Insight comes from within, but most often change comes from the pressure of external forces. I find this to be particularly true with housecleaning, to the extent that I’ll invite someone over if I really need motivation to get things in shape. This coming Saturday, one of my children has a special friend coming over to visit for the first time, and the motivational factor is almost incalculable.
So far, I have:
made a lot of lists
reorganized the laundry room
cleared off [most of] the tops of the washer and dryer
scrubbed half the laundry room floor
done six loads of laundry
ordered an area rug from Target
moved an existing rug
thrown away (!) the old dog leash
scrubbed several plastic bins
reorganized the items on a shelving unit
moved cluttering items into other rooms, cluttering those rooms even more
repurposed a bookcase headboard, which was serving as shelving, into a bookcase headboard
emptied the recycling bin so things would look neater
run out of energy
So, after a day of planning and two days of work, the first room that someone will see when they enter the house…is half done. My plan is to concentrate on the rooms through which the guest will actually pass through. This sounds like a light task but actually it only exempts three rooms and the basement from scrutiny. After I finish the makeover of the laundry room, I still must clean/organize/make over the kitchen, the TV room, the dining room, and the bathroom. After a full day’s work on campus, I will have approximately 3-4 hours a day to do this if I do nothing else after I get home.
I think you can see how this is going to play out. Let the battle against reality COMMENCE.
This weekend I have also:
driven to Madison
gone clothes shopping at the mall with Eldest
gone book shopping with Eldest (much less stressful)
walked the dog many, many times
picked up MiddleSon and Youngest
done a Target run
shopped at Petco for animals I do and do not know
made a slushie run with Youngest
phoned customer service lines for two companies to try to fix a Crock-Pot
taken photos of the still-unplanted garden
searched in vain for the first asparagus shoots
found a new owner for my Wisconsin canoe
thought about baking cookies
wondered what was making that strange noise in the walls at 5 am
If I have only 3 or 4 hours each night to bring 5 rooms up to snuff in the next 5 days — oops, I will also have to make livable the room of Secondborn, which is currently supersaturated with the clutter from other rooms — I can predict now that each night will be frantic and the basement and garage will be stuffed full by Saturday morning. This I know I can do. The challenge will be to not allow the clutter to return to its usual places on Saturday night or Sunday morning. Work, dinner, clean, sleep, repeat. No problem.
I haven’t knitted a stitch this week, but I did discover a knitalong for precisely the pattern that has had me flummoxed for a year. So I may be able, within the next few weeks, to get some technical support to start and finish a giftknit for some people that I really like (and don’t want to disappoint). Let’s do this!
Lately I have started to be able to get rid of some things. A book here, some kid clothes there, duplicate kitchen items, that decorative candle holder I never really liked but didn’t want to tell my mother-in-law (sorry, Shirley/Elfriede/Virginia/Sharon).
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Also lately, I have splurged on some new clothes that I picked out on my own. This should not be Such a Big Deal, especially at my age, but shopping for clothes is not so much fun as it used to be, especially at my age. In one case I was pressed into a shopping trip due to a combination of high-value gift cards and a store that was closing its stores and going out of business before the end of 2019. I had quite the nice haul from Dress Barn, I must say. In another case — last week — a friend let me know about a final clearance sale at Svaha.com. I like wearing skirts, I hate not having pockets, and the final sale items were 70 percent off. Now we’re talking. It’s not 90 percent off at the Shopko or Lazarus clearance rack, but it’s close enough. (If you’re thinking about shopping there, let me know. I can set you up with a discount and get a little kickback.)
The first Svaha order (of two) arrived this afternoon, and my new pieces have already been washed and dried. I’m not sure which item I will wear to work tomorrow (the kids voted for the T-shirt displaying the History of Writing Implements, citing “casual Friday,” but I hold veto power over them even when they vote as a bloc), but it’s becoming clear that some other items from my closet will now have to leave.
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I shall freely admit that I could probably get rid of 75 percent of the clothes hanging in my closet and no one would ever notice the difference. In some cases they represent memories of the past (a sweater and skirt set I received from my second husband’s mother at Christmas 1994); in others, they represent hopes for the future (can I really get rid of all those cycling jerseys? after all, I really should get back to riding again).
A few shirts and blouses were gifts from people I love. It’s tough to part ways with them, especially when the beloved giver no longer walks the earth. That shirt is a love-token. How could I part with it?
Here are a few other sartorial conundra:
wedding dress (Kelly green [fourth marriage]), into which my daughter will never fit
high school cap and gown, honor cord stored separately
silk robe belonging to third husband
teh sexy stuff from a score ago, gathering dust on the hangers
a dozen white blouses which would be practically translucent if I wore them, so I don’t wear them
Honestly, what do I do with these things?
I do find it easy to get rid of pants, even if my mother picked them out for me based on some well-intended image of how she images me to dress, because I rarely wear pants and almost never wear them to work. So, the tan, lined, wool herringbone slacks? Already at Goodwill (cf prior post), though I almost shed a tear. I wish I were the kind of person who could have worn those slacks. Jordan Baker is the only person I could imagine wearing them.
Ditto any shoe with a heel. Those pairs have long since been donated to the campus’s Career Closet, assuming that some young woman would need to wear them to an interview. If she did, I hope she got the job and promptly re-donated them to another cause. Honey, those things will foreshorten your calves. I’m just saying.
Old stuff piles up in the oddest places, and I’m going to have to let it all go. Or let most of it go. We’ll see. But something’s gotta go.
In knitting news, I’ll take a project with me to Yarnhawks tomorrow. I might cast on for the KAL or I might work on something else entirely. We’ll see. (Where have I heard that before?)
What is it time for you to cast aside? What do you cling to?
Last week I was getting ready to leave for work when I noticed that the dog’s food dish was no longer next to his water dish. After a short search I found it in the plastic container where we store the dog food. “That’s odd,” I thought, “but I’m sure there’s a reason. I’ll ask Eldest when I get home.”
“I put it in there,” he explained that evening. “Last night I was awake after midnight, so I came downstairs to get a snack. I was sitting on a stool in the kitchen when I saw a mouse walk across the room, go over to the dog dish, climb in, and get one piece of kibble. Then he climbed back out and went into the dining room and around the corner. A minute or so later he came into the kitchen, got another piece, and took it away. ‘Shoot,’ I said to myself, ‘that’s a pattern.’ So while the mouse was away I picked up the dog dish and put it in with the dog food. I sat back down and waited, and the mouse came back. He went over to where the dog dish used to be, then looked around, then finally went away.”
“Where was Monty?”
“He was asleep in your room.”
“Why didn’t you call him to come get the mouse?”
“If I had called out loudly enough to wake him up, you probably would have woken up, too. And you don’t get enough sleep anyway.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“And if he would have gone after the mouse….”
“…nobody would get any sleep.” My ears rang at the very thought of a noisy midnight mouse-hunt. “Well, I think you’re right that it’s a good idea to put the bowl away at night.”
So that’s what we did until last night. I was getting ready for bed and went to put the bowl away, but I saw that it was empty. “Well, there’s no food in the bowl,” I thought, “so it couldn’t hurt to leave it out tonight.” I turned off the lights and went to bed.
This morning, the dog dish was back in the dog food container. I was pretty sure that I knew why, but I waited until I was home again to ask.
“If the bowl were out,” said Eldest, “the mouse might see it, think that there is food in it, and look through it for scraps.”
“Whereas if the bowl were not there at all, the mice will know that there is no food for them. Eventually they may give up and go somewhere else to look for food.”
“Precisely.”
Today my Franklin Habit tote arrived in the mail. I promptly put my yarn for the Franklin Habit KAL in it, along with the needle, and took it with me to show off at Knit Night, but that’s about all I could do as I had neglected to also put in the pattern. Sorry, Franklin. I had also brought along a yarn cake I’d gotten on sale over the weekend, but not any needles suitable for knitting with it. I also had four skeins of Super Bulky yarn that I had just received as a Christmas present, but I didn’t have any needles large enough to start any of the patterns I eventually found for it. Oddly enough I had also brought along an enormous pencil case filled with straight bamboo needles, none of which were appropriate for any of the yarn I had. My mocha latte with a shot of mint, however, worked out just fine and my gauge was perfect.
If you ever got it all together, what would you do with it? Personally, I’m open for suggestions.
Daf Yomi, done for the day; meditation challenge, started; knitalong, not so much. But I forgive myself. Tomorrow is knit night and I’ll cast on then. Today I want to tell you about another thing I have started. I’m not sure if I should call it reading a book, taking a course, or starting a project.
Sometime during the holiday gift-buying season I happened across a modern reproduction of an old-fashioned book on sketching. I didn’t read the introduction at the time because I was charmed by everything I saw when I flipped through the book. But I read it — the introduction, not the book — this evening, and it claims that a young and unemployed Walt Disney taught himself to draw using an edition of this book.
The book has sixty lessons. I grabbed a calculator and found that, in a year, that would work out to a drawing lesson for myself every six days. That made today the day for Lesson One. (I went ahead and marked the rest of this month’s mini-lessons in my bullet journal.) So after I got home, picked up the car, came back home, made dinner, ate dinner, put the leftovers away, drank another glass of water, paid my bills, looked at Facebook, updated my journal, ate some chocolate, started the meditation challenge, and studied my Hebrew, I got out the sketching book, picked a pencil I liked, and sat down to start my first lesson.
The first lesson is about connecting the dots. Not in a jerky, blunt, angular way, but in a way that presupposes curves that just happen to have random points on them at several places along their length.
I’m working on it. Between now and my next lesson I can think about curviness, about flow, and about relaxation. I can embellish the notes and pictures in my bullet journal. I can take some small risks and go outside of the dots, the lines, the box. If it doesn’t work, I can erase it and start over. Or maybe I can give myself permission to keep going, keep trying, and add a little something more until it feels just right.
How do you relax, let go, and find your flow? Is there something you’ve always wanted to do, but you don’t feel that you have permission to do it?
As part of my start-of-year overbooking, I have also signed up for a meditation challenge that begins tomorrow. Being a meditation challenge, it’s more laid back than some of the other activities to which I have recently committed myself — for this one, the goals is to meditate for five minutes on 15 of the next 21 days. See how that seems much more relaxed and reasonable? (Let me ignore for the time being that I am still doing the Franklin Habit KAL and the Daf Yomi while I’m doing the meditation challenge.)
This afternoon I was grateful to have been reading Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. I belong to Nextdoor, a neighborhood discussion app, and a few days ago I posted a mild complaint about neighbors who have been shooting off fireworks quite late at night on days that seemed outside of “fireworks season” — for example, 11:30pm on Christmas Eve. There were no immediate responses to my post, but after a day or so there were some replies. It seemed that others did agree with me that this behavior was somewhat inconsiderate.
Then, this afternoon, between an out-of-town event and a series of excuses to go shopping errands, someone else posted a reply. His take was that both city life and country life have their problems and this was one of the problems of country life. My takeaway was that he thought I was whining too much and that I should just suck it up.
I spent some time being really angry about this. I felt like responding immediately, but then the self-awareness kicked in and I slipped into the mode that you’re supposed to be in when you meditate (though I don’t think the author recommends practicing meditation while driving). I noted that I was feeling anger. I explored this a bit, and came to the conclusion that I was feeling angry because I felt that I had been unfairly attacked. I wanted to defend myself, but I (a) didn’t think that I could defend myself without attacking my “attacker,” which wouldn’t put me in a sympathetic position within the online (and actual) community, and (b) didn’t think that I should have to defend myself.
Because I was driving, I proceeded to the rest of my errands and only mildly turned the Nextdoor issue around and around and around in my head. I still haven’t sent a response, but in the interim another neighbor has weighed in on my behalf. You know, this perspective and distance and thoughtfulness stuff might lead to maturity if I give it a fair chance.
Today I planned too many tasks and did a lot of them anyway. But then I sat myself down and watched a movie and had some popcorn. Tomorrow’s schedule looks just as busy; take my usual self-overbooking and add eight hours of workday. And a yoga session. I am really going to need that yoga session.
Here is an adorable rubber stamp I bought today. I plan to use it on Monty’s goal-tracking page. Ah, it’s good to have goals.
I don’t have to do everything. I don’t have to do everything perfectly. And I should try not to respond in anger when the best response may be no response at all. What upsets you? And what do you do with your anger?
For the past several days I’ve been planning for a knitalong, or KAL, of the Winter Sapphire shawl pattern designed by Franklin Habit. (If you’re not already familiar with Mr. Habit, just Google him. I’ll be right here when you come back.) At one time I was privileged to sit in the same room with said Mr. Habit when he visited our beloved Sow’s Ear in Verona. He is talented, charming, and funny, and I’m so glad he walks the earth right now. (He’s actually walking it in Paris, France, this week and I may be just a smidge jealous.)
When I signed on for the KAL I purchased a pattern that, at the time, consisted of just a teaser (and a coloring page). The complete pattern was made available yesterday, and I now have everything together to get started. Ravelry group joined? Check. Needles selected? Check. Pattern printed and stored safely in page protector? Check. Yarn selected (from stash)? Check. Yarn wound from skeins into knittable cakes? Check. Realization that I purchased these skeins from Kindred Threads at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival in September 2013? CHECK. It Does Not Seem Like That Long Ago that I purchased these skeins. I still remember my joy at all of their fandom-inspired colorway names (hover over the photos to see them).
Killer Rabbit.
River Song.
So, what’s a knitalong? Simply, it’s an event in which everyone uses the same pattern and works on their knitting at the same time. There’s a certain camaraderie in numbers and shared experience, and it also helps to have a lot of friends working on the same project so that you can answer each other’s questions and motivate each other.
I haven’t actually cast on for this shawl yet because of a few other events in my life that are kicking off at the same time, but I hope to start tomorrow. I do have all the materials together, and I have ordered a project bag from Society6.com that will be adorned with Mr. Habit’s artwork. It will arrive when it arrives. Last year at this time I was also involved in a KAL, one run by my friends at Knitcircus. When I look back at the first KAL I participated in, it was probably the Charmed Knits KAL of many, many years ago. In between I have not been in many organized knitalongs, but in our local group, Yarn-a-Latte, we often have informal knitalongs when we all work on the same project for a while. Wingspan, I tell ya. Wingspan.
Anyway, one thing that helped a great deal with my preparation was my bullet journal that I’ve been setting up for the last two weeks or so. As usually happens at the beginning of a new year, I have seriously overcommitted myself to every interesting project I could think of. This time, however, I have seen things from a slightly calmer perspective — one that says, “All this stuff is cool, but you don’t have to burn yourself out in the first five minutes by trying to do it all in the first five minutes.”
Another -along I have joined is the new cycle of the Daf Yomi, which starts tomorrow and lasts for seven and a half years. Sometimes described as the world’s biggest book club, its purpose is to read — and discuss — one page (front and back) of the Talmud every day. There are Facebook groups, websites, podcasts, and apps to support this effort and to help everyone to support each other in their efforts. You don’t have to be Jewish, but a certain stubbornness, combined with a tendency to overcommit, might help you stay the course. There’s still time to sign up! If you do, let me know in the comments. We can virtually study together.
I have been breaking big projects into tiny task lists, and I have been using pretty colored pens to check them off. I have been aware of the looming piles of things to do, and I have paced myself by doing just a little bit at a time. I have not been beating myself up for not accomplishing more than I can reasonably accomplish. I’ll get there when I get there, one stitch at a time and one page at a time.
When do you work best in groups? What have you found is better for you to do on your own?
Last night I promised you a guest post, and I’m sorry to say that we’ll have to reschedule it. MiddleSon read some of my posts to get a sense of my writing style — stating that he intended to write in the opposite style — and he triumphantly read the draft to me.
It was clever and funny, and he even created an Excel graph to illustrate one of his points. I had some reservations about some of the expressions that he used, and when I brought them up he grew silent. A while later, he told me that he had closed Word without saving his file.
We talked about it for a bit. I can’t speak to his perspective with authority, but I know he’s still working on the relationship between his words and his audience. It will come with time, and I am looking forward to letting you hear his “voice.” For my part, I was insecure. I was worried that his hyperbole about my behavior “behind the scenes” at what he called “Chocolate Sheep Studios” could be taken literally by people who could use it against me. Perhaps I was overreacting and perhaps I was just being prudent. Perhaps I also don’t need the additional anxiety of trying to figure all that out at just this moment.
So perhaps we’ll do a guest post another time, after he and I have come to a consensus on the ground rules. I think you’ll enjoy it.
Today we had the beginnings of a long snow coming into our area. I can’t say “snowstorm” precisely, because so far it just seems like 24 hours’ worth of gently falling snow. Outside it’s bitterly cold, but the snow is lovely and everything is so quiet. There’s something interesting in the comfort of a warm, dry blanket indoors and the comfort of a cold, wet blanket outdoors. A poet could really turn that concept into something. I just stood and felt the flakes falling on my face. When I came inside I bundled up in a shrug and a scarf-ish shawl that I had knitted, and I relaxed into their warm stitches.
Between working from home, and driving into town to pick up MiddleSon after exams, and going grocery shopping, and glancing at tennis matches every once in a while, and watching the soft snow fill in our footprints every few hours, I felt as though I didn’t get much done. I haven’t done a stitch of knitting (though that might change before bedtime). I did, however, read quite a bit in a book called Infinity: A Very Short Introduction by Ian Stewart.
You can probably guess that such a book isn’t an easy read even though it’s written at an introductory level. I have gone back and re-read some sections until I felt I had at least a grasp of what Stewart was trying to communicate to me. And when I finish the book, I’m not sure which path my further mathematical reading will take. I’ll talk with my mathy friends and see how those conversations shape my reading list. I don’t want to be self-directed in mathematics; I can lead myself into a blind alley as easily as I can solve my favorite problems and read my favorite lines over and over, just as I can in any other field.
Thinking about infinity takes me back to my tenth grade geometry class, sometime in the first few days of the semester. Our teacher described lines and planes that went on forever in all their directions, and I got so caught up in imagining it that by the end of the class I could barely make my way to the door. It was as if all the infinitely existing planes were real and intersecting with each other, blocking my path like a plexiglass maze.
So, what is at the end of infinity? What is beyond infinity? What happens when you divide a number by zero? I certainly don’t have any answers, but I might come up with some more questions.
Today I also finished the blocking process on the Kindness KAL Shawl. By that I mean that in the afternoon the shawl felt dry to the touch, so I removed the wires. The shawl didn’t budge. As you can see, the long edge is slightly curved but everything is generally straight and flat.
My dog Monty got in the shot! Surprise!
This shawl was knitted to be given away, so I won’t reblock it. If the recipient wants to reblock it they are certainly welcome to do so, because it will be their shawl.
Today I received one book from an Amazon order and placed an order for only three more: three more books (including a novel) about African politics and history. I have so many things to learn.
My days have about half as much time as I’d like them to — maybe that’s because I haven’t made a habit of meditating and then planning out my day. In the morning, my mind whirls with everything I think I’d like to do; by mid-afternoon I’m scrambling to take care of what must be done. In the evening I’m in a panic at the “lost” day as I think of all the tasks I didn’t even start.
That’s just something I’ll have to get over. I’ll work on it.
In the meantime, I’ll tell you about what I did do, and not fret about what I haven’t done yet.
Today I worked a little, read a little, and drove a little. Our high schools have really strange exam schedules that are nothing like the exam schedules from my day. The length of the class time varies, the length of the school day varies, and I don’t have a handle on it at all. Eldest went to a different high school than MiddleSon does (and Daughter goes to a third district with which I rarely interact), and I have never figured any of them out. I am constantly taken unawares. That’s the long way ’round of saying I found out at 1:20 that I needed to pick up MiddleSon at 1:20.
I have a long history of being taken unawares by school deadlines and timelines. But that’s not important right now. Moving along, nothing to see here….
A little thing I did today, which is really more of a big thing, was to light a candle and do some reading in memory of a friend’s sister’s dog which ended its 14 years of life today. Losing any companion makes for a sad time. And if you have a pet, give them an extra treat tonight.
A big thing I did today, which is really a little thing in the scheme of all things, was to block the Kindness KAL Shawl. And I took pictures! I you are a yarnie and you haven’t blocked a finished piece yet, this should help to put you at ease and give you the confidence to do it yourself.
DISCLAIMER: Not everything has to be blocked. For wool lace shawls it’s a must. Cotton won’t block, alpaca cares about blocking almost as much as a honey badger does, acrylic requires a special steaming process called “killing,” and blends can usually be tossed in the delicate cycle and just come out soft. But I have made a wool shawl that needs blocking to create the shape it was meant to have. So, here we go!
First, you’ll need to get a set of foam mats. These are interlocking mats you can find in the “workout” aisle of a department store, and they usually come in sets of four. (You can also find them in the “preschool” aisle but they will be different colors and have letters in them. They work, too. Wait for a sale and you can sometimes get them at 20 to 50% off. This pair is a bit the worse for wear because they usually sit in front of the washer and dryer. I wiped them down briefly before putting them on the dining room table (with the extra leaves in). I should have used two more mats for this project, but they were in the garage, combined with others, under a weight bench with at least 200 pounds of weights. So sorry. Will make do with two.
Next, cover the foam mats with an old towel. You’re going to wash your knitted object by hand or on the delicate cycle in the washing machine with a gentle soap, and when you lay it out to dry you’ll need the towel under it to absorb the moisture.
Here I just dumped the shawl onto the towel, right out of the washer. I did have the shawl in a mesh bag while it was in the washer, because I didn’t want it to get snagged in the agitator. But you can see here how the ends of the shawl curl dramatically. This curl would have been less dramatic if I had used larger needles, but we have what we have. Blocking is the only thing that will straighten them out. The blocking wires, or pins, that I am going to use are visible just below the mats.
Here I have threaded the first blocking wire through the garter stitch bumps of what is actually the cast-off edge. Yes, I was actually knitting a triangle, so each side has to be straightened with a stiff wire.
Now, for the long edge. This one showed the most curvature, so it was the side about which I had the most concern. This took two blocking wires because of the length. At this point I wasn’t sure that I would be able to successfully block the shawl into the triangular shape. Look at all that extra area, bunched up in the middle!
All the edges have blocking pins now, but this is not the final shape we want the shawl to be. The stripes aren’t even and the edges aren’t straight. And you can see why I would have wanted to have two more of the foam mats (and another towel) at this point; I would have used quilting pins to lock the blocking wires in place through the foam mats.
After a tug here and a massage here, this is the triangular shape we were looking for. If this were summer, I would have brought a floor fan downstairs and trained it on the shawl, oscillating until the shawl had dried. With this week being so cold, that seems ridiculous and counterproductive. I’ll just leave the whole setup in place until the shawl is dry, and deal with the inconvenience.
Wool is an amazing fiber, and one of the qualities it has is called “memory.” That means that when my shawl dries in this position, it will STAY in this position after I remove the wires. If I have blocked it incorrectly or sloppily, it will show in the finished shape. To change that shape I would have to wash it and block it again. (This may also explain why the care instructions for woolen handknits are often simple “don’t get it dirty”.)
Even as I write this, the shawl is “drawing in” as it dries, and I had to adjust the two wires that are threaded along the longest edge.
Another way to block a shawl is to use straight pins rather than wires; this uses a LOT of pins but is very helpful when blocking out shawls with picot or scalloped edges. The following example is a shawl I knitted a few years ago.
Shaelyn shawl, before blocking.
Shaelyn shawl, pinned out over beach towels.
Shaelyn shawl, detail.
Blocking is not hard at all. It’s really just a process of gentle washing, pinning the project out to the desired shape, and allowing it to dry with that shape. Having the right materials on hand makes it so easy! Mild disclaimer: I do not have a cat, and my dog is neither able nor tempted to jump upon the dining room table to disturb this shawl as it dries. If you do have pets that might interfere with the blocking process, you may want to do this in a spare room or at a kind friend’s house.
Tomorrow beckons. Maybe I’ll do some knitting while you are treated to a guest post from MiddleSon!
Over the past few days, my Facebook feed has filled with the news of the passing of poet Mary Oliver. Co-workers and friends have shared her beautiful poetry and shared how her life has made an impact on their lives. I am in close contact with poets and writers and teachers of poetry and teachers of writing, so this is not surprising.
I was not familiar with Ms. Oliver or her work, and her poems were not taught to me when I studied creative writing (oh so many years ago). But when so many people laud a poet, I do take notice. I need to learn more about Mary Oliver.
I am moved by her poems that have been shared. In fact, I may have even posted one of her poems on my office door for a while; I’ll have to check the byline on it the next time I’m there, as it wasn’t something of which I took notice at the time.
When I sat down to write this post, it was going to be about the process of giving up something that I’ve been trying very hard to hold on to, for a very long time. I won’t get into the details, but it’s one of those situations where your head sees it one way clinically and understands what you ought to do, and then your heart chimes in and insists that what the head wants is absolutely not the way it’s going to go, no matter when the ship goes down or who goes down with it.
I was going to write about all the red flags that I see in my life, over and over, and how I now really see them and I really should do something about them.
Nothing to see here!
I was going to write about making those first steps into the emotional unknown, charting new ground, taking risks, and making myself vulnerable.
Then I was on a non-literary Facebook page where someone posted this.
It is not the weight you carry
but how you carry it—
books, bricks, grief,
it’s all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it
When you cannot,
and would not,
put it down.
~ Mary Oliver, Heavy
Nope, I’m going to stay the course, light the candle, and maybe go down with the ship. (I’ll mix the metaphors, too.) The heart’s in charge on this one. I won’t put down this weight. I will do my best to carry it well. And please, if you know me in person, don’t ask about it.
I haven’t touched the lace shawl for a couple of days, so while there is no forward progress to report there is also no backward progress to report. Huzzah! Nothing to undo here, nothing to see here. Maybe tomorrow.
I have, however, been knitting on the One-Row scarf while watching coverage of the Australian Open. This photo shows seven inches of completed scarf, with many many more inches to go. But it’s a quick knit and I still enjoy the hexagonal needles.
In other news, my friend Lisa drove out to my house today and dropped off a set of blocking wires for the Kindness KAL Shawl. To block it effectively I will need to give it a gentle wash, pray that the colors don’t bleed, add a couple of leaves to my dining room table, and pin the shawl out with wires to make the sides straight, as they should be. I’ll take pictures of the process for the benefits of reader-knitters who have never done this before.
Have you seen this triangle?
Each new skill in knitting is easy after you’ve had the courage to try it and the patience to master it; I well remember my anxiety as I was on the verge of knitting on circular needles, or knitting on double-pointed needles, or making socks, or dyeing yarn with Kool-Aid, or learning how to crochet, or spinning yarn on a wheel. The fear is real, but being on the other side of it is terrific. Learn all that you can, and take that next step. It’s worth it.
When I haven’t been knitting or reading time about the history of the concept of infinity — I have been keeping my Duolingo streak alive. Sometimes it’s not easy to know why it’s hard.
¡No comprendo!
The spring semester begins here next Tuesday, and I will have to get back to my Spanish textbook and workbook and review my notes to do some proper study. I want to sit in on the next-level Spanish class, and I must remember the things I supposedly learned last semester so that I can keep up when I start attending classes again in a few weeks. Wish me suerte.
Today I took a couple of those small steps towards normal life: I did a little work from home, and I baked something. The working from home was a bit awkward because of the web-based email program I had to use, and after an hour my inbox started scrolling through my messages all on its own. I couldn’t control it, so I stopped it and went on to something else. I did find that I was able to access my Outlook calendar from home, though it (and the email interface) looked nothing like what I see at work despite the fact that I use PCs running Windows 10 in each location. Go figure.
Two friends stopped by today: one to drop off two meals and a dessert, and another to take my dog on a long, exhausting walk (it worked!). I spent most of the rest of my day knitting — I’ll go into more detail below — but in the evening I baked some banana bread.
Now, I had not been getting out to do any grocery shopping, but a friend offered to do this chore for me last week. When I gave him my list, I noticed that it didn’t contain any fresh fruits and vegetables. “Just pick something for me,” I said. “I like just about everything.” He showed up with the items on my list and two huge bunches of ripening bananas. Now, I do like bananas. But when I get them I pick out a small bunch so that nothing will go bad.
I do have a son who also likes bananas. But my four children have fruit and vegetable preferences that would be good fodder for either a complex logic puzzle or an extremely uncomplicated Venn diagram. To make a long story short (“too late!”), they have almost no preferences in common. So sixteen bananas (or more, I didn’t count) was a lot of bananas.
Today, when they were perfectly speckled-ripe, I decided that I should make a batch of banana bread. I have a pair of terrific mini-loaf pans that can turn a one-loaf recipe into a dozen tiny loaves, which makes banana bread much easier to share. Half the batch was “plain vanilla,” and the other half contained diced apricots tossed in ground ginger. We’ll see how that goes over tomorrow; my banana-loving son gobbled up a plain loaf after dinner, but none of my kids were willing to try banana-ginger-apricot.
I did have a productive knitting day. As soon as I could justify it, I started working on the final section of the Kindness KAL shawl. By the afternoon I was weaving in the ends and trimming the extra bits. The shawl will definitely need blocking, but I have loaned my blocking wires to a friend. I should be able to get them back next week, so I will set the shawl aside until then.
First FO of 2019!
Then I went back to a previously knitted object — the slippers for my grandmother — and seamed them up and did a new photo shoot. They’re all packed up now and ready to be mailed out tomorrow.
Second FO of 2019!
I had made an idle promise (not, I hope, a Solemn Vow) to cast on for the first slipper of the next pair right away. Now, where did I put that yarn? I dug through a couple of tote bags in search of it, and found an unfinished project about which I had completely forgotten. I’m not sure if the texture shows in this photo, but it’s a washcloth with a Star Trek insignia in relief in the center. I also found the pattern, on which I had actually marked my progress.
It seems a shame not to complete this little cutie before I move on to bigger things, don’t you think?
Third FO of 2019?
But seriously, folks! After the decorative washcloth and the slipper, it does seem to be time for something newer. I don’t know what will call out to me, but there’s a strong likelihood that the next project will be in the blue-to-turquoise range.
Chocolate Sheep 