Posted by Laura on May 7, 2012 in
AWOL Oh, y’aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall. So sorry for not posting all kinds of yummy Swiss Army Wives’ goodness lately. We’ve both been supremely busy with life-stuff … we know, we know boooooooooooooriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!
But, we’re re-tooling the site a bit and in the meantime if you need a fix, check out Kelly’s delicious posts on The Good Grub Round-Up or see what I’m “cooking” up over here and here and here.
We miss you, we really do! And we promise we’ll be back and better than ever in NO time!
Squeezes and smooches,
The Swiss Army Wives (aka Kelly and Laura)
P.S. Are you interested in becoming a regular contributor to Swiss Army Wives? Shoot Laura an email at laura AT swissarmywives.com and let’s chat!
Well, hi there. Miss me? Well, I certainly missed you, especially you.
Oh my gawd, y’all, most of November and all of December (and the first part of January) was mostly THE SUCKIEST SUCK OF ALL SUCKS.
Lemme give you a quickish rundown (in no particular order) of what I like to call The-Time-That-The-Universe-Tried-to-Maim-Me:
THE SUCK #1: I was REALLY REALLY REALLY sick for nearly two months. I’m fairly certain I had The Plague and my gizzard may have fallen out, at the very least it was enlarge.
THE SUCK #2: My computer crashed: Physical Memory Dump. (pour one out for my computer homie) Most of the really great Christmas gifts I had planned on designing went out the Window(s).
THE SUCK #3: The day after Christmas our washing machine died. (pour another one out for my laundry homie)
THE SUCK #4: A *wonderful*job with a great company I interviewed with thrice, in November, during the onslaught of the The Plague, no less, was a no-go. THEN out of the blue, I get a call in late December: Was I still interested? And, would I be willing to draft a proposal of sorts? (Yes, during the busiest of the holidays AND no real computer besides a clunky SLOW laptop.)
THE SUCK #5: My phone all but died: call and message logs would completely disappear, I couldn’t always make or receive calls (or they would drop) and messages that I sent weren’t actually going anywhere. Couple that with limited computing and I was dead in the water from a communications standpoint.
THE SUCK #6: My dad was in the hospital.
THE SUCK #7: Andy showed zero interest in potty training. ZILCH.
THE SUCK #8: I needed to get new glasses. With bifocals. (pour one out for the last vestiges of my youth)
Here’s the outcome, up- or flip-side, and oh so many reasons I’m counting my blessings (and shake my little victorious fist at The Universe):
IT’S ALL GOOD, YO #1: I feel soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much better. It’s amazing how good you feel after you’ve felt bad for so long. Also, I actually lost weight during the holidays and all of the coughing I did gave me a “two-pack.” I’m totally ripped, dudes. (Not really, but go with me here.)
IT’S ALL GOOD, YO #2: Fortunately, one of my Good Lookin’ Husband’s friends had a built a fairly high-octane computer for a guy – who bailed ended up NOT buying – and it became mine all mine! I named him George. I love George. With all my heart. And, I count this as a bad thing that turned out good: Freelance slows to a crawl in the last quarter of the year, so none of my clients were left in the lurch. Also? I keep all my files and things like fonts backed up on an external hard drive. I didn’t lose any files during what I call The Unholy Crash of 2011. (BTW, if you use Outlook for your email? MAKE TRIPLE SURE the emails are also saved to the server. LESSON LEARNED.)
IT’S ALL GOOD, YO #3: I found a local place on Craig’s List that delivered (twice, first one was a lemon) AND installed a refurbished replacement, almost identical to the one that died … for the EXACT amount of “Christmas Money” I had received as gifts from some sweet relatives.
IT’S ALL GOOD, YO #4: I’m still waiting to hear on the jobola (again!), but I really enjoyed the research and the writing (even given the timing) and am really proud of the work I did. I have an unbridled enthusiasm that I sometimes forget I possess. I dig that about me. Don’t you? Confidence boost!
IT’S ALL GOOD, YO #5: My cell phone service provider ran a screaming special on the EXACT phone I wanted AND got our monthly plan costs down a tad a bit, to boot.
IT’S ALL GOOD, YO #6: My dad is doing better now, and I’m thankful (as always) my stepmother takes such good care of him. Also, Matt was off of work that week, which freed me up to go see him a few times (an hour drive away) and give my stepmom little break.
IT’S ALL GOOD, YO #7: Andy has now mastered #1. (We’re working on #2, still) PRAY FOR ME.
IT’S ALL GOOD, YO #8: I can actually see and my glasses are cute in a generationally inappropriate hipster doofus sort a way? Meh. See over-compensating.
SO, you see what I did there? Silver linings, Limoncello from lemons, chicken salad from chicken sh… well, you get the idea, right?
The best thing of all things that happened in the last few months is that after ages of tangling with duplicitous entities, foreign and domestic, dear friends of ours FINALLY brought their beautiful little boy from Ethiopia HOME. Seeing that sweet boy being held by his mom and dad marks one of the happiest days of my entire life. Truly.
I know this time of year folks are full of resolutions, and this craptastic episode we’ve endured of “bad stuff happening to good people” reinforced my all-the-time resolve to be thankful for ALL my blessings, as well as the challenges, first-world and otherwise.
