Gratitude

Warning: this blog is about a bunch of stuff. All bunched together. In no particular order. It's been awhile since I've blogged, and I've got a lot to cover. You've been warned.

Part 1 - New Job

So I started my new job. So far I like it a lot. It's pretty much completely and totally different from my old job, in that I actually have to do work. Actual work. Real work. But it's good! It makes the days go by a lot faster and I don't want to shoot myself in the face at the end of the day from sheer boredom. So that's good. I guess.

For those of you who don't know, I work in non-profit. My last job was great, I made all sorts of great friends, and worked with a whole cast of characters who I could blog about until the ends of my days. And now that I don't work there, I might. I just might. But there just wasn't always a lot of work for me to do, and for awhile that was great, but let's be honest there is only so much (non-porn) stuff you can look up on the innernets (sorry mom), and only so much work-time knitting you can do before a certain Mr. Blow Hard (story coming, I promise) sees you and deduces that you may or may not have anything to do and asks you to tape down his receipts or cut up his ribbons. I'm serious, y'all, I will share these stories with you. In time. Be patient.

But anyway, the new job keeps me busy pretty much from the time I get there till the time I leave. And there are other benefits: it's closer to home. By about 15 miles. It's literally 5 minutes from my house. Also, I only work M-Th, so I'm off on Fridays. Which makes up for my lack of work-day knitting time. So overall, the new job is getting two thumbs up. I don't want to go into too much detail about where I'm working, but I will say that it's a non-profit in my area that helps low-income families with food, clothing and financial assistance.

Which brings me to my first point. Yes that's right, I've babbled on this long without having reached my first point. But behold, we have arrived at it. I've only worked there for 3 days, but it has really opened my eyes to how grateful I am for the blessings in my life. I'm not one to wax philosophical, but really, working at a place like this, where so many unfortunate people come day in and day out asking for assistance, just to get by, really makes you stop and take stock. I have all the necessities in life and then some. I have a roof over my head. A bed to sleep in. Food in my stomach 3 times a day, if not more. I have wonderful friends, a loving family (who live way too far away) and a caring, generous man in my life who loves me despite the fact that I display awful pictures of him on my blog and call him a jackass. I'm lucky. But even more than the basics, I am spoiled in many ways. I realize I'm lucky to have a computer to blog on, I'm lucky to have wine to drink (as I blog, yes, don't judge me), I'm lucky to have little mellowcreme pumpkins to eat, and yarns to knit with, and dogs to lick my face, and books to get lost in. I know it's early for Thanksgiving, but today I'm really feeling very grateful for all the awesome things in my life.

Part 2 - Small Town Saturday Night

This past Saturday night we had a wedding to go to in the thriving metropolis of Nordheim, Texas. Population 323. I'm pretty sure about 300 of those folks (yes, I said folks, and no, there is no other word to describe these people) were at the wedding. Now, I have no idea where Nordheim is. Here's what I do know, we got in the car, drove for 2 hours and wound up at the hotel which was about another 20 minutes away from the wedding. Because in a town of 323, hotels are hard to come by and the bridal party had occupied most of the rooms available in town.

I digress. We had a blast. Or, at least, I did. It was really a small town wedding if ever there was one, and I'm sure there have been many but dammit this was the first I've been to. The Cowboy's buddy from high school, Ricky, married his lady Monica, who hails from Nordheim. That's Ricky there. He's a pretty cool cat.

The wedding was held inside the Nordheim Shooting Club. I don't know what this club meets for, discusses or does, (I'm using my deductive reasoning skills to guess it has to do with guns, what with this being Texas and all) but their old building was sweet. We ate dinner in one part of the hall, and then moved over to the dance hall later in the evening, where I was able to dazzle everyone with my awesome moves. Seriously. You should see me do the Cha Cha Slide.

The dance hall. From L-R - Kristy (new mommy to baby Samantha, who I still haven't posted a picture of), me, Tiff and Julie.

Julie's getting married next month.

To this guy. Blake. He doesn't dance. It's ok. I make up for both of us.

Everyone say it together now, "Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww....-" wait a second. Why does The Cowboy look so creepy in this picture? Who cares! I look good. Check out my cleavage. Johnny, Sydney and Tiff. Hey, they're all 3 smiling and looking in (sort of) the same direction. Someone frame this!

Whoops, Eric wasn't ready for his closeup. But may I just point out that I can't seem to escape the Fu Manchu lately? I mean didn't I just see this guy last weekend at ACL?
I just realized I haven't posted any pictures of the bride. There's a good reason for that. I didn't take any decent ones. You know, they say that the bride is always so crazy busy at her wedding that she can barely stop for one second to chat, or pee, or eat, or what-have-you. (That's what I've heard anyway, since I've never been a bride. Right mom? See what I did there? I brought it up, so this way, you don't have to.) Monica had 300 locals and 100 Austin-ites to talk to that night. This ass shot was the best I could do. I apologize to all involved parties.

This is Nate. God bless this man, he was out there boot scooting with the best of them.

Sydney. Looking cute in a dress I bought her. Don't worry, I took about a million pictures of her at the wedding, and I have a whole other blog all ready to go featuring her and her adorability.

This picture pretty much sums up the emotions at the end of a long evening consisting of me drinking and dancing, and The Cowboy putting up with it. I think the looks on both of our faces says it all. So on that note, we will move on.

Part 3 - Knitting

Knitting!!! I love knitting. My Christmas knitting is still coming along nicely, and I still can't show you pictures. However, I did knit a few baby bibs recently, and they've become my new "ridiculously-easy-portable-take-anyone-mindless-knitting project". Sydney was kind enough to model them for me. Let's examine.

"What the hell is this? This doesn't have Dora the Explorer on it!"

"Hey lady stop taking pictures of me for just a second and take this crap off me. I don't need it, I'm only eating Cheerios!"

Is she smiling at me or glaring at me? Hard to tell.

Evidently she's even less impressed with the purple one.

The bibs need some tweaking, as you can see, they're a little big. I'll work on that for next time. And also get a model who is more cooperative.

Well I think that is enough random-ness for one evening. Although I will likely be blogging less now due to me having to "work" (damn the man!), I will try to separate my thoughts a little better in the future.

Until next time, whenever that may be.....