Little of This, Little of That

This weekend, my sweetE made my day, week, month, maybe my year. We were sitting on the couch and I was helping with some knitting. He is using a loom to knit some wrist warmers. I am making him a scarf with my new knitting skills and he wanted to have a project too. So cute! But he looked at me and said, "Mom, you are nice." I replied with a thank you. He then looked me in the eye and said, "I mean it, super nice." Awwwww, melt my heart. I love, love, love that boy.

Today I went to my uncle's funeral. He was one of my dad's many, many siblings. Really, one of 19 children!!!! That makes me one of 50 cousins, and I am the youngest. And I can really only say that I know one of them. But this uncle came to visit fairly regularly so I thought I should go be the family representative. It is a little strange to be in a room of people that you are related to and only know 3 people! But it was a nice service and a pleasant afternoon.

A while back I was talking to my sister, complaining about a conversation with my parents. And she stopped me at one point with the question, "What would make you happy?" I didn't have a concrete answer at that moment, I usually don't. I have to ruminate on things for a while before my subconscious decides to clue me in on what it is thinking. But I figured it out finally. My cousin asked me how things were and let me know that he knew that I had gotten divorced. And then he simply asked me how I was doing. And then having been through a divorce himself once, just let me know that he recognized that it is a hard thing to experience. And I realized that this is what I have been looking for from my family. I want them to genuinely want to know how I am doing and a little validation that this is not a walk in the park. No judgement, no advice, no opinions, just some concern and understanding.

It is hard to believe that it is nearly the end of January already. Time is really flying by. The job search has slowed down. Doesn't look like there are going to be any jobs in education. So, I am focusing on getting those programming skills rocking and looking into software engineering. Trying to fit that into my schedule is making me a little crazy. But I am enjoying puzzling out solutions to programming problems. Why didn't I like it when I was doing it before?!?

OK, those darn essays are not going to grade themselves. Believe me I have been waiting for it to happen!