which are the basis of HBO's True Blood.  I am into the 3rd book and really enjoying the stories.   Charlaine Harris is a good writer and humor is infused throughout, which I like. 

I also read a quick little book called What Now? upon Sheila's suggestion through a Facebook post.  It was the perfect book for the perfect time.  I had checked it out of the library, but feel the need to eventually add it to my bookshelf. 

I am so blessed to have a wonderful set of people in my life who take me and love me for me.  I am thankful for them every day.  There are just some people who I used to adore, but have fallen away from for whatever reason.  I miss those people.  I just want to find ways to get reacquainted with those people and try to assimilate them into my life again.  This one will probably be hard, but I would just like to tell them how much they have meant and continue to mean, even if I have not seen them in years.

There are several other 'improvements' that I am looking to make in myself.  The process is going to be slow, but I think the outcome is going to be good. 

There is nothing like pretty much hitting the bottom of the bucket to make you want to rise above everything, right?

It's just gonna take time.

Stay tuned..