It is absolutely amazing how much easier knitting went after watching the videos at the Knitting Help site. Apparently, I picked everything up backward from the book, so watching the woman cast on (a different method than the book taught me) and then knit and purl made this SO much easier. My first attempt since watching is already so much more even. Yay! I may not have to give up on this hobby yet!

I should get my second recommendation letter for the grad program back sometime this week. That leaves me with only one and finishing up the app itself and paying my $60 and then it’s all in God’s hands!!.

I’ve been feeling very stagnant lately, and today I actually had to pray “God, move, or move me.” I need an attitude adjustment, or I need something new, and frankly, I don’t know which is the right one, but I figure that I’ll just tell God what I need and let Him sort it out. I hate feeling stagnant and unfulfilled…I want to make a difference, to help people and animals, to write things that are heard (by more than you few and faithful, although I love and appreciate you!!) and appreciated. So, we shall see what comes of that…this is the hard part, the praying and waiting. Of course, I say that, but every time that God has shown me that he wants me to do this or that, it’s much harder to actually act than it is to just think about it, which takes me back to Chapter 8 in The Artist’s Way, which I read last night and says that the blocked creative often self-sabatoges by “thinking about acting” rather than taking even just the smallest step to make things happen. The tasks this week all involve breaking down dreams into tasks, small things that we can do today to help us move more and more toward our ultimate goal and the “true north” that will symbolize that achievement.

Joey will be done with Hebrew in just two short days. I’m so ready to be over with this whole distance thing. I’m also happy about saving the money. We’ve not been as frugal as usual lately, probably because I go through cycles of being extremely proud of our frugality and being resentful because other people have what they want whether or not they can afford it. Over the past two weeks, we’ve spent over $100 on knitting stuff…all worthwhile as I’ll definitely use it, but still frightening. But we never do that. I never splurge and buy something that I want purely because I want it. And if I do, I usually agonize over it for several days until I forget. I am definitely going to try the “thrift store sweater” method of buying up knitted clothing at the Salvation Army or Goodwill and unraveling it for use of the yarn later. I think that’ll be a fun project and will fit in pretty well with my goal to build a fabulous wardrobe this year from thrift stores.

I’m half-watching a documentary on PBS right now about various volcanic eruptions. I always forget how much I love PBS until I make a concerted effort to leave it there. I blogged some time last week or the week before about how much TV was eating up my time, so the past two days, I’ve made a big effort not to leave the TV on anything trauma or forensic-related (I was getting nightmares and being lazy). So, I’ve either left it on the news or PBS. Every now and then, I’ll catch something on this special and stop for a while, but I’m pretty happy about how independent of TV I’ve been these past two days.

Oh, and I made lentils tonight. hmm. Odd consistency, like mush. Odd flavor, like none. I added garlic powder, chili powder, cumin, and a little salt to the lentils and rice, and that was pretty good, honestly. I don’t know that I can make lentils a part of my everyday fare, but I’ll definitely be adding them heavily to my diet this week so that I eat up the entire pound bag that I made.

This ended up being much longer than I intended. If you are still reading, Good night and God bless.