Been Working & Been Working Some More

But before I get to that, today marks 26 years of (mostly) wedded bliss for me and The Husband. Of course, he had to work way early this morning, and I had a meeting with a non-profit I work with this evening, and-- you get the picture. It's pretty much been the story of our life together. Luckily we're both pretty independent, and able to survive a marriage despite wacky work hours and time consuming hobbies and interests. And we have two great Offspring.

Anyway, he's a remarkable man for putting up with my quirks, and I love him whole bunches.

Back to working-- it cuts a big hole in my knitting time, but that's how we pay for the yarn, no? (However, and more significantly, it also cuts into my time with my knitting buddies at Knit Happens.)

It's also how we help to pay for the bathroom re-do that will be happening soon at Casa de la Infermera. (That's The Nurse's House, more or less.)

The "before" is too fierce for vision-- The Husband started tearing things apart before I could capture the entire effect of the bright baby blue 60's tile. It looks like a war zone right now. We'll take pictures as the demolition and renovation proceed, and share it all in one fell swoop.

The Daughter is home from Tech. She arrived late yesterday, and I am just thrilled to be able to spend time with her. My time with The Offspring has always been precious to me. We enjoy being together and doing things together. But it seems even more precious now. It's been a really emotionally draining month.

Please indulge a repeat of Nikki Giovanni's tribute (shamelessly copied from Mosaic's website-- hope you don't mind, Gina):

We are Virginia Tech.
We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning.

We are Virginia Tech.

We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly, we are brave enough to bend to cry, and we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again.

We are Virginia Tech.

We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.

We are Virginia Tech.

The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong, and brave, and innocent, and unafraid. We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imaginations and the possibilities. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all our sadness.

We are the Hokies.

We will prevail.

We will prevail.

We will prevail.

We are Virginia Tech.

I've been chugging along on my Hokie Squares. I've completed 5, and they're not that terribly creative, compared to some of the others I've seen, but they're about what I can handle without lots of knitting time. I've done 4 mitred squares and one diagonal striped square. All the ends are weaved in-- that's major for me. I'm going to try a brioche square next.

And to wrap up this rather disjointed posting, I'm sending you to this remarkable song that my youngest sister forwarded to me. Apparently it is too "politically incorrect" to be played on the radio, and is not released, but gets a standing ovation every time it's played.


Thanks, Diamond Rio-- we needed that.