Motivation! Whee!

Oh. Kay. We are in the middle of Productivity Week, folks. Planting, running, and hammock and general backyard set-up happened over the weekend. Insert self-congratulatory cheer here, complete with invisible pom-poms.

Now, Productivity Week continues. Which is to say, after I finish this post and turn off ye olde laptop, I'll be donning my gym clothes and heading to my local waterside running trail (how I love it so!) to rock out to some up-tempo tunage with varying degrees of lyrical offensiveness (none of which will be audible to surrounding families and kiddos, I hope) and pretend that I'm running like the wind.

Then, I'll go to The Residence Formerly Known As My House and spend about half the day priming and painting the kitchen and second bedroom. If some white paint happens to land on the porch steps over there, that'd be ok, too.

From there, I'll return home, wash some dishes, organize a kitchen drawer that's turned into a monstrosity of whisks, spatulas, rolling pins, and knives (yeah, watch out for those knives), clean out the fridge, do some laundry, and, perhaps, cook dinner.

[Lest you think that last phrase indicates some possibility that I might not consume dinner (to which I must say, ha, have you MET me? ever?), I should clarify that My Favorite Man mentioned recently that he wants to help more with dinners, and that my recent practice of planning, preparing, and serving yummy food without giving him the opportunity to provide assistance leaves him feeling disappointed and left out of all the fun. All together now: awww.]

After dinner, I will write cover letters and send them out with resumes. If I have time, I'll also knit.

It's about time, springtime!

Alert the media: it's supposed to be over 60 degrees this weekend, and rain-free! We will be spending some serious time outside, that's for sure. Some of Mr. Terrific's family is going to join us for yummeriffic foodstuffs, to be enjoyed in the backyard... which means that the following will need to be done:

- transport patio table from old house to new house
- set up patio chairs with cushions
- attempt to fix patio umbrella
- defrost foodstuffs from freezer
- acquire other foodstuffs

Other fair-weather tasks, for which I'm certain there won't be sufficient time - but hey, a girl can dream - include:

- paint porch steps at old house
- finish filling raised beds with soil
- plant hardy veg crops in said raised beds
- train for upcoming 5k (not really weather dependent, but running outside would be preferable)
- set up hammock (!!!)
- set up clothesline
- remove shrubbery in front of house; replace with perennials (ok, honestly, there's no way this is happening this weekend. sigh.)

Perhaps most importantly:
- sit, converse, sip refreshing beverages

There will be time for that last one. It has been decided.

Return to Normalcy

Well. After a blockbuster of a post like the last one, I'm thinking the best way to ease back into normalcy is to swing to the other end of the excitement spectrum, particularly through the use of a list. You know, really own the banality.

1. Gratitude. To all of you lovelies who've sent warm congratulatory wishes, here, across the interwebs through other channels, in person, via smoke signal, and so forth.

2. Knitting. I gift knitted again! And forgot to take photos again! I made a belated baptism gift in the form of a stuffed bunny wearing a sweater. Before you begin to suspect that I've made peace with double pointed needles, I'll clarify that the bunny pattern called for only flat knitting, otherwise I'd never have attempted it. Seriously. As much as I hate seaming, it's still preferable to the DPNs. Picovoli's still plugging along too; have got approximately 1.3 sleeves left to go.

3. Gardening. Windowsill seedlings are doing well. The Awesome Fiance (eee!) and I made two raised beds out of lumber, and started filling them with dirt this weekend. Still need to wrap that up, but our dirt source was closed yesterday and is again today. Tomorrow and Wednesday, though, are likely to be rainy, so we're looking at maybe Thursday for Operation Garden Infrastructure Completion. Lettuce, spinach, and beet seeds could go in the ground any day now, if I'm not mistaken, so I'm antsy.

4. Job search. Still slow. Still frustrating.

The Post for Which All Possible Titles Feel Insufficient

I know why you're all here. I know why you were all here yesterday (definite spike in traffic, that's for sure!), and I'm sorry you found only old, stale, non-sparkly posts when you stopped by. In my defense, the delay was primarily caused by the fact that photographing sparkly items is more difficult than I realized.

Today, we've got sparkle. Literally and figuratively, lots of sparkle.

For those of you who may be out of the loop, I had an Extremely Eventful Easter (hey, how's that for a coincidence: EEE, which I've been saying quite a lot lately). Mr. Terrific and I decided to fit in a quick local hike before a holiday dinner with my family. There's a network of wooded trails about five minutes from our house, complete with the only naturally occurring waterfall within the city limits. It's actually pretty wilderness-y, and you'd never know you're within a stone's throw of the local shopping mall. Very cool.

Anyway, Mr. Terrific's hike suggestion was purportedly for the purpose of assessing the terrain for the hiking season ahead. Examine the level of muddiness and remaining snow, that sort of thing. I'd previously joked that proposing to me by a waterfall would be unwise, because my clumsiness could potentially lead to some sort of ring-getting-washed-away scenario. Because that's definitely in the category of Jokes Founded on a Kernel of Truth, and because we were there for the specific reason of trail condition evaluation, I wasn't overly suspicious of a proposal during the hike.

I, however, was wrong, which I realized after we sat on a bench overlooking the waterfall for a few minutes and Mr. Terrific turned to kneel in front of me. He'd prepared the most perfect few sentences - eloquent, romantic, and heartfelt - to preface the presentation of my engagement ring.



It's lovely. He's lovely. I consider myself the luckiest woman on earth, having the opportunity to share a lifetime of adventures with him.

Thank Goodness It's ...wait, what day is it?

Yeah, yeah, it's Friday. Woot. It's been so long since I've had to go to work, the days are pretty much blurring together. The weekends are nice because Mr. Terrific is around during the day, but other than that my daily existence doesn't really change enough for me to know where I am in a week without checking a calendar.

I did go to a rather promising job fair yesterday, which has given me some hope, if nothing else. Today's plan involves cataloging of contact information from business cards, following up with some key folks, that sort of thing.

I'll also knit. Picovoli is coming along quickly, which is good because man, is it one heck of a boring sweater to knit. It's great mindless knitting to fit in around other elements of the day, but oof, small-gauge stockinette in the round. Knit, knit, knit, knit, knit, knit, knit. And so on. I tried on what I have so far, and thankfully it looks like it's going to fit really well. Seriously, it better fit really well, to make all this boredom worthwhile.

And I'll go to the gym. Yes, I will. Hello, treadmill. How I've missed you.

Older and wiser, right? Right?

I had a birthday last week. A milestone birthday. A wonderful, relaxing, festive, generally perfect birthday.

I slept in, Amazing Boyfriend cooked breakfast for me, and I was very nearly (figuratively) knocked over from the happy surprise of a flood of birthday wishes from various sources. I went to the gym briefly and came home to find this loveliness:



That would be Amazing Boyfriend, in the process of baking me a cake. A chocolate angelfood cake. That's right, he separated eggs for me, folks. Swoony swoon swoon swoon.

In the evening, we had dinner at a lovely little Italian place, within walking distance of the terrific show we went to next. And we got a little dressed up for the whole thing, so you get a bonus photo:



Ok, time to update that little descriptive paragraph over there in the left margin. My age has been rendered inaccurate, and we can't have that.

Rapid-fire Snoozefest

The knitterly side of my knitblogging is uber-boring right now. I've been gift knitting (I know, I don't know what's going on with the universe, either!), which means, in one instance, that I can't post an update for fear of potentially ruining a surprise for the intended recipient, and in another that I've already given the piece away, having forgotten to take a picture. I've also started a long-sleeved version of Picovoli, but trust me, you don't want to see pictures of that. Black cotton stockinette = boring.

Outside the realm of knitting, though, life feels like it's moving at turbo speed, with lots to do and look forward to and and and and and! (Hmm. This second cup of coffee I'm sipping might have something to do with that.) I've got a birthday on the horizon! Contractors are working on my old house as we speak (should be ready for sale soon)! It's getting warm enough to think about gardening outside (as opposed to on a windowsill, where my seedlings currently reside); assembly of raised bed frames will have to fit into the schedule somewhere soon! I have to clean the house! I'd like to bake a loaf of bread today! And do laundry! And buy groceries!

Oh right, and find a job.