Out of Avalon

April 16th, 2008 by Ascelyn

I said I’d post something happy! and upbeat!, so here I am.  An Ascelyn is faithful, one hundred percent.

It all started because I’m on a diet.  And I like pineapple–yum!  Also, because I live in a crappy little town with few places to eat that aren’t fast food.  All of this culminated in Jason, two of the guys from work, and I going to a local Chinese buffet place with one of those “Mongolian grills” that aren’t Mongolian for lunch.  That way I can get fresh peppers, onions, snow peas, chicken, and tasty pineapple all quickly grilled together over veggie-fried rice.  It’s so good that I even did it again today, but they didn’t have snow peas this time.  The horror!  But don’t worry, because I’m making sugar snap peas for dinner tonight again.  The market didn’t have anymore when I went back last night, which made me run frantic around the produce section at 10:00 at night trying to find them to no avail, so I’m using the leftovers from Sunday with some snow peas thrown in.  With teriyaki and onions–and pineapples!  I love it.

I’m getting sidetracked.  Two weeks ago tomorrow, we went on the aforementioned Chinese place adventure.  When we were brought our checks, I took a moment to wholeheartedly devour the requisite statement cookie.  You know, those things that used to be fortune cookies but that never actually have fortunes on them anymore?  Statement cookies.  So I cracked mine open and prepared to toss it into the small pile in the middle of the table where my husband and coworkers would invariably laugh at them and add “in bed” to every single one.

Good news will be brought
to you by mail.
Lucky Numbers 11, 13, 24, 25, 26, 40

Wow.  I got a fortune cookie with…a fortune.  How cool am I?

Generally, I toss them on my plate as I’m leaving.  This one, though, I quietly pocketed.  It gave me a strange feeling.  I have it sitting in front of me right now.

When I finished working that day, I had an email sitting in my inbox.  It was from a fellow A&S 50 member.  She had seen my blog.  She was praying for me.

I barely had time to skim the email; Jason was waiting outside to pick me up by then.  He’s on his way down even now, so I must be brief.  If I had a thousand years and a million words, I don’t believe I could fully express the wonder that accompanied those following days.  It still does.

I said it earlier, and I’ll say it again.  God knows what’s best for us.  He’s given us what we have to prosper us–not to harm us.  This holds true even when all we can see is short-term struggles.  My angel has a beautiful soul, and I thank both God for knowing just what I needed even when I didn’t have the strength to dream of it and her for following His leading.  And hey, I guess God can even use statement cookies for His good when He feels like it.

April 16th, 2008 by Ascelyn

I’m surrounded. 

I’ve known for several days that one of the girls near Jason’s desk is pregnant again.  I’ve only met her once, but I’ve heard her many times.  She’s on the loud side, to say the least, and cube walls don’t do much when it comes to noise confinement.  But hey, that’s fine.  No big deal. 

J broke the news to me yesterday that one of our friends from work is now pregnant as well.  That’s slightly bigger news.  Big enough to make me break down in the car and not be able to continue on immediately to tutor chemistry.  I essentially know three females at work.  Four now, if you count the new lady in our office, and I suppose five I’ve ever met at any given point.  All three of them who are married and of breeding age are now pregnant. 

And then there’s me. 

I’m happy for them, don’t get me wrong.  I know they’re thrilled, and that makes me thrilled too.  Except I’m horribly envious, and that’s not a good thing.  The fact that it takes away from my joy for them only makes me feel worse.  Even the girl who waited on us at lunch Sunday was obviously pregnant, and the waitress yesterday at dinner was chasing around her son who had come to visit. 

Both of them were younger than me.  I have a better-paying job with good benefits.  The other people at my work are all a good bit older–the youngest is 28.  I feel like standing in the middle of a field and screaming, “Why not me?”  I’m the one the doctors would point to as “most likely to succeed” and probably one of their patients they’d prefer to succeed.  Maybe I’m biased, but out of all the people in the country who are pregnant right now, I would in my human ignorance say I’d be one of the ones best able to produce and care for a child.  I’m at the apex of the curve that shows the age women are most fertile.  I take pretty good care of myself–no drugs/alcohol/smoking whatsoever, at a healthy weight, eating healthy food, protecting myself however possible.  My third wedding anniversary will be in August.  I love kids of all ages, with all their faults and idiosyncrasies, and always have.  I can do this!  I can do this well! 

Except I can’t. 

I honestly can’t imagine how I would deal with this if it weren’t for God.  All I can do is trust that He has a plan, and that in His wisdom He’s doing far better for me than I could ever do for myself.  I don’t want to be jealous and angry.  I don’t want to fall apart when I should be celebrating for others.  It’s rough–according to my plan, I would’ve bounced right back from taking the pill for two years.  I scheduled in (ha!) two months for that and stopped taking them in June.  I planned (double ha!) to get pregnant in August and have the baby in May, when both of our birthdays are.  So much for my plans.  I have an unfortunate feeling that May is going to be a rough month, that non-existant due date combining with Mother’s Day and likely a definate negative from on high regarding Pennsic. 

Just to make up for this, I’ll semi-promise to post something happy later today.  A semi-promise means I fully intend to do so, but “the best laid plans…” and all that.  Excuse me now, though, as I need to go futilely graph my temperatures for the last week.

April 14th, 2008 by Ascelyn

Our friend Rob is recovering from back surgery and stuck at his mom’s house, where he’s neither allowed to climb stairs or ride in a car. When Jason stuck a bass in his hands and picked up his acoustic, the poor man almost cried from sheer joy. I sat between them, leaned back, and shut my eyes, letting the music wash over me. I’d forgotten how much I loved listening to them play. No affects, no mixing, no practice or forethought, just pure, unadulterated notes combining to form perfect harmony. I’ve missed that more than even I knew.

I left before Jason and stopped at the market to pick up dinner. At home, I cooked real brown rice rather than the 10-minute stuff, marinaded and grill fresh salmon, and steamed sugar snap peas. I also made more green tea to use in my smoothies. It took almost an hour from the time I put the first pot of water on to boil–far longer than it would have taken to make ramen or microwave a frozen dinner–but it was more than worth it. I love cooking when there’s no rush and no pressure to please anyone but myself. The house was quiet and empty, I got to see the first of my herbs growing wildly on the deck every time I stepped out to the grill, and when all was said and done I sat down with great food and a wonderful book by the light of a candle I’d made months ago and never used because it was too pretty.

I like simplicity. It doesn’t take much to make me happy, despite the extreme amount of whining and ranting present here. I like to help others. I like to make things, to work with my hands to produce something good. I like easy companionship, people around whom I can be myself and speak and act freely. I like beautiful things, be it a single clear note or the form of a flower. I thirst for knowledge and hunger for truth. Give me a shiny stone and I’ll like you immediately. Give me a witty turn of phrase and you’ll have my heart forever.

So why am I so chronically unhappy? Let me be plain here: I have a box full of rocks I’ve collected over the year. These are literally stones I’ve picked up off the ground. On occasion, I open up the box and take each rock out one by one. I turn each one over in my hands, admiring every little thing that makes that particular rock unique. Then I put them back into the box and put it away for another year or so. This makes me happy. It’s that simple. Chopping vegetables and measuring ingredients, in the right context, makes me happy.

On one hand, I could say that I’m able to give these mundane tasks my full attention, which keeps me from thinking too much about other things. It’s thinking that tends to get me in trouble. Sooner or later, my brain finds its way down the same old paths, and those paths lead straight downhill into depression. Staying busy keeps me from getting down, and not being down in my case is pretty much equivalent to being happy.

I could also speculate that I actually like to do those things. They truly do make me happy. The rest of my life is just so crazy that I don’t have time for them, and craziness plus lack of happy-making things makes me unhappy.

I don’t know. Either way, I fully intend to graduate my seedlings from their little “greenhouse” to peat pots this afternoon and wash and clean out my Jeep. I’ll eat leftover rice and stir-fried whatever-veggies-are-in-the-fridge when I’m done. And that, my friends, will make me very happy indeed.

April 9th, 2008 by Ascelyn

The following is a summary of my progress on my A&S 50 persona challenge.  I made a nifty table for myself to keep track of progress and completion on each goal, but it doesn’t want to copy into WordPress and I don’t feel like actually bothering with HTML right now.  Maybe later….

Garb:  I finished my first pair of fitted stockings.  The foot part is slightly too big, so the fabric bunches a bit behind my heel, but it was close enough that I went ahead and copied my muslin prototpye into a cotton linen blend that was laying around.  I also made and wore muslin copies of the veil and sleeveless shift I intend to eventually copy into linen.  My shoes are finished, and the wood is cut for my pattens, though I’m running into problems finding some sort of small nail or tack to hold the leather to the wood without splitting it.

Fiber:  I made a top-whorl drop spindle from scrap wood from the pattens and a piece of dowel with a hook in one end.  It’s not the prettiest thing in the world, but it works quite well.  I spun three little bundles of short-staple wool and one of a pretty grey and brown long-staple wool a friend had on hand at Highland Foorde’s collegium last month.  Since they’re probably not even enough to weave, I think I’m going to learn to knit or naalbind and use them for that.  I learned a new fingerloop pattern at the collegium, so I’m on my way toward my “learn five new patterns and actually use them for something productive” goal.

Plants:  Seeds are started indoors, cuttings are rooting or promised when I can pick them up, and I have the boards for my planned medieval herb garden.  This year I’m hoping to start with sage, chamomile, oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary, chives, and a few others I’m forgetting at the moment.  I’ll have various types of mint in pots since I fear it would take over the whole bed otherwise.  Not all correct for my time and region, but at least they were known in our general period.  There will also hopefully be onions and strawberries.

Cooking:  I tried the 14th-century apple pie from The Forme of Cury as redacted at Gode Cookery, but the coffin simply refused to work no matter what I did.  Since it was for a potluck, I eventually just dumped the contents into a ceramic casserole dish and baked it like that.  Very tasty, but disappointing as a whole.

April 7th, 2008 by Ascelyn

I’m resting my back and psyche from bending over a table cutting materials for tomorrow’s lay-up, but must return to my ball and chain soon.  Therefore, this shall be brief.

Randy gave me a big batch of glycerin from his biodiesel operation (fondly referred to as the meth lab).  I’m planning to make soap in the near future.  While I know I can scent it and leave it the color it is (currently blackish-brownish, but should solidify to tan), I’m in the process of looking up a way of clarifying it first.  After all, pure glycerin is clear.  There’s no reason I, with my fancy year’s worth of purifications in the Organic Lab of Doom, shouldn’t be able to get the impurities out.  The question is whether or not I’ll have eyebrows left when I’m done.

Anecdote that clearly shows my lameness:  I’m thirsty, so I drank half a bottle of water.  I’d like to drink the rest of it, but then I’d probably have to use the restroom.  If I did that, the Curious George bandaid that’s protecting the cuts the feathers on my arrows gave me Saturday would fall off, and it’s currently held on strip of bandage tape wrapped around my hand anyway.  I could snag another bandage from the first aid kit in the storage cabinet, but they’re boring and don’t have monkeys on them.  Therefore, I shall simply be slightly dehydrated.

I also just realized I still have a Thomas & Friends sticker on my knee.  I don’t have children.  How cool am I?