by Kat | Apr 27, 2022 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
I did practically no knitting on vacation, although I took two projects…sigh.
But!! I came home to find three blooms on the new lilac shoots that have sprung up from the dying bush Steve trimmed back last fall. (I began the discussion of digging the lilac bush out, but have made no headway… yet, lol) I brought those three blooms inside for me to enjoy…and I wish you could experience how lovely they smell!
Since our return on Sunday I have managed to get some inches done on my Summer Tegna, in fact I have about an inch and a half to go to the “great divide”! Woo! I am extremely happy with my yarn choice for this Tegna…Hempathy. It is such a work horse yarn, I have a sweater I knit over 8 years ago that I still wear regularly…and it is a toss in the washing machine and dryer knit!
We had a little burst of warm weather, however bitterly cold temps are on their way… grrrr. I am really over the freezing temps, just saying.
The reading was as slim as the knitting this week. Vacationing with a “non-reader” means not much reading time for me. However, I did have one finish. Not the best book I have ever read, but at least a finish! Ha! But I should finish The Books of Jacob today, if I can carve out some reading minutes today. It has been a true reading commitment and I am really enjoying the writing and the story!
Outside by Ragnar Jónasson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I have read other Ragnar Jónasson books before and I enjoyed them but, sadly, this book was a real miss for me.
The story is told from the viewpoints of the four “suspects” and unfolds slowly as each character reveals a bit more. You begin to see that each character has probable cause and I began to settle in to allow the mystery to unfold in this manner…. and then suddenly it ended. I mean the book ended… not the story. I am wondering if the ARC does not have the actual ending… because I am left feeling very confused.
I would encourage you to read any other Jónasson book and give this one a pass.
I would like to thank Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Minotaur for the ARC.
What about you? What are you making and reading this week?
I will see you all back here on Friday with a bit of a “What I Did On My Spring-ish Vacation” post!
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
by Kat | Apr 25, 2022 | General, Words
Four months into my word and I really am surprised at the Full Discoveries that April brought! When I began this journey with full I considered “being full” to have distinct boundaries. Either you are full… or you are not…and with that idea in mind, I began to look at what was full in my life and what needed more…fullness.
But what if full does not have distinct boundaries? What if it is less a feeling and more an experience?
And so I began thinking about what that would look like…what it might change… and, especially, what that would feel like.
The only people who see the whole picture are the ones who step outside the frame. ― Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet
What if the best part of full is when I step outside of full…or the boundaries I think belong to full?
I can tell you that even just thinking about this changed the way I consider things…and perhaps the best way to explain this is through the photographer’s lens.
Bonny hoped last week that I had taken more photos while at Presque Isle… and while I did take some photos (which I will share later this week… I promise!) I did not take as many photos as I had in previous visits… rather I spent more time looking beyond the frame. Seeing and experiencing more by spending a lot less time looking through my iPhone and it was so invigorating.
My “a-ha moment” was this: every minute does not need to be filled with doing something but instead by stepping into the moment, living in the moment… whatever the moment is… and in changing that one little thing I experienced so much more than I ever had before!
So here I am today… on the Monday-est of Mondays: Re-entry Monday… ugh!
I am wondering if that kind of full can only be had on vacation… you know, when there is not a normal routine or the usual task list of things that must be done. I speak from experience because in the lead up to vacation, I over-filled my days. I tried to do more each day – spring cleaning PLUS regular cleaning, and sewing, and knitting, and reading, and…I think you get the idea.
And you know what, although this is Perfect Vision Hindsight…very little of that was necessary…and if I had stepped into the day and looked at it completely rather than from my “list view” I might have realized that sooner (sans hindsight).
This month brought me so much to think about and I am going to step into May and be more conscious (and maybe more full?) of the moments (and hopefully less full of the unnecessary) on my journey to full!
A huge thanks to Carolyn for hosting us on our One Little Word journeys.
See you all back here on Wednesday!
by Kat | Apr 21, 2022 | General, Poetry
The theme for this week is Forgiveness. Hmmm. Okay. I vaguely remembered reading a poem about forgiveness… but could I find it? It turns out that was quite a challenge… but, thankfully, not one that was at all painful! I spent an afternoon perusing my poetry books, as well as looking online on the Poetry Foundation I had read from my library… with no luck at all in finding the poem I was thinking about.
I had three other poetry resources to check… poetry I listen to…The Slow Down, Poetry Unbound, and The Writer’s Almanac. Of course, it was Pádraig Ó Tuama who shared the poem on forgiveness that I am sharing today. I have printed it and placed in my journal so I can revisit it frequently. It is such a lovely reminder that forgiveness needs to start with yourself. I hope you enjoy this poem as well!
Phase One
by Dilruba Ahmed
For leaving the fridge open
last night, I forgive you.
For conjuring white curtains
instead of living your life.
For the seedlings that wilt, now,
in tiny pots, I forgive you.
For saying no first
but yes as an afterthought.
I forgive you for hideous visions
after childbirth, brought on by loss
of sleep. And when the baby woke
repeatedly, for your silent rebuke
in the dark, “What’s your beef?”
I forgive your letting vines
overtake the garden. For fearing
your own propensity to love.
For losing, again, your bag
en route from San Francisco;
for the equally heedless drive back
on the caffeine-fueled return.
I forgive you for leaving
windows open in rain
and soaking library books
again. For putting forth
only revisions of yourself,
with punctuation worked over,
instead of the disordered truth,
I forgive you. For singing mostly
when the shower drowns
your voice. For so admiring
the drummer you failed to hear
the drum. In forgotten tin cans,
may forgiveness gather. Pooling
in gutters. Gushing from pipes.
A great steady rain of olives
from branches, relieved
of cruelty and petty meanness.
With it, a flurry of wings, thirteen
gray pigeons. Ointment reserved
for healers and prophets. I forgive you.
I forgive you. For feeling awkward
and nervous without reason.
For bearing Keats’s empty vessel
with such calm you worried
you had, perhaps no moral
center at all. For treating your mother
with contempt when she deserved
compassion. I forgive you. I forgive
you. I forgive you. For growing
a capacity for love that is great
but matched only, perhaps,
by your loneliness. For being unable
to forgive yourself first so you
could then forgive others and
at last find a way to become
the love that you want in this world.
Phase One from Bring Now the Angels by Dilruba Ahmed, © 2020.
Please visit Kym, Bonny, and Sarah and see what Forgiveness Poem they are sharing today.
I will see you all back here next Monday! Have a great weekend everyone!
by Kat | Apr 20, 2022 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Very little knitting has happened since last week but that is not necessarily a bad thing! Instead we have been braving the windy cold weather and trekking all over Presque Isle in Erie PA! Yesterday we even “enjoyed” the lake effect flurries that joined us on a very brisk walk, lol.
However, even though I am spitting in the eye of Mother Nature on the weather this week, I would love to see an end to anything that could be remotely described as wintry anything and am really ready for some actual spring-like weather. But!! We have had some incredible sunny moments… and I will take the sunshine even if the temps are only in the 20’s!
I do have some reading updates to share with you all! I had one book I did not finish: The Paper Palace was just not a book for me. I tried, but bailed on it fairly quickly.
I did have some very interesting finishes this week – not all were great – and I continue to work through The Books of Jacob… I am about 2/3’s through it and loving every moment!
Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Franny Stone… the character you love to hate… or at least I did. Or is it the story that is so uncomfortable? Perhaps a mix of both.
This story is set in the future but there is lots of focus on what happened in the past… and things you think are true, might just not be true at all.
This book just fell flat for me. (which might have been the fault of Cutting for Stone… because it is just so much better)
I do not recommend this book, but your mileage might vary.
Chouette by Claire Oshetsky
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is truly one crazy book! It is thoroughly unexpected (but not always in a good way) The heroine (?) – Tiny – finds herself pregnant yet the baby is not her husband’s… nope, she is having an Owl-Baby… dear little Chouette. The relationship between Chouette and Tiny begins shortly after conception… and so begins the reader’s wild ride on this fable. The story is very disconcerting and it made me think of how those who are not “normal” (whatever your normal is) are treated and how much effort is made on changing the “not normal” to be normal rather than accepting them for who and what they are… in all their unique beauty!
The ending…I did so not see that coming. If you would like a little time in an alternate reality, read this book!
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Oh my, this small story packs an enormous punch! And it made me stop and think… for a very long time after I finished listening to it.
The story unfolds in a curious way… and it poses the question…. what do you do if you see something that is wrong… do you look away? Do you try to blow up the entire system? Or do you just do what you can?
Good questions for us any day, but especially today. This is a story that I want to read again with my eyes… it was just that good. I highly recommend.
As always, if you wrote a post to share, please leave your link below!
I will be back to share some poetry tomorrow!
by Kat | Apr 14, 2022 | General, Poetry
In this week’s poetry installment we are all sharing a poem by Sharon Olds. She is a prolific poet and you could get lost for days and days in her poetry books. The poem I have selected is from Stag’s Leap…poetry that shares her journey from from grief to healing after her divorce. A book of poetry that I wish I had read after my own divorce.
All of the poems are so beautiful, but one poem very much hit home for me… and I wonder if my poor children share these feelings because, like Sharon, they were all very planned babies. I did not use shirt cardboards (my ex liked his shirts starched and hanging) but I did have a “conception journal” where I graphed my temperature. (FYI, I looked for it, but could not find it but perhaps that is a good thing, lol) But I really hope that my kids realize, as Sharon does, that my world was infinitely so much better because they were in it!
I hope you enjoy this poem!
The Planned Child
by Sharon Olds
I always hated the way they planned me, she
took the cardboards out of his shirts as if
pulling the backbone up out of his body and
made a chart of the month and put her
temperature on it, rising and falling, to
know the day to make me—I always
wanted to have been conceived in heat,
in haste, by mistake, in love, in sex,
not on cardboard, the little X on the
rising line that did not fall again.
But then you were pouring the wine red as the
gritty clay of this earth, or the blood,
grainy with tiny clots, that rides us
into this life, and you said you could tell I had
been a child who was wanted. I took the
wine into my mouth like my mother’s blood, as I had
ridden down toward the light with my lips
pressed against the sides of that valve in her body, she was
bearing down and then breaking in the mask and then
bearing down, pressing me out into the
world that was not enough for her without me in it,
not the moon, the sun, the stars, Orion
cartwheeling easily across the dark, not the
earth, the sea, none of it was
enough for her, without me.
The Planned Child by Sharon Olds, Stag’s Leap © 2012
Make sure you visit Kym, Bonny, and Sarah today to see what Sharon Olds poem they are sharing today!
I won’t be here tomorrow, but I will be back next week I am not certain about Monday but I will absolutely be here for Unraveled Wednesday. Have a great weekend everyone!
by Kat | Apr 13, 2022 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
This week a knitting milestone… I have reached Cruising Altitude on my Tegna. Yep. I am cruising along with miles of stockinette… which makes it the perfect pick up and put down knit! So I have gotten lots of minutes of knitting in!
Washing machine going…pick up and knit. Dishwasher loaded… pick up and knit. Catch up on Call the Midwives… of course pick up and knit!
The pattern calls for 16 inches to the arm divide. If I have the yarn, and I think I will, I am going to do a bit more than that…maybe 18 inches and then I will do a “mock try on” although trying on a bottom up sweater is lots of guess work… my plan is to measure it against my previous Tegna because I would like it to be a bit longer than that one. Anyways, I very much like the fabric and think it will be the perfect summer sweater!
It’s April, so of course there is a “new” Gnome. I have just the bits and bobs to finish her up. AND!!! It appears that I will be knitting a mystery Gnome for May!
One might think it was a slim reading week…but nothing could be further from the truth. Reality is that nothing else quite feels right after reading such a magnificent book…and if you have not read Cutting for Stone, fix that promptly. And yes, it is that good!
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book. Just wow!
This book had never been on my radar until a friend mentioned that she was rereading it. It was available from my library and so began my journey with Marion and Shiva Stone.
It is epic… truly a magnificent epic story. I laughed, I gasped out loud, I cried and cried some more.
But what I most did not want was for it to end…so I rationed my “listening time” with Marion to savor the story, the writing, the beautiful places, and especially the incredible characters.
I am happy to confess that this book has given me a bit of a “Book Hangover” and nothing else is quite satisfying me right now. I just want to stay with Marion Stone a little bit longer.
I highly recommend this beautiful story!
That is all I have for today! I will be back tomorrow with a bit of poetry to share with you all.
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
by Kat | Apr 11, 2022 | General, In This Moment
Is for lists of things… good and not so great. I would ask you if you want the good or the not so great first, but since you are not here… I will get the not so great out of the way. If your Monday is Monday enough without any more not so great, please skip ahead to Thing Three!
Thing One… today is my sister’s 58th birthday and it has been 3 months since I have heard a word from her. I am holding on to the thought that no one has contacted me with bad news… Still, it was so easy to get used to talking again…however brief… and even though it was simply because she had hit the bottoms bottom… I miss talking to her… even it if it just to listen to her version of truth.
Thing Two… (as if Thing One was not depressing enough) 100 days into 2022 and Pittsburgh has had 4-whole-days-of-sunshine. 4-freaking-days. I am more than ready for some prolonged moments (days? weeks?) of sunshine. Also… I am going to remind myself of this in August when it is 90-gazillion degrees and we need rain.
The remainder of my list is for your ears… things to listen to while you work on your Monday list.
Thing Three… This morning Season Five of Poetry Unbound began! Ahhhh…and this morning’s episode was exactly what I needed (“I put myself back into the trance…weather, gossip, news”)… because of course poetry helps all things…and even more Pádraig’s commentary… it helped me make sense of my void.
Thing Four…Thankfully, Jon Meacham has returned with another podcast offering. I have listened to several installments… they are short… and so lovely. If you like history, then I think you will enjoy Reflections of History.
Thing Five… Ocean Vuong. His latest book of poetry, Time is a Mother, was released on the 5th. You can listen to a beautiful interview here from NPR’s Book of the Day podcast. I found myself nodding with so much of what Ocean shared with Rachel Martin.
I hope your Monday is gentle… see you all back here on Wednesday.
by Kat | Apr 8, 2022 | General, Museum of Me
In a perfect world, I would read all instructions clearly. Sigh.
That’s right. Last month I shared a job I used to have… which is this month’s prompt.
So…
This month, I am sharing something I collect…which was last month’s prompt!
Anyways, I have a deep love for antiques and I am so fortunate to have so many amazing pieces, with an emphasis on painted American furniture. Big, bold, fill-up-the-room pieces. And I enjoy them (and use them) every day! I have some antique textiles and even some fun antique barware. I like thinking about the history of the piece and especially about the maker who made them. I like them for their beauty, but they were made for their functionality… a necessity for their daily life.
But what about the pieces that I don’t use… the extra special treasures I am so fortunate to have. Well those are the pieces that I truly love… and the ones that hold some beautiful bits of my family history.
First up is an incredible quilt (sorry there is no “full photo”… the weather has absolutely hampered my getting a good picture of it in the yard… it is not super large, but it covers a full sized bed, with no overhang) This quilt was made for my maternal grandparents…it was a wedding present to them in 1932 – for their bed – which had to be way smaller than a full sized bed – by my grandpa’s Aunt Eleanor. It is entirely hand stitched… and it is a true treasure. Most of the fabrics were “recycled” (although they did not use the word recycled in the 30’s) from clothing that her family wore. It eventually became the “quilt on the grandkids” bed… yep, when we spent the night at Nana’s house… we slept under this quilt.
There was not a lot of room for extravagances in my grandparent’s lives. They struggled financially and I don’t know where the Hummel figures came from, but two of them were in my nana’s corner cupboard as long as I could remember. (The one on the left, I found in an antique shop some 40 years ago… the set of angels should have been 3… but I have never found the accordion playing angel to add to the collection)
However, my nana was so proud of those two angels… though we were never, ever allowed to touch them! They get the same treatment here… they are safe in Steve’s Grandma’s clock cabinet in our dining room.
My nana was absolutely a use it until it dies and then find another use for it girl. The other treasure I have is her clothes pin bag… and yes, she made it. As I recall from the story… and this was very much alive and in in use by the time I was born in 1960… it is from an old pair of curtains that had faded. But my nana never just got rid of anything that could be repurposed into something else and so as the story goes the sun had faded some areas of her kitchen curtains… and so my nana cut out the faded bits and with the remainder made curtains for her garage (because doesn’t everyone’s garage have curtains?) and the final “scraps” became her “new” clothes pin bag. Curiously, the hanger that was originally in the bag rusted and had to be thrown away. Yep… the bag has outlived its original hanger.
The other special pieces are two things that hung prominently in my nana’s house. The Ten Commandments (dated May 4..er…5 1944… signed on the back …both times… by my Grandpa – although I am not sure why he did that twice nor do I know the why behind the two different dates… however, I love having a reminder of his beautiful handwriting) and The Morning Prayer (which used to glow in the dark… really. I remember thinking it quite spooky, back in the day!) Both of these pieces now live on the wall in my “office”… the room with my sewing machine, that cupboard with my stash. It is nice having bits and pieces of things that my were part of my grandparents lives still visible and with me today.
And there you have my very tiny, but oh so precious collection of Very Special Things.
See you all back here on Monday! Have a great weekend!
by Kat | Apr 7, 2022 | General, Poetry
This week’s theme is hope. Whew. What a week for hope, huh?
He that lives upon hope will die fasting. — Benjamin Franklin
I have always thought that hope was a singular thing… something you had inside you… or had to find inside you. Or if you could not find it inside you… then “Look UP and find hope” seemed to me to be the usual answer.
But what if it’s not?
The poem I am sharing today speaks differently of hope. And this is the kind of hope that I am looking for… the hope that has been left for me to find along my journey.
Hope
by Rosemary Wahtola Trommer
Hope has holes
in its pockets.
It leaves little
crumb trails
so that we,
when anxious,
can follow it.
Hope’s secret:
it doesn’t know
the destination—
it knows only
that all roads
begin with one
foot in front
of the other.
Hope by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer from How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. Published by Story Publishing.
Please visit Kym, Bonny, and Sarah today to see what hope they have to share.
Happy Thursday, Everyone!
by Kat | Apr 6, 2022 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
I did not plan on being ‘absent’ on Monday… but the news out of Ukraine put a damper on my planned post for the day. For me, it seemed that sharing something in light of the news out of Bucha just seemed… wrong. And while it does not seem any better to share such trivial things as making and reading today… here I am.
The making this week has sort of been over-taken by the news and my “escape reality reading.” I am only listening to one book… and so I managed… at least… to get through the lace work on my Summer Tegna. Evening socks have been slow going, but I think I have a plan in my mind’s eye that I think will be interesting. Onward to the heel turn we go!
Some weeks are for reading finishes and some weeks are for reading-in-progress and this week is all about that! I only have one finish… though it was lovely. However, in the ‘reading in progress‘ list… there are so many amazing books. Books so good I want to prolong the reading of them…. and luckily there are some very lengthy books! So there is lots of time to enjoy them. Imagine my surprise when I was contemplating having to return The Books of Jacob on Friday…and I am only half way through… only to find somehow, miraculously, was automatically renewed for another 21 days. The Library Gods are so good! I am dividing my day into three time frames… mornings with Cutting for Stone, afternoons with The Books of Jacob, and night-time reading of a lighter variety… I started Chouette… a very curious tale indeed!
But my finish for the week was a lovely eye-opener… and one I recommend if you are like nature, or want to be a better ally. This one checks both boxes… in the most beautiful way.
The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature by J. Drew Lanham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Never before did I ever think about racism being a deterrent to appreciating nature. Thank you, Drew Lanham for showing me the foolish errors of my ways. And as I read this book… and eased into Lanham’s love of nature… I realized that what is an activity that is not harmful to me… is not that for everyone.
There are preconceived notions – of where I should go, of what I should do, and even of who I should do it with – of who I am supposed to be as a black man. But my choice of career and my passion for wildness means that I will forever be the odd bird, the raven in a horde of white doves, the blackbird in a flock of snow buntings.
And yet… Lanham shares some of the most beautiful things I have ever read about nature… and especially about birds.
If you want to see things from a new perspective, this book is an excellent place to start.
And that is all I have for today. What about you… what is helping you be distracted this week?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
