Easter Eggs, Food Invention, and Walt Disney World

I have been wondering how the tradition of cooking, dying and eating Easter Eggs came about.  It occurred to me it may have some pagan basis in ceremonial eating of Eggs as a ritual for the beginning of Spring, and rebirth, and growth.  It's kind of awful if you think it through.  We celebrate new birth and all the babies of Spring by eating their unborn children? Ok not unborn, but still... Who knows what it may have started out as... I'm sure at the beginning it was just about survival.  A long winter has passed and people needed to find food other than meat.  I had an egg this morning and was happy to have my little pink-dyed hard boiled egg, but it makes you wonder.  How did they even come to think of cooking them? Was it an accident?  Then cooking with them... Cakes, breads, pastas? Who would think to mix the egg in with ground grains and then bake it? Of course that leads me to Tobacco use and the creation of Chocolate?  Both of which have some incredibly long and details processes in order to create them.  Oh and Coffee?  Pick the bean, dry the bean, roast the bean then chop it up and add it to boiling water?  Was it all just trial and error until they came up with something that worked?  Anyway food for thought...

I moved on with all my brain energy boosted by protein from the egg, and started research on a potential Disney Trip for the family.  It's a rather large undertaking and I'm not speaking about the exorbitant costs - but the actual research that needs to go into planning a trip. The options are many and there are so many confusing choices it's hard to know what the right thing / the least expensive thing is.

It is too bad I don't have many people with input giving me feedback here.  If ever there was a time for all kinds of feedback on what to do, it's now.

One thing I never knew before - Disney World is ENORMOUS! Just look for a hotel and then click on the map and zoom out.  It's an enormous place.  I'm excited to go to Disney for the very first time on my 50th Birthday with my two teenage children who have never been there either.  My husband's only experience was as a teen when his brother had passed away the previous year in a car accident, and his mother couldn't bear to do a regular Christmas - so they all went to Disney instead.  I'm nervous it will be a bit overwhelming, but I really believe overall it will be a happy and positive experience.

One other little interesting thing.  I'm watching the second season of House of Cards on Netflix and I find it hysterically funny that Frank comes up with an idea as President of the United States based on the game called Monument Valley.  So now I'm playing Monument Valley to see what the connection is. I'm not seeing a connection so far.

Well this post is a bit rambling but I wanted to post my post-Easter thoughts.

Mini Easter Break is over

We traveled to my parents this weekend for Easter, and although it was a much shorter visit than originally planned, it was a nice little break from the routines of our regular lives.  My sister was there with her two children and two dogs and we also brought two children and two dogs and because my parents also have a dog we actually had more dogs than children in the house.  This proved to be especially fun when the dogs chose to play with each other at 6:30 am or alternatively 11:00 pm! This involved racing around and chewing on each other and also some barking by the two smaller dogs who either really wanted to be involved or did not want to get run over.  And of course the weekend was sprinkled with dog accidents here and there.  Fun, especially when stepped in.  Not by me however.
We ate lots and lots of good food and the kids had a really great time playing outside which they did with great energy and noise; I think I can speak for all the adults as to how grateful we were that they were outside in the early beginnings of Spring -actually enjoying each others company instead of permanently affixed to their digital devices as per usual.

I with much optimism, brought knitting and a book - neither of which were touched the entire time.  I did manage to get nice photos of both the sunset on the ocean the night before Easter and the sunrise over the ocean as well...

Sometimes I really wonder if my parents realize how lucky they are.

The Not of Knitting

I don't know if this is going to turn into a knitting blog again or not.  If it does, in some tiny way I think that means that I've found happiness again.  I know I had it once, whether or not I saw it at the time.
I have so many other things I need to release from my mind that I don't think I'll have the space for other types of creativity until these things are gone.  Right now one is very very gone. Job #1 which made me a little bit happy but also made me feel like I was working way below my station in life, or at least from where I thought I should be.  I tried to leave the door a little bit open, but it's shut.  Slam! Done. Bye-Bye... I'm happy, but also feel like I should have felt some kind of closure.  Now there's a real pun and some irony for you.  The door has slammed shut and I don't feel closure!?!

What I need to remember is that there was a little glimmer of light on my last evening there.  A friend dropped by and for the third time passed her brother's phone number to me as a suggestion for a place to find work.  The kind of work that makes me feel fulfilled and proud and happy.  It may lead to something - it may not. The thing is it's another dangling carrot of hope for me.  There is possibility out there - somewhere.

Meanwhile the other job that I accepted is looming heavy on my mind and the stress comes home with me.  I wake up thinking about it at 3:30 in the morning and go back and forth in my mind about improving it and feeling better about it, and then having these incredibly heavy, crashing, mental arguments with co-workers and unloading my frustration on them.  They have this way of making you feel guilty that you are not working hard enough for them, when you know you are often putting in 10 hour days and working as quickly and efficiently as possible.  They don't believe they have too few people for the job.  They think one person could do it all.  WRONG!  So wrong.  They need to realize after so many years have passed and their problems re-occur over and over no matter who is working for them, that the problem is deep-rooted in the fact that it is being mismanaged from the top down.

When I move past job number two and find my happy place - I'll bring out the needles and talk talk talk about my projects.  Or maybe I'll just turn this into my online private diary since my readership is nil.  Sad Sack OUT!

Ready, Set... Go?

The deed is done.  I have finalized giving notice at one of the three jobs I'm currently working... Now to continue forward.  I have to say that so far, although I'm continuing to work for exactly one more week, it feels pretty good to know that my time there is almost done.  If only there wasn't this feeling of not being able to let go.  I'm progressing, but there are little things that I will miss.  Talking to new people every day from a position of being able to advise.  I love this about my job.  I advise people what to do and they do it and they are happy.  It makes for a good job on its own, but there are plenty of things that get in the way.  Like the Corporate Monster blowing smoke at me to make more money for them.  This whole idea is hysterical when viewed in a different context.  They huff at you and puff at you, and when you make them more money they hand you a little lollypop and pat you on your head and send you on your way.  Sharing the profit is not in their vocabulary.  But HELLO?! Wake up people!  They don't realize this is what causes so much turnover in employees, and they don't realize how much time and money they waste hiring and training new people.  Herein ends this particular rant.

So I am trying to get back to my knitting and have continued working on my scarf.  I am really really really slowly working towards doing more - more often.  It's a lovely scarf I found on Ravelry and when I make enough progress to share I will post.  For now you should know that its a very simple pattern called, "Everyday Wrap" by Julie Weisenberger, and I'm using a very lovely shade of blue Rowan Kid Silk Haze.  

Here is another thing you should know.  There is NO such thing as tinking or unknitting or even ripping Kid Silk Haze.  It is not a very forgiving yarn and is so thin that it breaks easily and also it sticks to itself in a rather annoying way.  Sure it's absolutely fabulous as a finished fabric - so light and airy and ... FLUFFY!!! But you can't really make a mistake or you are screwed.  

So of course, I let the needles fall out and picking up my stitches is next to impossible and so is ripping out all the progress I had made, so I'm thinking of sewing or rather knitting it back on to another unfinished end instead.  Wish me luck!   

The Means to an End?

I stopped writing because I really thought no one cared about anything I had to say.  I sank into a deep abyss where I did the worst possible thing I could do.  I stopped doing everything I loved.  I stopped reading, knitting, writing,  cooking, hiking, enjoying my life, and generally everything that made me - ME!  I let life beat me down and accepted it and became something akin to whatever animal a sloth and a snail would make if they were to mate.  Not the slowness of them, but the way in which they move through life.  Life must speed past them like a high-speed train - I envision some scene I must have seen on television where the person is moving along sadly and everything else around them is moving 10 times faster.

I became a sad wallowing woman for a time-being and would like to find out how to return ME to me.  My heart has always been on my sleeve and I thought I was an easy-to-read person and that people understood who I was.  It turns out that I am more mopey than fun and tend to get lost in my own misery.  Of course, I knew that.  I just didn't know that I knew.

My life has changed so much since I started writing this 'knitting blog'.  I no longer have the job I had when I started this.  I have moved down the ladder quite drastically over the last eight years.  My kids are now sullen teens with attitude to spare, and there is more yelling/arguments/difficult behavior than I care to share.  Basically I was unhappy in my life back then - and little did I know it was only at the tip of the downhill slope.  Would I have changed anything back then, if I knew what was coming? - probably.  Would I have ended up here anyway? - maybe.  Would I have really changed enough in order to make a permanant difference? - probably not.  But here's the thing... the path I have chosen to accept is not making life better and I want to make life better.  Each and every decision I have made along the way plays some part in that.  And at every crossroads there is a new decision to make and I panic... I have recently made a change that will effect my future and I'm curious now to see if I made the right decision.  I had to choose between two jobs.  One which I hate most of the time, but makes more money and might possibly open more doors for me, and one which I hate only some of the time, have some close attachments to co-workers that I might lose touch with, but I get paid very little and I've had to work a lot of nights, weekends, and holidays and missed out on several family moments that have possibly affected the overall relationship I have with them.  I'm letting go of the latter and I worry already that I've possibly made the wrong choice.

But here is my tiny glimmer of hope -

I will have weekends back with my family and quite possibly pick up the things I love again and have the time to remember what I loved about myself and in finding myself again - also forge new friendships with people who like what I like, and that also love me for who I really am.