Domestic Geek

When Marcus and I go to the homestead in Keystone, we refer to it as "going home." I put my Facebook status something like, "It is so good to be home." It amazes me how many people want to tramp on that.

Your home is where you can be you, where you feel comfortable, where you can just be. To us, that's the house in South Dakota. We've lived in that structure for over 12 years. Many things have happened within those walls, both good and bad. It's where we feel we belong. The old saying "Home is where your heart is" rings true, our hearts are up there.

The place we're staying now (the Suckpartment, as Marcus has dubbed it), is just that - the place we're staying now. We can't relax here with the noise and the neighbors. We don't feel at ease here. We have just the bare minimum of our things here. Simple things like preparing a meal or doing laundry totally suck. The Denver area itself is too freaking crowded. More and more people flood this stupid area every day. The traffic is unbearable - I used to love to drive around, now it is a hated chore. I can't even walk the dog around here without him finding food people have thrown on the ground or being chased by untrained children (my mother taught me never to approach a strange dog without permission from the owner).

I can't wait for the day that Marcus and I pack up that final moving truck and leave Denver behind. I really hope that day is soon.

OK, here I go with my rant about how I hate the whole Daylight Savings concept.

I often wondered if there have ever been any studies done on how mucking around with time affects those with depression, especially with the fall change. While I didn't delve deep enough to find any actual studies, there are plenty of articles written about it. I found this article that suggests sitting in front of a light box. Maybe I should do that, because today was really bad for me.

It's bad enough that I was dealing with a pinched neck nerve or something that hadn't let me sleep on top of the usual stupidity that happens at work, but I was so freaking depressed that I couldn't concentrate on my work. I even contemplated quitting and walking out.

I wish we would just stop this DST nonsense. An hour isn't enough to be of benefit in this technological age, but it sure is enough to screw things up.

Just a few thoughts because I got back from South Dakota and I'm exhausted:

• Daylight Savings Time sucks balls


• Driving through Wyoming sucks balls


• Pinched nerves in your neck, especially when you're on a road trip, sucks balls


• Denver Metro sucks balls


• Having to go back to work after any sort of vacation sucks balls


• Broken computers sucks balls

I think you can see where I'm going. G'night.

I've caught my stitching bug again. I haven't been very crafty at all the last 2 years, but lately I've dug out the cross stitch stuff and when I can tear myself away from the Facebook groups and Ravelry Cross Stitch group, I have been getting some stitching done.

I have been going more frequently to a cute shop in Littleton called Fancimats & More. The owner, Cindy, is such a doll. I love that I can request something from her on Facebook and if she can get it in, she'll give me a call to come get it when it arrives. I really try to support her locally if I can because I really want her to be around a long time. I was so bummed when the needlework shop I went to in Aurora went out of business. I found her one day when I was still in my knitting obsession as her shop in located right next door to a yarn shop.

I've become hooked on Lizzie Kate charts at the moment. I've got several in my queue to do. I finished the one called "Dogs Leave Paw Prints" twice. The first time, I stitched on it off and on for over a year. When I went to wash the blue disappearing ink pen out of it that I had used to grid the fabric, they turned into dark brown lines. I was so bummed as nothing I did would make them disappear. Lesson learned - I'm only gridding with fishing line or some kind of threat (metallics work well). The second one worked up more quickly. Anyway, there are always cute little boxes done up all over Fancimats and I kept asking the owner if she was going to have a class on them, but one never happened. I finally asked someone on a Facebook group for instructions on how she finished hers and combined with a couple of other tutorials I finally found online - I came up with this. Mr. T was not particularly happy that I made him pose with it, though.



I'm currently finishing up a crafting Santa from Prairie Schooler's Santa series. Here's my progress as of 10/26. I had planned to finish it up this weekend while we were home, but alas, such was not meant to be. I got this week's Team Housewares tournament poster done instead, so that's cool. Maybe by next weekend it will be finished.



I'm also about halfway done with my ruffled scarf I've been knitting. I was really hoping that would be done before winter set in, but I have totally lost my knitting bug.

OK, that's it for an update on my current crafting projects. I'm going to go try to read in bed for a bit before I conk out. Time changes always kick my butt. Sadly, we have to go back to Denver tomorrow. Really not looking forward to that.

I haven't accomplished much today and it felt wonderful!

We got into Keystone after 2 am last night. I really tired to get out of work by 3 so we could hit the road at the start of rush hour, but of course that didn't happen. I got off a little after 4, then forgot it was rent day, so I had to go to the bank to deposit my check. Then there was a couple of things I needed from the store as well as a Chipotle stop for dinner. Fortunately, we had packed almost everything the night before, so we got on the road a little before 7, but traffic still sucked. Between coffee, 80s on Eight on Marcus' Sirius radio and my Kindle app, I did manage to stay awake for the whole trip (I usually zonk out between Cheyenne and Wheatland). We rolled in a half an hour later than expected due to the large amounts of deer on the sides of the road between Edgemont and home. The last thing you want to ruin your vacation is hitting a stupid deer. After getting all our gear into the house and unpacking the cooler, I think I conked out about 3:30.

It was no surprise then, that I didn't wake up until 11 this morning. It is so quiet here that I sleep amazingly well. Since it is not tourist season, there wasn't even an 1880s Train to wake me up. I fixed some coffee and bagels for us to eat for breakfast while Marcus took T out.

I puttered around for a bit and sometime around 1 (I think), I took the Kindle to bed to read and next thing I know, it's 4. I've been battling something viral for the last 3 weeks and my typical insomnia and I think my poor body just needed rest.

I had grand plans of doing some design work for Marcus and getting some stuff here unpacked, but none of it happened. I did make a pot of potato leek soup for dinner and baked Marcus some oatmeal raisin cookies, but that's about it for the day. Oh, I've read a bit more of book 3 of the Game of Thrones series.

We were visited by some deer this afternoon while I was making the soup: