When I’m at work I sing. It gives me strength during difficult times, and I believe it helps heal. — Lori Marie Key
I don’t know if you all watched the very moving and long overdue Memorial for the more than 400,000 American’s who have died. I did and it seems that this service broke the dam. I cried and once I started, I just could not stop. It felt like all the months of living on the edge of “what next” created a torrent of tears. But there was hope in those tears! It felt like a huge weight had been lifted. Thank you, Lori Marie Key, for giving me hope (and releasing the floodgates!)
But the tears did not stop on Tuesday night… they continued on into Wednesday. I have watched a few inaugurations, but Wednesday was more emotional and I cried lots. I wept with joy and sadness when Kamala was sworn in. Joy because YES, a WOMAN! But I also thought about how it must have felt for Hillary… bittersweet. And President Biden’s speech will absolutely go down in the history books as one of the greatest Inaugural Addresses ever.
But let’s talk for a minute about the hope that Amanda Gorman filled me with…a shining beacon of hope! Her entire poem was moving, but the ending was a clarion call for me. (you can read The Hill We Climb here)
So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left, with every breath from my bronze, pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one, we will rise from the golden hills of the West, we will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution, we will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states, we will rise from the sunbaked South, we will rebuild, reconcile, and recover in every known nook of our nation in every corner called our country our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful, when the day comes we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid, the new dawn blooms as we free it, for there is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.
I have not be able to get enough of Amanda since Wednesday and I stumbled across these video’s – a treasure trove of brilliance! This poem really stood out to me… especially since 1/6.
And finally, Bernie. Who knew that he and his mittens would bring such laughter (and inside that laughter…hope!)
There have been *hundreds* of memes but my favorites are in this Twitter thread from local photographer Dave DiCello:
I didn’t want to do the Bernie thing. I didn’t. But I also had too many ideas as soon as I saw the meme to ignore it. Tried to do a little more than just plopping him into random scenes around #Pittsburgh, and these were fun to do. Enjoy. pic.twitter.com/eItLMovASN
What we love to do we find time to do. — John L. Spalding
Welcome to Inauguration Day Unravelers!
This past week has been all about vacillating between wanting to watch the news and trying to avoid the news. I think I found a good balance and in the process did some yarn sorting and organizing. I also did some project sorting and organizing as well. I have some projects that the yarn was reclaimed and some projects that are sitting so I can think a bit more about reclaiming the yarn or finishing the project. And there are some projects that I asked myself why it was not done… one of those projects spent a bit of time with me when I watched the news and have made some significant progress to finishing!
This is the project (Rav Link) that has been in my hands the most this week. Before I picked it up, I was just about half way done with this scarf and today I have less than two sections to go!
I also finished the second braid of fiber and completed plying last week’s yarn. It turned out better than I hoped and although there are a couple of under-plied spots, I think it will be alright once it has had a nice soak! In fact, it will be hanging to dry soon and then, dare I hope, I will be casting on a Hitchhiker!!
The reading was good this week! I follow John Boyne on Twitter and some weeks ago he suggested The Thursday Murder Club and I am so glad he did!
I picked this book up based on a recommendation by John Boyne and I am so glad I did! How fun would it be to have a Murder Club? Riotously fun, if you go by Osman’s version! I laughed, I loved the turns this story took, but I especially adored Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron… they were simply divine!
I highly recommend this witty book and I am eagerly awaiting the next installment!
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below! Thank you!
True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice. — Martin Luther King Jr
It’s MLK Jr Day so why does it still feel like for every step we take forward, there are dozens of steps back. And if I in my white privilege feel this, how much worse do Black and Brown American’s feel it? It weighs heavily on my heart but despite it, I press forward for justice.
I hope that the Biden Administration has a plan to change these numbers drastically.
When Justice Sotomayor say’s their names:
Justice Sotomayor opens her dissent in U.S. v. Dustin Higgs by saying the names of every person executed by the federal government over the past year. pic.twitter.com/KLHcRTWMIZ
“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”
― John Bunyan
This week, hope seemed to be jumping up all around me shouting… Over here! and Look at me! Yes, hope was overflowing and it filled me! Lots of people doing things that can never be repaid.
My community has a place where those with an abundance can give to those in need. I am always amazed at the generosity of this community, but this week one incredible woman… oh my lands…knit and donated 7 pairs of hand knit socks! This extraordinary act might have brought tears to my eyes! I mean… what a wonder!
Last week there were so many people who “did something” that can never be repaid. Eugene Goodman is one of those people. I have had Officer Goodman on my mind all week and it made me happy to read that he is being considered for the Congressional Gold Medal. This nation owes him a debt of gratitude and he gives me so much hope!
I follow a plethora of people on Twitter, but one person I follow never ceases to inspire me, to make me think, to make me stop and consider. They did that this week in a big way with this letter that felt like it was written to me. In the letter, Pastor Emily frankly discussed the anger they felt… anger that I too was feeling… then they opened the window to let hope in:
“Perhaps I am writing this letter more to myself than anyone else, but I sense that there are others who might feel the same as I do tonight. To us I say this: there is hope. There is hope, because there is the knowledge that this is not the way things should be. There is hope because we care enough to not look away.”
I would like to thank Pastor Emily for allowing me to share their words here.
“I have to say I hit a wall on Friday afternoon. Then I read about Nancy Pelosi. At 80 years old, she faced madmen with assault rifles, stayed up until 4:30 a.m. to make sure the House certified Biden’s election, and then got to work drafting articles of impeachment. What a heroine!!”
A week that just overflowed with hope…(and if you need one tiny bit more…since December 21 the Pittsburgh daylight has increased by 19 minutes and 23 seconds – Yahoo!)
Have a great weekend and I will see you all back here next week!
“ I will continue to freak out my children by knitting in public. It’s good for them.”
―Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit’s End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much
Thinking back, I do not think my kids ever freaked out over my knitting in public, but Steve on the other hand absolutely does! Ha! Fortunately, I have done no knitting in public this week (and Zoom knitting does not count!)
Speaking of this week…oy! Let’s talk about how freaky it is to “knit while watching an insurrection” at The Capital takes place. End results: one finished pair of socks, and started one cowl! (Justyna Lorkowski’s Heart Warmer) I also found treadling helped with the stress and I finished one braid of fiber!
Spinning might be the perfect thing to do while “stress watching” television! This is some of the oldest fiber I have. It is BFL from Spunky Eclectic and was a bit compacted from storage, but opening it up a bit made spinning it a dream. I can spin BFL so thin and I have some Hitchhiker plans for this beautiful gradient yarn… One braid to go and then some plying and I can’t wait to be knitting it!
The reading was so varied this week! And despite the chaos, I was able to finish two books. And they were two very different books!
What a curious tale of a girl who makes a “deal with the devil” and so begins her journey over the centuries, until one day she meets someone different. The story jumps around a bit and it leaves some logical questions unanswered. The strangest conversations take place between her and the darkness. The moral of the story? Be careful what you wish for! (I think this would be a GREAT book for a book club to read and discuss!)
A short introduction to The Murderbot Diaries. (Very short, it was only about 3 hours of listening!) However, in 3 hours my interest has been piqued! I look forward to the second installment! If you like futuristic novels, I think you will like this!
As always – if you wrote a post to share, please leave your link below! Thank you!
I have been debating with myself since the waning days of December about doing this last “Look Back” of the year. It was just such a month of “nothing.” Yes, I decorated for the holidays. Yes, I listened to music and sang along loudly! But it just wasn’t at all a “normal” year. Christmas gifts were ordered (for the most part) on Amazon and shipped directly to the recipients. If I thought mail was slow moving here in my neighborhood, well… Michigan said “Hold my beer” with their mail delivery foibles (a simple anniversary card has yet to arrive, though it was mailed on December 14th). A package that was full of special things for Vivi was sent at astronomical cost via UPS, but at least it arrived safely!
Yet, though all of this… it just did not feel like “year end” if you know what I mean. December just felt very discombobulated. I found myself waffling between these two sentiments: how on earth is this year over and how on earth is this year NOT over!
But there are photos (minus the 28th when I just did not take any photos at all!) and, though they are far from exciting, I am sharing them with you!
The Best Part of the Month
Are things that are not reflected here. A handmade Christmas and Birthday card from Vivi. My daughter’s ingenuity in making an ornament with Winston’s wee handprint on it! FaceTime calls, phone calls, and text messages galore. And my son getting a significant promotion at work. Those are simply the best things ever.
Something New Old
In this month that lacked any semblance of “sameness” I found the best comfort in “old things.” Things like ornaments my kids made when they were little and Firestone Christmas carols.
Also… me… yes, I quietly turned 60 in December. And that was exactly how I wanted it to be. It was a day of reflection for me… where I have been, where I am now, and where do I still want to be.
Best “Oh, Wow” Moment/s
I loved that the Scott Volunteer Fire Department brought Santa around… masked and safety protocols in place… so that the child in all of us could experience again the wonder that is Christmas.
The Christmas morning photos of Vivi and Win just make my heart sing with joy.
AND! That $6 amaryllis that I got from Trader Joe’s that started to open on my birthday.
What I did Well and What I can do Better
I did these “Look Backs” for the entire year, but I think they can be better. More unique. More individual. My word (Release) is helping with that… in fact it might be the very first thing I let go of… the rote task of scrambling to take a photo. Yes there will still be a look back in 2021, but it will look and feel very different!
That is it as I shut the door on 2020. I hope you enjoy this look back as much as I do! If you want to see the entire year of Look Back, you will find them all here!
Thanks and I will see you back here on Wednesday for some Unraveling!
Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. — Anne Lamott
I think we all need a bit of stubborn hope today, even though it feels like all hope has vanished.
I expected *something* to happening on Wednesday…what I did not imagine was that a mob of white supremacist insurgents would actually gain access to the People’s House. Nor could I imagine they would gleefully post their criminal behavior all over social media and then just waltz out looking like their team just won the Super Bowl….while the Capital Police held the doors for them! Yesterday, as more news unfolded surrounding the horrors of Wednesday, my mood got progressively darker.
But despite the trauma to our great nation there were some things this week that gave me some hope to hold! Things like Reverend Doctor Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff… Stacey Abrams and Nsé Ufot… and the Atlanta Dream who did some research, liked what they heard, and lifted Rev Warnock up… by wearing his name on their shirts!
It still feels so dark to me today, but I am stubbornly holding onto hope.
Have a good weekend everyone, see you all back here next week!
“I recognize that knitting can improve my mood in trying circumstances” ― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit’s End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much
Today, of all days, is a day to keep your knitting at hand to help your mood for what certainly will be some trying circumstances. But, as Kamala said on Monday night, “We are going to be inaugurated. Period!” So keep her voice echoing in your head as you knit today!
A New Year and some new knitting perhaps? Did any of you cast on a new project to start the New Year? I did not cast on anything new but…
I did some spinning! First, after letting my singles rest a good long time, I plied my last skein of Prose from Hipstrings. It needed two “run through’s” to get enough twist, but it has had a nice bath and it poofed up beautifully! I love how all of this turned out. It is a little heavier than fingering weight and I think I have about 1100 yards of yarn, though I have not calculated the final yardage since washing, but I should have enough to do a cropped-ish sweater with 3/4 length sleeves.
AND!! I I spun up this beauty as well! It is a very interesting blend of fiber! I erroneously thought this was the same blend as Buoy, but I was wrong… however, I really like this yarn and I might have ordered some more of it. It would make a wonderfully cozy hat and a pair of mitts!
I also have been knitting a few rounds on my socks, as you can see, and I might be done but after I completed the heel I just started knitting the leg… sans the pattern. Sigh. I was about 20 rows in when I realized it, but rather than rip it all out I tried something new. I just unraveled the 4 stitches on each side and reknit with the pattern this time! Yes, I shocked myself! Yes, it was a bit fiddly, but I did it!!
Now, how about a little reading? I have managed to finish ONE book to start the new year (although I am close on a couple of others…) It was a lovely book to start the year with!
“We tell stories. We tell stories to pass the time, to leave the world for a while, or go more deeply into it. We tell stories to heal the pain of living.”
This book. Oh my goodness. The writing. The words. They gathered my hands and drew me gently in to the most wonderous story! I laughed, I cried… a lot, and just did not want it to end. I want to be Ruth Swain! I want to have Niall Williams gift of writing! I want to live in a place where…It started raining here in the sixteenth century and hasn’t stopped.
But more than anything, this: I am plain Ruth Swain. See me, nineteen, narrow face, MacCarroll eyes, thin lips, dull hazelnut hair, gleamy Swain skin, pale untannable oddment, bony, book-lover, reader of so many nineteen-century novels before the age of fifteen that I became too clever by half, sufferer of Smart Girl Syndrome, possessor of opinions and good marks, student of pure English, Fresher, Trinity College Dublin, the poet’s daughter.
If this brilliant book is not on your must read list, put it there immediately. But better than that, get it, open it and start reading!
As always – if you wrote a post you’d like to share, please leave your link below and thank you!
Happy First Monday in January! There might be a wee bit of excitement in my house this morning as Steve returns to his “usual schedule” this week…whew! LOL
My day is full of so many things from laundry to Undecorating to OLW contemplation… a truly varied list. I am hoping that laundry becomes less “mundane” when paired with OLW contemplation.
This short poem that I listened to yesterday was so full! It is going to be my guide for a January of quiet contemplation. I hope you find something in these words to help your January get off to a very good start! See you all back here on Wednesday for some “first finishes” of the New Year!
Winter Is the Best Time
by David Budbill
Winter is the best time
to find out who you are.
Quiet, contemplation time,
away from the rushing world,
cold time, dark time, holed-up
pulled-in time and space
to see that inner landscape,
that place hidden and within.
Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier.’ — Alfred Lord Tennyson
Happy New Year! I have written this quote in my journal to greet me next week, although… doesn’t it feel like today is the start of a new week rather than Friday? Is it just me or are any of you all turned around on what day it is. That upside down factor has been amplified because Steve has been working from home more recently so I don’t have his normal routine to help me with days! But… happier. Doesn’t that sound lovely? It certainly does for me. There were glimmers of hope this week again… seek and ye shall find… yes, indeed!
The birds again were Harbingers of Hope when one morning about 20 robins were flocking in the bushes next to my porch, enjoying a breakfast of the frozen berries that are hanging in bunches all over. I saw some birds standing guard, alert for danger while the others gleefully gobbled up the berries… and then I saw them trade places so the “guard birds” could participate in the feast! If the birds can care for one another, surely that gives us all hope that we can too!
Our Christmas snow melted away this week, but twice I woke to a fresh dusting of snow making everything look so bright and clean… a visible reminder that each day we have a clean slate – a chance to begin again. And that is the best kind of hope of all… that no matter how miserably I failed the day before I have a chance to try again.
A new year means setting a new reading goal (or at least for me it does, lol) and setting that goal is the epitome of hope! The wishful thinking of how much I might read in a year… it is like that open door, smiling with a promise of happiness. In previous years, I have set a challenging goals, and I knew that in order to achieve the goal I would have to stay focused and work at it. Sometimes I met the goal, other times I did not… so last year I set a what I call a “fake goal” one that was low and I knew I could easily meet it (and I did and then some). But you know what? There was absolutely zero satisfaction in my achievement this year… I cheated myself. Oh, I read and I certainly enjoyed the books I read, but I learned that “faking myself out” has no rewards. So while I am still contemplating my reading goal… it won’t be a cheater goal. I found some interesting books on this list that will help me with the start of the New Year (and they are all about Fresh Starts – and a fresh start is always full of hope!)
And there you have it, the hope I found this week. Welcome 2021, may you be brimming with happiness!
