2// "I didn't want to come." Tired, sassy, and productive

[spritechan]

Today was the first Saturday of garage sale season, which for us means that Steve woke up early (for a weekend — it's still two hours later than we wake up for work). We meant to get up at 6:30 for coffee time, but we went to bed past midnight and I continue to suck at sleeping.

My tracker caught 2 times of me being awake. Usually my sleep tracker doesn't even recognize when I'm awake, because I don't move around enough. As I said, I usually find myself staring into the dark. You will note the 158 audio catches, which include snoring (from either of us), but are usually me tossing and turning. The light sleep is often me being awake. I've tried calibrating it multiple times to track my wakefulness, but the app just won't believe me when my heart rate isn't spiking. /rant

You'll note that I have a giant orange bar on the right. When Steve left, I decided to go back to sleep until 9, at which time I'd go to the farmer's market. Instead I laid there anxiously as Connie, Grandma, or Ronnie came in and out of the house 100 times as the garage sale got underway. I stubbornly stayed in bed anyway, desperate for more Z's, listening to Day9 play Hearthstone.

When that didn't work, I invited Haley out with me and went to pick her up. She was in a decent mood, updating me on the Derek situation and I updated her on the garage sale situation. She also described her horrible experience at the doctor about her possible fibroids or cysts, and I started to actually feel faint/dizzy/gray as my trauma reaction to anything in the cervix/uterus area spiked.

We got a parking spot a bit away but not terrible, and we wandered around the market. It's still too early for most of the produce, especially with such an extended winter and literally no spring, but the flowers were out, and that's what I was there for. We started at the front, which is comprised of vendors of various goods - clothing, jewelry, honey, meat, cheese, bread, sauces, tea, etc. I bought some sticky rice and veggies from my favorite Hmong food place (and they put out a new curry spice mix to go with their sweet potato noodles so I bought both), and Haley bought a lemon poppyseed muffin. She also bought a mug from our "Mug Lady" before we went back to the flowers.

This year I decided to go with a brights theme - orange, red, and yellow. I bought some Dahlia, Merigold, one other, and I bought some medium-sized white flowers as filler to mix it up. I hadn't cleaned out my garden at all yet this year so I wasn't sure how many perennials had come back, and I didn't want to buy too many. Haley and I spent a lot of time going back on forth on what was ugly and what wasn't. I also ended up, for the first time, buying a plant that goes in a hanging pot and should cascade out of it. When I asked the woman if it could be indoors, she got REALLY weird about it and stammered that they only raised plants to go outside. ...okay, that's what I was asking. Haley has a bunch of plants that go indoors in hanging pots. Her response had the tone of complete shock at the idea of an indoor plant, like my question was WAY out of left field. Steve has called me out a few times lately for being unnecessarily snappy to customer service people (I dispute one for sure) so I made a concerted effort not to react to her and just said thanks (in a not-bitchy tone) and said I'd put it outside.

After the farmer's market I dropped Haley off at home, got gas and a car wash (discovered that my driver window has several weak spots in the seal, lol), and bought a hanging container for the new plant as well as compost and potting soil from Menards. When I got home I had to quickly drop all the stuff off before driving Steve and myself over to Baker's Square for lunch with Steve's parents and grandpa. This is a bi-monthly thing, as Steve's grandpa is 90 and still living independently and his parents live 4 hours away. Before we got there Steve and I made our "Bingo cards" on what phrases or topics would be brought up at the lunch.

Steve's mom won the bingo game, though she doesn't know it. At the end, we were doing the Minnesota Goodbye aka standing outside of the doors of the restaurant, half blocking them, and continuing to talk while edging in the direction of our cars before coming back in for hugs, and Mama Aker started shotgunning phrases and topics at us, as if she remembered about it and needed to squeeze in as many phrases as possible. She ended with, "I haven't seen you in so long I was gonna ask if Steve got a new girlfriend!" and right at that second, a woman was walking toward the door. Mama Aker pointed at her and said, "You really should get that shirt!" The woman's shirt read, I didn't want to come. We both burst out laughing, knowing how fucking good she got me. It was amazing, I'm proud of that super sick burn. Shows me that Steve and Amy didn't get their humor from nowhere.

After that, Steve and I got Starbucks (he got his usual Americano and I got the new cold press with foam drink) and I took us to Half Price Books. I didn't find anything - I was looking for a specific sock knitting book - but Steve ended up with a couple cheap games.

We headed home and hung out outside while the garage sale wrapped up. I started weeding the garden: cleaning out the leaves, clipping the dead perennials and moving the old stuff out of the new growth, managing the ants with my cinammon spray, and ignoring my cousin Danny's awkward stares as much as possible. Steve sat nearby. They started packing up, and Danny and Ronnie (Danny's dad) started bickering about whatever, and I didn't see what happened but Ronnie is so damn unstable and as he tried to stalk up the driveway (at best he can manage a painful-looking lurch) he lost his balance and fell on his "good" side. It was extra embarrassing because grandma got all stressed and he couldn't stand easily and Danny just stared and there were people AT the garage sale still looking. It was sooo awkward. He was at least agreeable for a few minutes to sit down, but he almost fell at least two more times before they left. God! Just stop!!! Soon after that it started lightly raining for no reason so we had to bring everything in while my aunt and grandma muttered about mold... kayyyy. It let up soon enough so we could finish packing up the stuff and I could get back to the garden.

They got everything out of the garage to take to Ronnie's to try to sell there, which was surprising and a huge relief. Connie still has stuff in our guest room, but not nearly as much and she's promised to get it all out in the next couple weeks. So I finished the garden. It looks good, but I think will need a couple more flowers. Oh well, guess I have to go to the farmer's market again (yay!).

I got done planting with 10 minutes to spare before my tutoring lesson with Riria (she's been my student for almost 4 years). Lesson was good, but her connection wasn't great. We finished Charlotte's Web and I made the mistake of asking if she had an English book she wanted to read, and of COURSE she chose Hachiko, so I'll probably cry.

Nick and Scott came over, I ordered a pizza and Steve went to get it while I finally took pictures and posted my haul from Yarnover on Instagram and updated my Ravelry. Soooo excited. After that I came down here with the boys and started my newest project. I REALLY want to start like 2 different shawls and another pair of socks (and I have Steve's socks on the needles), but I was a responsible person and cast on for Mom's Mother's day gift: Curious Cats fingerless gloves. I'm already done with the cuff and am about to start the pattern. The wonders of worsted weight yarn and larger needles!!

During that time, Nick started Uncharted 2, Scott played something handheld, and Steve fell asleep (he had a big day!). We chatted about woodshop classes we took in school and other random things. Eventually Steve woke up from his nap, we all talked a bit more, and then it was P-gas time*. Steve and I had planned to go Ghost Hunting in Pokemon Go tonight, but we're both too beat. There will be other nights for spooky romance!

*P-Gas = poison gas. A method of kicking his friends out since the beginning of time, wherein at a certain point in the night the room fills with a toxic gas that forces everyone but us to evacuate. Steve has prevented so many tragic incidents from occurring by being vigilant all these years.