Every election is determined by the people who show up. — Larry J. Sabato, Pendulum Swing
There was no magic at all in last week’s election, it was simply counting the votes of the people who showed up! (and show up they did!) But I fear we will need some magic to heal the rift in this nation.
There is absolutely something magical about transforming a bit of fiber into yarn. I spent quite a bit of time on Thursday ignoring the news media and instead I focused on plying my singles! I did this while watching The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. It is was so good! That combination – spinning and watching – was the perfect diversion from the angst of the day! I am happy with the end results, although it needs a bit more twist, which is, thankfully, easily fixed!
It’s not perfect, but I love how it turned out.
The other simply magical thing has been the weather these past few days! Sunny, cloudless skies and mild temps meant that we braved the “world” and sat outside (in NOVEMBER!!) and enjoyed lunch and some beers at Spoonwood Brewing. It was the perfect way to wind down the week (and eating wings is not conducive to doom scrolling on your phone…lol)
The other magical thing of the weekend was this soup!! (I hope the link works…if not, let me know) What an unexpected treat! The rice makes the broth so silky. It is my new favorite Chicken Soup with Rice!
Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on. — Thurgood Marshall
Thinking About —
This from the NYTimes. The hardest thing for me is this…58% of white men and 55% of white women voted for Trump. How the eff?
I don’t know how to heal this, how to get over this, or how to fix it and that is the thing that most upsets me.
Grateful For —
Laughter. It is certainly necessary! I found this most brilliant, and yes…the internet remains undefeated!
Live look at the White House bunker where Trump is trying to stop the counting of ballots.
The tenacity of the Black community. Thank goodness, they did not give up! They truly saved this election! I am so proud of Philadelphia, whose wise and wonderful voters just gave Joe a lead of 5,587 votes in PA. (And let’s not forget Detroit either… their final results: Joe Biden, 93.51% and Donald Trump, 5.06%… oh hell yeah!)
BREAKING: Joe Biden has taken the lead in PA by 5,587 votes.
My heart is heavy this morning…yesterday at my local poll in my neighborhood was an eye-opening experience. I have a different view of my neighbors this morning and it makes me so sad. You know that phrase “kill them with kindness”? I am here today to tell you that is highly over-rated. Kindness did not work. Matter-of-fact-ness (i.e. slide your ballot here please) did not work. I have never heard so much hate-filled language. Ever. Nor have I ever been accused of changing votes. I guess there is a first for everything. It was painful.
And this morning, I don’t think any of us can say “this is not who we are” because that is simply not true.
Yesterday, I brought my Pheasant Pullover to the polls, foolishly thinking there might be a minute or two to knit. But today it will be my companion as I hunker down, avoid these insane predictions, and tune out by binging on The Queen’s Gambit.
Ali Smith knocks it out of the park with the final book in her Seasonal series. This book will make you stop and think about so many things. It is timely and I was stunned that quarantine life was included. This book poses so many questions that have lingered over the days since I finished it. These lingering thoughts caused me to raise my rating from 4 to 5-stars. I highly recommend the entire series!
For me, John Boyne is one of the greatest story tellers of our time, and A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom is a masterfully crafted tale! I did not want to put this book down, and practically devoured it in one sitting. I listened to it, and the narrator was excellent. So… how many lives must we live until we get it right? We listen to an unnamed narrator bring us along with him over 2000 years of his lives. From the beginning to the end it is brilliant! And that ending! I loved it. I highly recommend this book!
This letter! Boy, do I wish I had someone say these things to me about a hundred years ago! It is loving, challenging, questioning, thought-provoking, and all women should write them in our hearts! We should affirm them to our daughters, to our friends, to our neighbors, to our significant others.
I highly recommend this brilliant little book!
That’s all I have for today. As always, if you wrote a post to share, please leave you link below and thank you!
If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath. — Amit Ray, Om Chanting and Meditation
Greetings Gentle Readers! How are you all doing today?
For me, it feels like I have reached the Apex of Stress, sans the downhill portion…amirite? My focus as I start this week is to remember to breathe, which is not always as easy as it sounds!
But!! There is help! Perhaps this 5-Minute Meditation will become your friend this week!
Something else to remember… drink lots of water to stay hydrated! (not tea, coffee, or something stronger, lol)
I don’t know if any of you follow the Sarcastic Lutheran on IG…she has some “spiritual Xanax” for us all tomorrow (and perhaps a reminder or two to breathe!
First, a bit of housekeeping for next week! There will be an Unraveled post, but it won’t be up super early. I will be working the polls next Tuesday and I am planning that it will be a LONG day. However, I do hope to have the post up by 9 AM EST. (and have you made your plan to vote?? lol)
This week’s making revolved around spinning and a wee bit of sewing preparation! The spinning though! Every week, Sarah posts the most gorgeous photos of fiber, spinning, and finished yarn… she is nothing but inspiring! So when HipStrings posted this on IG there was no way at all to not buy some! I have one braid spun up! (I am stressing a little about the plying… but I have lots of spinning to finish before I get to that!)
As for my sewing… I have taken some lovely black linen and a bit of left over blue linen and have all the parts cut out to begin sewing a bag from my Lotta Acquisition!
It was another slow week for my reading, but the book I finished was enjoyable.
Everybody carries a world. But certain people change the air about them.
This book. Oh boy, where to begin. I have never been to Ireland, but this book took me on a journey! The writing is simply beautiful, I highlighted so many bits. This book was so full of yin and yang… happiness, tempered by sadness… new life, tempered by death… of life so lived it is epic!
The truth turns into a story when it grows old. We all become stories in the end. So, though the narrative was flawed, the sense was of a life so lived it was epic.
I highly recommend this book!
As always, if you wrote a post to share – leave your link below and thank you! I will be back next week! Have a lovely remainder of your week everyone!
I am joining Honoré again this month to share an update on my word.
Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen Hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Appreciate your friends. Continue to learn. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is. — Mary Anne Radmacher
October taught me that sometimes in order to practice wellness, one must become adept at diligently avoiding some things. Most days the avoidance list included the internet, cable news, and the some topics of conversation!
October refined my ability to be silent and if that was not possible…well I am honing my change the topic of conversation skills!
Sometimes the thing I was trying to avoid was me…Okay, maybe not me so much as avoiding living in my head too much. Too much time over-thinking and worrying are not things to do if you are trying to practice wellness! Thank goodness for meditation which really helps me break the chain of worry. My typical practice has been to meditate in the morning while I sip my coffee but September showed me that once a day was really not enough so I have added more meditation time in my day, which has been tremendously helpful. I am also finding that the process of writing my worries/struggles/heartaches down means I don’t have to dwell on them. It is a learning process and as the month progressed, I found it easier to do. And while it is not perfect, it is helping.
What about you? How did your word show up for you?
We are the ones we have been waiting for. — The Elders, Oraibi, Arizona Hopi Nation
I have been in dire need of a shake up here at my blog and late last week some inspiration struck. It started with a quote by a some unknown genius: It’s just another Magic Monday and those simple words led me down the most glorious of rabbit holes on the internet. Such. Fun. Inspirational. Things!
One of the things I discovered was the Hopi Elder Statement and it really moved me. There is so much wisdom contained in this simple statement. The analogies are just so perfect for our Pandemic Lives right now… which most days does indeed feel like a very fast flowing river and here I am desperately trying to cling to the shore and find some normalcy in the abnormal. Maybe I do need to push away from the shore and look around at all of you here with me… and do a little more celebrating!! We started that celebrating with the successful installation (in less than an hour!!) of a new and no longer leaking kitchen faucet! While we feel accomplished in our plumbing debut…Steve is not quitting his day job! But it was infinitely worth the time we spent on Saturday morning.
You might have heard that Pandemic Winter is coming! Did you, like me, miss this really uplifting Life Kit episode…which is made even more brilliant by the comic by La Johnson! This for me was the best motivation: “There is something so satisfying about doing something for future you!” Why, yes there is. So this week, I have added an absolute must-have to my list… refill the LP gas canister for our patio heater. My future self will thank me when we are a wee bit warmer outside as the days get much cooler!
The other thing on my list this week is to figure out Google Meet so that our knit night is less of a hassle (free Zoom is awesome, but 40 minutes is just not enough time!)
So this week… let’s “Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.”
It is me, or do the weeks somehow seem longer. I don’t know why that is, but boy… this week felt so.darned.long! I am chalking this up to the fact that COVID-emic-ELECTION days are some of the longest days ever, amirite? Anyways, this week felt like the perfect time to do a little TGIFing.
Takedown
Obama was in Philly on Wednesday and his speech was exactly what I needed this week! In case you missed it, or you need another dose of glorious Obama Eloquence, here you go!
Grieving
One of the best parts of my morning routine is listening to Tracy K. Smith share some beautiful thoughts and a poem. Sadly, this week she announced that she is leaving The Slowdown and at the end of the month it will go on hiatus until they find a new host. I will miss Tracy’s voice in my morning. I love her perspective, how she expanded my horizons, the poets she introduced me to, and especially how she made me think! I am trying to wrap my head around this change and how it will alter my mornings and mourning this loss.
Installing
Some months ago, the kitchen faucet was dripping. Okay. It was a the tiniest drip which was fixed with a firm shut off to the handle. Enter this the past couple of weeks and that is no longer working. Because, of course…right? End result…Steve is off today, and we are going to pretend we are plumbers and attempt to install a new faucet. Why us? Well, I called around to plumbers to get prices… and about had a coronary. Ummm, for those prices you’d think they were replacing the faucet, sink, and countertop!! Keep your fingers crossed that this goes well (and we don’t kill each other, lol) AND that by the end of the day I have a working kitchen sink with minimal extra trips to the hardware store! Ha!
all the FEELS
I know some of you are seeing your families on the regular, and I am happy for you… most days. The hardest thing I have ever done is this separation from my kids and grandkids. My kids are stressed, which makes me even more stressed. It sucks. But!! I know that I am not alone, there are many in blogland who are in the exact same boat I am and I want you to know I see you, I think about you, and I think about your kids scattered far and wide. My fervent hope is that things will stop being so damned urgent with more rising cases, and that a vaccine will become available that will be safe and effective…soon. Sooner than soon actually. I am not sure how much more I can take.
And that is a wrap for this week! I will be back on Tuesday to join Honoré to share my update on my word.
Do you ever feel like you are in a “making” rut? I am in a huge making rut and it really sucks! I have things to knit that I want to finish, but boy… there is just no joy in the making right now. (FYI, the following links are to projects on Ravelry) I should be knitting sleeves… but they are languishing in a basket next to the living room sofa. Or perhaps I should be knitting the body of this, but that is languishing in a knitting bag next to my bed.
Instead, I am knitting a heel (on a pair of socks that are screaming AUTUMN to me!) and pondering why I am so disinterested in things that should be bringing me joy. In an attempt to really break things up, I am going to pull out the sewing machine this week to see if that gets me back on the path of happy making! Thanks to Carolyn, a new-to-me Lotta Jansdotter book arrived at my house this week and I think a bag test run is the perfect thing before attempting this beauty from the latest Making! (Because, I am just enamored with this bag!)
Armand and friends in Paris, what’s not to love? An interesting city, a curious mystery, and familiar characters make for a can’t-put-it-down novel. I love how Penny keeps revealing more and more depth to her characters, and in doing so – makes them more lovable! I highly recommend!
At first I struggled to find a rhythm with this book, and perhaps reading just a page or two at night made that even more difficult. And once I found myself immersed in the stories of the women of Brewster Place, the ending left me struggling to find closure and I went back and re-read it several times to see if I was missing something. I don’t think I missed anything, and this book just did not seem to work for me.
And that is all I have for today. If you wrote a post to share (and I sincerely hope you did!!) please leave your link below!
Weeks that feel unending makes for a fly-by weekend…or at least that is how it seemed here. The weekend was over before it began.
But maybe not… because I got so much done! My planner set up is working wonderfully and it feels good to have everything together. (sorry, I had planned on getting a photo this morning but it is dark and dreary and pouring down rain…sigh)
Yes, I am much farther along than this currently, but the light is not conducive to photography this morning!
In a scrolling of Twitter last week, I noticed that Kate Atherley was doing an impromptu sock KAL. I found some yarn and cast on Thursday night while we caught up on Big Brother and I managed to find time over the weekend to almost complete the leg of the first sock! Good thing because the heel is out sometime today!
Making good progress on my comfort-knitting sock. Anyone up for a little KAL? You need sock yarn and needles to get 32 sts in 4 ins/10cm. I am using @CandySkein Yummy Fingering in Ecto Cooler and 2.25mm. pic.twitter.com/rHjZ4ymCh0
— Kate Atherley is coming from inside the house (@kateatherley) October 13, 2020
But the most fun was beginning the process of knitting acorn caps, which I did while watching The Trial of the Chicago 7 on Netflix. It was so good (and perfect for cranking out several little caps!)
Acorns are so much fun, but even more so with special handspun! Thank you, Sarah!
Finally, I want to share my meditation for the week. I saw this late last week on Facebook and have used this meditation many times over the weekend…it is just exactly what I needed so I thought I’d share it with you. I hope you find it a help for your week ahead!
Happy Monday, everyone! See you all back here on Wednesday!
