Star Shaped

So. Obviously, I took a mini hiatus of sorts from Star Shaped this winter and spring. I have a good reason for it, which pretty much everyone who knows me should know.

At the end of January, my father fell in a freak accident at home and broke his neck, leaving him paralyzed from the shoulders down. He's been living at a rehabilitation hospital since the beginning of February; he should be going home sometime next month. To say this has been an exceptionally difficult time of our lives would be an understatement; so many things have changed, and it has been difficult to adapt to this new version of normal. We're doing what we can, and things will be okay. We cannot believe the support we have gotten from friends, family, and strangers; volunteers helped renovate my parents' house to be handicapped-accessible and have left numerous guestbook posts on his blog. It's been amazing, and in ways, it has restored some of my faith in humanity.

I've done so many things this winter and spring, but I never felt right writing about them because of the situation with my father. I attended Wordcamp Boston in January, Drupalcon San Francisco in April, and Drupalcamp NH in May, and I hope to write up my experiences from each of these events soon. And I've had a few others adventures along the way, too. It's been a wild ride, 2010.

So, I can't believe it's already Friday*! This week passed quickly; it's been a combination of fun going out and fun staying in, so I'm happy. I like a healthy combination of the two.

On Monday I decided to pull out my sewing machine after over two years of it lying dormant in my office/craft room. (The last time I used it was back in December 2007, when I was still living in my house in South Bend. I can't believe it's been so long!) After seeing a couple knitted things Tiffany made over the weekend, I decided I wanted to get back into practice with sewing!

I worried that my machine wouldn't work. I keep my machine in a little sewing cabinet, and it has moved with me three times within the past two years. It moved with me when I moved from my house to Stef's house in June of 2008; I actually kept the cabinet in the backseat of my car for a few weeks before I finally hauled it out by myself one afternoon. It also survived my move from Stef's house to my apartment in South Bend, then the move from South Bend to New Hampshire last May. So, understandably, I feared that my machine would need repairs I could not afford.

Thankfully, I was wrong! I set it up, threaded the machine (SO PROUD of myself for remembering how to do this!), and decided to practice by sewing a few bits of fabric together. I decided to make one of the tote bags that Tiffany made over the weekend out of this fabric. I got as far as sewing together the outside and the lining before I ran out of time Monday, and I haven't been able to pick it up since due to being either busy or sick the last couple days. (More on that later.) So, I'm psyched.

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I had a great evening on Tuesday; I drove down to Cambridge after work for an informal Drupal social meetup with Ryan Price from the DrupalEasy Podcast, who happened to be in town for a few days and wanted to scope out the Drupal scene in Boston. A few of us met up at the Stata Center at MIT, then proceeded to enjoy a delicious dinner and a couple beers at the Cambridge Brewing Company. Afterward we explored the MIT Media Lab and got to take a look at the new expansion, and ended the fun with a few drinks from one of the bars at the Liberty Hotel (aka one of the coolest bars ever; the hotel used to be a jail! How can that not be awesome?) I love getting down to Boston every so often to see the city and go to new places, and this night was no exception.

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The rest of the week had its ups and downs. On Wednesday, I did dinner and knitting with Gretchen in downtown Portsmouth (major up, of course), and Thursday I stayed in after feeling sick to my stomach earlier in the day (aand, major down). I actually ended up staying home from work on Friday due to said stomach sickness, but by Friday night I started feeling better. Thankfully. I'm still not sure what caused the mystery illness, but I'm feeling 100% now.

. . . . .

I'll have to write about my weekend in another post; I attended Wordcamp Boston yesterday and I want to talk more about the differences I've observed between the Boston Wordpress community and the Boston Drupal community. Granted, any differences I write will be skewed because I've attended far more Drupal events than Wordpress ones, though I worked with Wordpress for many, many years prior to switching to Drupal 9 months ago. Maybe it won't be so skewed after all. Stay tuned for my Wordcamp post!

*Yeah, I started writing this entry on Friday night, but obviously, I didn't finish it until Sunday. Oops.

Cute owl towels hanging in my kitchen.

I've felt like a hermit this weekend.

I tend to stay inside during the month of January; it's harder for me to want to venture out into the cold and snow to get together with people. This weekend's been no exception.

This weekend I went out once, to knit at the Portsmouth Tea Company on Saturday morning, in which I received a free little bag of their Shooshy La La chai tea (my favorite!) for paying for a cup of tea with cash. Big fan. Big, big fan.

I spent the rest of my weekend knitting, drinking tea, eating chocolate, cooking meals, and watching episodes of How I Met Your Mother and Chuck. I chatted with a few of my friends online and I cleaned my apartment. (I cleaned my tub! Actually scrubbed it! Clearly this is an event for me.) I even made time to install the Drupal 7 alpha and install it on my local environment, though I haven't done much with it yet.

I like to look at January as my month to regroup; my month to sit back and decide what I want to accomplish this year. I use January as a time to take a deep breath before jumping into the rest of the year, to sort of figure out where I want to go within the next twelve months. Winter's a perfect time for this.

. . . . .

One big thing I want to do this year is to tresent a session at Drupalcon San Francisco. Submissions opened on January 15, and I submitted an proposal for a session; Theming search results: Making your results page suck a lot less. Voting opens in about a month, so I'm crossing my fingers that people are interested in doing cool things with their search results pages.

. . . . .

I'm looking forward to spring and summer again. I'm looking forward to driving by the ocean, walking down the beach, spending an afternoon outside at the park. I'm looking forward to spending more time outdoors, venturing to Boston, and sitting outside in the sun. I like winter in a way, and couldn't ever live in a place with no distinct seasons, but I look forward to warmth and sunshine.

What are you looking forward to?

Sunset in Newington, NH, 01.09.10.

Today has been a good day. I spent the day with my friend Gretchen, shopping and knitting and drinking tea and eating dark chocolate. We ate the perfect lunch portion of fried shrimp at a restaurant in Kittery, Maine and I purchased a pair of comfy brown tall boots for only $17. I also now own two new shirts and a pair of my favorite brand of jeans (Old Navy Diva skinny, if you're that curious).

The best part of my day is the fact that my purchases cost me approximately zero dollars, due to cheap prices at the Kittery outlets and the multitudes of gift cards I received for Christmas. I am happy.

Actually, no, the best part of my day was spending it with a great friend of mine, who has introduced me to The Big Bang Theory, awesome, squishy yarns and patterns, The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlane Harris (I'm not a fan of the whole vampire trend in general, but these books were fun in a mindless sort of way), and, as of today (because I'm late and so out of fashion), Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.. We always have a good time when we see each other.

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Speaking of awesome friends, the very generous Cindy has very graciously donated me webspace, so my site is now housed on her server. I moved the files last night and transferred DNS this afternoon, and everything should be propagated by this point. I am thankful for friends who offered to help me during my time of brokeness.

. . . .

Tonight I am tired, but I am happy. Today has been a good day.

Driving home to Portsmouth, 1.2.10.

Happy New Year, everyone!

I enjoyed my New Years immensely this year. I drove down to western Massachusetts after work Wednesday night to spend part of the weekend with my family; my sister threw an awesome New Years party and we all had an excellent time.

I worked from home on Thursday (New Years Eve); I woke up at around 7:30, got ready, and jetted over to my sister's house. She lives only about a mile away from my folks, in my home town, so obviously the drive didn't take me long! I walked in and was greeted by her two cats, Ripley and Raven. Can I say I love working from home when there's another person AND two cats in the house? Very nice.

After work I helped my sister with the food for the evening; for hot foods, we made buffalo wings, bruchetta (with my sister's homemade pesto), spinach and artichoke dip, and a bloomin' onion from a kit my sister received from one of her husband's coworkers. Let me tell you, there's nothing more comedic than trying to force a too-big onion through a contraption similar to an apple corer. But, still, the onion turned out great, the wings turned out great; my sister and I ran around like chickens with our heads cut off but we sat down and enjoyed the food.

We decided to hit the movie theater after dinner. I hadn't ever gone to the movies on New Years Eve and I had assumed the theaters would be dead. Nope. I couldn't believe the lines! I saw It's Complicated with my mother and sister; I surprised myself by finding the movie pretty damn funny. My mother loved it; I've never heard her laugh so hard during a movie. At a couple points during the movie a man behind my sister and I fell asleep and started snoring very loudly; my sister and I looked at each other and lost it. I nearly peed my pants, while my mother looked at us wondering why we were laughing so loudly. Oh yes.

We returned to my sister's place at around 10:30 and we dug into the cold foods we had prepared earlier in the evening; cocktail shrimp, chips and dip, and other things I can't recall right now. She also baked me a belated birthday cheesecake (raspberry chocolate, to be exact!) and it tasted AWESOME. We played a few rounds of Mariokart Wii, then changed the channel to Dick Clark at 11:30 to watch the festivities.

I haven't watched Dick Clark in years, since before he had his stroke. I didn't realize it had affected him so badly; apparently he was in better shape this year than he was last year, but still, it seemed strange to me to see Dick Clark in such a state.

Anyway. A few minutes before midnight my sister and father handed out hats and streamers, and they poured glasses of fake champagne. When the ball dropped we obviously made a lot of noise, and ten minutes after midnight, my parents left my sister's place. I left a few minutes later, returned home to my parents' place, and proceeded to stay up for another couple hours talking to a couple friends of mine online. I felt good.

I loved my New Years this year. Last year I spent New Years alone; I was still living in South Bend and all my local friends spent it with their families, and I was too far away to spend it with mine. I loved spending it with my family this year, doing something different. I entered 2010 feeling happy and peaceful, something I didn't feel when I entered 2009 a year ago.

Here's to 2010.