Today I have a bunch of random things to share and I am making them fit TGIF. I think it works.
And so let’s get started!
Teaching (myself?):
Last year, I mentioned that I had some socks in need of some mending… well, the number has grown since then. How is it possible that all.the.socks. are wearing out all at once? It is boggling my mind to be sure! And, ironically, this arrived in my email the same week the latest sock become “holy” … a darning “class”? Okay. I am in! And the same day a darning mushroom was on sale on Amazon and it seemed inevitable. It is being delivered to my house today (along with some darning needles). I have 4 pairs of socks in need of heel repair and I am determined that I will learn how to do this and have the end result be four *comfortably* wearable pairs of socks! (and then I can fix the uncomfortably repaired pair!)
A Healing of the Heels is in order!
Getting (uncomfortable):
Speaking of uncomfortable…it needs to get real, Gentle Readers. Very real. Uncomfortably real… this is our year to be uncomfortable. I lowered my reading goal this year… for a reason. I wanted to spend more time reading things that made me uncomfortable. Things that will help me see beyond my white privilege. Things that will help me better understand what the BiPOC community experiences on a daily basis. Things that will make me uncomfortable…
This thread by Nikole Hannah-Jones. It opened my eyes. It shocked me. And yes, it now has me wanting to find all of MLK’s writings that I have never, ever read and get uncomfortable! (and to have some wearable reinforcement…I have asked Steve to get me this for V-day instead of flowers)
In (my worry corner):
The past 3 weeks have been rough. My son’s girlfriend started the COVID Train… she was exposed and then, sadly, came down with it. Which meant, of course, that my son got it. (She was quite sick, he had a slightly milder case) and yesterday another family member let me know they now have COVID. (It’s my sister who is not boosted… who is living in group housing… and is now in isolation… which I don’t think is good for her at anytime, but right now, I think it’s especially bad.) I realize it is but a matter of time… so to speak… until we all have it with numbers skyrocketing. But my worry level is off the charts… (add to all this there was a tragic accident on Monday at my son-in-law’s place of employment … a boat … and I am really needing for my people to be close enough that I can see them, hold them, and feed them…)
Finding (diversions):
This week it was all about occupying my mind… so I wound the Base 12 yarn and cast on that Hitchhiker. I also wound so many skeins of yarn… enough to fill a HUGE knitting bag… and started Gnome One in the Year of Gnomes. It is a pattern I purchased but never knit! Welcome to the start of ADVENTure Gnome! I have started on the hat and I am loving how this looks… now to figure out the ball at the top of the hat! LOL
A Worry Hitchhiker seems so appropriate but coupled with the silliness of Gnome Knitting… there is a bit of balance.
Both knitting projects are excellent diversions because they require me to keep track of something physical… in other words, they are not mindless knits!
I also was shocked to find that Stacy Abrams book, While Justice Sleeps, was available on Overdrive so I downloaded it. And yes… it is lovely to have breathing space between reads to be able to read something totally unexpected!
And that is all I have for this week! Have a great weekend and stay warm if you are in the path of this bitter cold!
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. — Martin Luther King Jr.
This is the quote I wrote in my calendar to greet me this morning. An excellent reminder when the finite disappointment seems more like endless disappointment and I have lost sight of infinite hope. This week, I am going to be refocusing on hope.
An update from last week: I shared my Bialetti pots and Karen mentioned that what coffee you use is important. This is most certainly true! I have found that a darker roast beans brew a better pot of coffee and my favorite is one we can find at our local Costco… Mayorga Café Cubano. How you grind the coffee is also important… you can’t grind it so finely that the water cannot “perk” through the grounds. I have found that an “auto-drip” grind works very well.
Just when I had begun to wonder if winter would ever arrive… it did and then some yesterday! We have about 8 inches of snow (which shuts all of Pittsburgh down!) and it is still coming down this morning. My thyme that will not die is blanketed in snow this morning… still green and I will be picking some to make some breadsticks to go with dinner. (I think it is telling me that it has infinite hope!)
But yes, it was a morning that required all.the.handknits for Sherman’s morning constitutional! Ha! (Although, all the hand knits was probably overkill considering that Sherman was out for less than 3 minutes!)
If you too are in the path of this momentous storm, stay safe and warm! It is a morning for an extra cuppa and a good book!
In my household, we have finally gotten past the “Holiday Weeks” that encompass the end of the year and generally spill into the New Year. Today is the first “normal Monday” I have had in a while and it feels so good!
We had some snow on Friday for a hot minute… sigh. By Sunday it was all gone and the rains returned… by Sunday afternoon my poor yard was just one giant soggy (which then turned into the frozen tundra this morning!) Yep, weather whiplash is in high gear here… 40’s yesterday and a bitter 18° this morning.
I purposely left my Dickens Village up when I took down the remainder of Christmas… I really enjoyed it this year and leaving it up for these extra days has been a treat. But today I will take it all down and tuck it safely away for another year. I am ready for a “cleaner” mantle.
Today all this will be packed away!
Last week Bonny shared that she picked up some instant espresso to treat herself and I loved this little idea of “treating oneself”. It is one of the best self care things ever… to do something special for yourself! Some years ago I “treated” myself to a wee little Bialetti Moka Express Pot. It was the best purchase I ever made for myself! I soon added a 6-cup model and I use one of these pots every single day. I don’t own a drip coffee pot any longer. I make myself a pot every single morning and on the morning’s that Steve is here then I use the larger pot to split between us. About once a quarter I have to change the rubber gasket and once a year I put in a new filter in as well. As you can see it is well-used! (Barkeepers Friend keeps it nice and shiny!) The best part is that the only “waste” I have on a daily basis are coffee grounds and I can put them in a container to mulch into my garden.
1. All ready for service! 2. Fill with water to “this” line! 3. Next, fill the basket with grounds. 4. Finally, add some frothed milk and a splash of cinnamon syrup and enjoy!
And that is my best advice for you on this “back to normal” (??) Monday… treat yourself to something special today! And skip those guilty thoughts… just treat yourself! You are so very worth it!
In December, as I began thinking about my word for this year… one of the things that I also spent some time contemplating was this blog. I thought long and hard about its future and I determined that I still had things to share, contributions to make, and, especially, the connections I have made here over the years! But, this blog does not write itself and that means that I have to make an actual effort to… well… create content to post here!
I have sort of mapped out a plan of post topics to help me “jump start” my creativity and so this First Friday it begins!
I will be doing quarterly “Currently” posts as a check in with myself… what am I doing. (or most importantly…what am I not doing and what should I be doing!)
Unpacking: My word! January is always such a fun month to spend looking at all the possibilities a word has and in the unpacking of the word, I always always find things I did not previously consider about the word. And I just love writing down definitions, writing down the “stream of words” that come to my mind as I unpack the word. Good things for January! It is the one month that I really like being at my desk!
Planning: Some January sewing! I think this is the *second* winter that has passed since I determined that I’d like a pair of corduroy pants… (THIS is exactly what these posts are going to help me do… be more accountable on the things I “talk” about wanting to get done! HA) Anyways… I simply love Sew House Seven’s Free Range Slacks and I plan on getting the pattern cut out this weekend so I am ready to start sewing on Monday! I also really need a couple of “nicer” sweat shirt-style shirts. I have had the Cosmos Sweatshirt pattern for a while now and I have these two lovely pieces of French Terry from Blackbird Fabrics. FOMU (that’s Fear Of Messing Up) has stymied me however. But I did not buy the fabric to just look at it! So I am breaking out from the fear and at least getting them washed and dried today! Then I will plan my next steps… I have not sewn knits is so long. (but thankfully Sewing YouTube has dozens of helpful videos!)
Shaking up: Friday Happy Hours! Boy, have they felt stale as the year ended. So I have been spent a little bit of time finding some new recipes and ideas to “spruce them up” a bit! Phase One starts tonight with a something freshly baked… stay tuned! (And I will be posting an update on IG! What??? LOL)
Speaking of Baking: In November I began making a “bucket” of dough and have been using Zoë François/Jeff Hertzberg 5-minute bread recipe. It keeps is the fridge for 2 weeks and makes it so simple to just pull out a bit of dough to make a loaf of very good bread! I expect this to continue as the dough can be used for pizza as well! It is nice having home made pizza every other week! (A favorite of ours is one with a chicken breast that I have previously cooked and shredded, some artichoke hearts, a drizzle of olive oil and some parmesan cheese!)
Watching: Call the Midwife and loving every second of it! (I also watched the first episode of Around the World in 80-days with DAVID TENNANT… so far, so good…and DAVID TENNANT!) These have been my “companions” while I have been spinning… and they are such very good company!
Spinning… with a plan in mind: I started a “sweater spin” last year and it sort of lost its sparkle. I love the fiber but the sweater part of the spinning has been the issue I think. So I changed the sweater plan… drastically! I knit Romi’s Morinne sweater (Rav link) some years ago and I love the design and fit so much… but the yarn I knit it with… not so much. It pills horribly and now after some years of wear it really looks like hell. This change in sweater has spurred on my spinning… as has the excitement of opening a little bit of fiber each day from Hipstrings Base12 Advent spin… which I thought was just spinning with no plan until yesterday… I think that this will make a lovely Hitchhiker (and I am sure that I will have more than enough yarn to knit a generous one!)
Bandwagon Knitting: I know that I said I was NOT doing any bandwagon knitting this year… but I should know better than to every say never… because on Wednesday night I jumped on the Musselburgh Wagon and began that fiddly little cast on. I am not through all the increases yet so I have not quite gotten to the “mindless knitting” portion of the hat… but soon!
And there you have the things that are currently filling the minutes of my days! What about you? Tell me one thing that you are really excited about!
Have a great weekend everyone and I will see you all back here on Monday!
Happy Birthday to me! Today begins my 61st year! 61 years brings lots of retrospection and thinking about birthdays of long ago. When I was a child, it almost always seemed to snow on my birthday and I loved it so much! I have also been thinking about Christmas Vacation birthdays. That’s right…one of the benefits of having your birthday 2 days after Christmas is that you never have school… but that is one of the detriments as well. Sometimes it would have been nice to be in school on my birthday… and even better, it would have been so fun having a snow day!
I won’t see any snow today (it’s pouring down rain…sigh) but thankfully Billy Collins can conjure up a Snow Day for me!
I hope you all enjoy a bit of a Snow Day today (even if there is no physical snow!) I will see you back here tomorrow with an update on my word!
Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,
and beyond these windows
the government buildings smothered,
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost
under the noiseless drift,
the paths of trains softly blocked,
the world fallen under this falling.
In a while, I will put on some boots
and step out like someone walking in water,
and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,
and I will shake a laden branch
sending a cold shower down on us both.
But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,
a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.
I will make a pot of tea
and listen to the plastic radio on the counter,
as glad as anyone to hear the news
that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,
the Ding-Dong School, closed.
the All Aboard Children’s School, closed,
the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,
along with—some will be delighted to hear—
the Toadstool School, the Little School,
Little Sparrows Nursery School,
Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School
the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,
and—clap your hands—the Peanuts Play School.
So this is where the children hide all day,
These are the nests where they letter and draw,
where they put on their bright miniature jackets,
all darting and climbing and sliding,
all but the few girls whispering by the fence.
And now I am listening hard
in the grandiose silence of the snow,
trying to hear what those three girls are plotting,
what riot is afoot,
which small queen is about to be brought down.
There are times when hindsight gives a clarity that is astounding… I should have voted with the doctor for stitches rather than voting for no stitches. Her wisdom has been so correct…she gave me two scenarios: One: get stitches, likely lose my nail, but my finger would heal faster…but likely probably with more pain. Two: no stitches, perhaps keep my nail, heal slower, but with less pain… and here I am more than a week in and my finger is still not healed and still not fully functional. My frustration level is moving towards the “off the charts” realm and I am sick of the entire process of healing/cleaning/bandaging/etc. (And while I can sort of type… mainly it is an activity that increases my frustration level!)
If ever there was a need in my life for poetry, it is this morning. And today… I am sharing two poems that I truly love. The first, In the Bleak Midwinter by Christina Rossetti. This poem has always been one of my favorite hymns, but I did not know about Christina or her poetry until I did some research on the poem. Below is a very unique version of the hymn… which is usually sung by a boys choir (and quite beautifully, I might add) but there was something just stunning about this rendition.
And how can one ease into winter without a bit of Robert Frost? This poem sort of sums up my week ahead… I have miles to go before I can be ready for Christmas! lol
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by ROBERT FROST
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
