Janet with her knitting, looking swanky in her high heels

I showed her Ravelry.com, the knitting community site to which I belong, so we can continue to share projects and patterns when she’s back home. I missed having her around when I went to the yarn store today to get another skein of the funky mohair to complete the lacy scarf.

Some things are better shared. Wish she were closer. I’ll have to head on over to my local knitting meetup for more knitting cameraderie.

But, I think that no matter how happy they are in their adopted homes, the tastes of home have a powerful pull. On their way out of town, my in-laws stopped to get a case of Vernors into the car. Apparently, they can’t find it in the Boston area. My sister called me this morning and asked me to bring tahini when I visit. The Detroit area has a strong Middle Eastern tradition, and she prefers what is available in Detroit Middle Eastern grocery stores to what is available in local health food stores in Tennessee.

I’ve already got a stash of goodies to bring her. So, when I travel to Tennessee, I’ll be carrying dried Michigan cherries, Tahini from Lebanon, and ArborTeas Keemun tea from China. The taste of home, at least here in the Detroit area, has a global flavor ;).

I have also been anxious about it, and worried. Most of it is selfish worry, he’ll be gone more, with regular travel to Chicago and to Prague and to England and even farther afield like China and Korea. And I’m…here, working.

Not that I mind working really, after a few years of angst and searching I’ve found a place where I can stay, where I know my efforts make a difference, and where work on a smart team to do quality work for great clients. No complaints there. And, during my time of bouncing around and soul-searching, my husband was bedrock. Unflappable, confident I’d find my way, not in a rush for me to show results, he supported me without question.

I suppose now it is my turn to cheerlead and support. And he’s going to be fine, more than fine. So I think it is more me I’m worried about than him. I think I’m feeling a little left behind. He started the new job last Friday, and went on the road immediately (left town Sunday). Today was his birthday and I wrapped and had him pack a small present (not beautifully wrapped, in case TSA wanted a peek) into his luggage for him to open.

He’s going to have lots of travel, and several adventures, and I will be here, working, hanging with the cat and maybe we’ll Skype more but see each other less. I was really blue about this for a while, and my stress level has been all over the place. But this week, with him gone, has been alright, much better than I’d built it up to be in my head. I’ve been more than busy, attending social events after work and professional society events, so busy that I really really had to take tonight off and collect my head and do nothing because I was a very bent out of shape introvert. I always forget how much I like being alone.

So, I’m still grateful for time alone despite my worries to the contrary, been chatting with my sister and college friends on the phone a little more, and I’ve had more dinner requests than I can capitalize on during his quick trip. So, there’s hope for friendships, local and distant, to fill in the gaps a little bit as the travel continues. I’m also contemplating what I can open the door to now that I’ll have more time available. Focusing on opportunity not anxiety. Really. Mostly.

I also have the sense that yoga elongates me, stretches my body, and derotates the spine, but spinning is good for my heart and being more vigorous, it releases pent up nervous energy. Spinning does aggravate my neck, tho. I am leaning towards yoga in some form, but I am concerned about missing any cardio. I do walk to work, and I suppose I can go back to walking up the stairs to my 5th Floor office….

I’m doing a little reading online, and the argument is perhaps alternating between the two - so three times a week of EACH yoga and of spinning, but I think jumping from twice a week to six times a week is simply impossible, especially with work and other non-athletic volunteer/service activities. Sigh. Hard to choose.

I decided a letter at all was more important than the perfection of its contents, and I let my editor relax a bit.

I know he just moved, from the Atlanta suburbs to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and I’m going to visit in early December, so I asked him how his new school was, and what he could see from his bedroom window. I asked him if he was an Atlanta Falcons or a Tennessee Titans fan. I told him how much I was looking forward to seeing him, and I asked if we could go on a walk together when I arrived.

It was sweet to write him and I am excited to mail my letter tomorrow. My husband will send one in maybe a week. 

I was reminded of myself as a child, how I envied my parents getting their junk mail and bills. I longed to get mail as a sign that I was alive as well. And I was reminded of the letters my grandfather Heinrich wrote me. He used to write me handwritten letters that I was thrilled to receive, and I was touched by his thoughtfulness. My sister mentioned he used to give us stationery. I forgot that part, but I still have the letters he sent me.  Maybe it is time to review them and learn how to write a letter to a child you love, so I can pass along that tradition to my nephew.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Appreciate the scenery. Repeat.

In the summertime, we share DSL and a wireless router with the neighbors. But they locked their place up for the winter, shut down the DSL/wireless, and they won’t be back until the spring. We go year-round. I really love it when it is quiet and the winter woods especially are quiet.

I did have a bit of work to do, so I had to reinstate our old dial-up service, through Bruce Municipal Telecom. I discovered a few fun facts:

• My space-age Macbook doesn’t even have a place to plug in a phone line, but
• My husband’s Dell laptop did.
• Neither of us had a thumb drive to transfer the file I’d painstakingly prepared to send to a co-worker for the Monday I’d be out.

I borrowed Dave’s laptop, recreated the spreadsheet on his computer, and dialed in to get stuff into Basecamp for my colleagues. Hooray for connectivity.

Yet, dial-up definitely put a damper on my online activities. Because I didn’t have connectivity, I let a few things go. I put off work email, Twitter, uploading photos to my flickr account, personal email, blogging, working with my MiUPA colleagues to set up the chapter meeting we had the Monday evening I returned, etc. I could answer some of the email on Tuesday morning during working hours, the MiUPA team is all-powerful and organized without constant input from me. I could upload the few photos I took late Monday. My twitter friends didn’t need instant reporting of my hikes and naps and the weather at Gillies Lake.

It all worked out just fine. So, even though I’ve loved having the wireless broadband up there, it is nice to disconnect for a while. A real vacation after all. A chance for downtime, not uploading.

Nice to feel I’m ready for the change of season.

I’m not someone who stockpiles; I’m an under-buyer. Normally, I tend to run out and go run an errand to refill my supply of (important item here). But, along with piles of books, I stockpile kitchen towels. There are few things better or more satisfying to me than a stack of freshly laundered kitchen towels. 

I haven’t actually bought many of them - several were gifts from my mom, others from friends with various wedding (yes, 8 years ago) presents, my husband’s grandmother wove some of what I use, my mother-in-law likes giving tea towels as gifts - so I can use the excuse that I didn’t intentionally acquire the set I have now. I blundered into my stockpile of dish towels. And they give me a disproportionate happiness. Yes, dishtowels.

There’s just something abundant in the waiting stack. I like having a stack because in a weekend of a lot of cooking, say my canning fun, I can keep on tossing dirty and sodden dishtowels down into the basement (our staircase is our laundry chute) and reload the oven handle with another clean, dry towel. So, after my weekend of canning, I’d exhausted my stack of towels and needed to launder the set. There was something abundant about that too. Felt like an accomplishment. 

I use one to line underneath the bins that hold the potatoes, onions, and garlic. One is always looped over the handle of the oven, for drying washed hands or wiping up the counter. When we’re cooking, one of us has a dishtowel jauntily tossed over one shoulder, at the ready for drying a hand-washed dish or grabbing a pot handle. I suppose they’re some kind of tangible reminder of the joy we take in our kitchen, in cooking with and for friends.

So, want to make my day? Give me a dish towel.

Podcamp Michigan 11/8/2008

I didn’t even tweet it, though I should have. But, I did find, in my inbox this morning, a twitter notification from, of all things, Podcamp Michigan. Ask and ye shall receive. Or, in this case, “receive even though the ask was inchoate and unarticulated.”

A podcamp is an unConference focused on blogging, podcasting, and social media. Should be fun. I’m planning to attend. You?

Coordinates:

• Podcamp Michigan Twitter
• Podcamp Michigan Upcoming
• Podcamp Michigan Blog
• Podcamp Michigan Event Details
• Real-world coordinates: 11/8 9AM-4PM at Embassy Suites Hotel, 28100 Franklin Road, Southfield, MI