by Kat | May 15, 2024 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings dearest Unravelers and Happy Wednesday!
I have eased back into making… a stitch here and there began to add up to suddenly finding myself at the heel flap on Sock One!
Before vacation, I began the new Mystery Gnome… it started slowly with a few bits (feet and a “mysterious” cast on!) And then the stripey part really took off… and I began to think about how this gnome was not going to fit in at all with the Gnomes in the Cupboard. He was bright… too bright. He felt awkward to me as I blocked the “body”. So I set him aside and let him just simmer a bit. And then he began to speak to me… as did the Gnomes in the Cupboard! The Cupboard Gnomes let me know that they are an open and welcoming community for gnomes of all shapes, sizes, and yes, even and especially brightly colored gnomes!
Gnedward R. Murrow getting the garden scoop!
The mystery of this gnome is that he is a journalist… a newspaper reporter, so with those thoughts circling my brain, Gnedward R. Murrow was born. He will be the perfect addition to a very somberly dressed Gnome Village… he knows that gnomes are gnosy. They love to know the what’s what that everyone else is doing! Being gnebby is the thing gnomes do best! He has his gnotepad handy so he never misses a story! And how does he share his gnews? Well, he blogs them, of course! (Has Acorn Air, Will Travel!)
These feet are made for walking!
The latest Acorn Air model!
A bag for a busy gnome!
I knit him per the instructions (which were excellent, as always!) and my only changes were on how I put him together (I put the feet on the bottom as if he is standing vs on front of the body as if he were sitting.) I made him a wee messenger bag out of the scraps. His Acorn Air… a bit of cardboard covered in aluminum foil and voilá… a tiny laptop!
The Gnomes of the Cupboard are happy with their new addition… and they love that the gnews on the blog is more accurate than the gnews from the grapevine!
I am settling back into my “usual reading routine” as well and I have a couple of finishes (The Haunted Season and Forgotten on Sunday) but what really rocked me was the death of Paul Auster. I loved his books that I had read and 4321 is one of my all time favorite books! When I got home I got on the waitlist for a few of the books I have not yet read… library waitlist’s… sigh. Speaking of Library Waitlists… I am still … still!! … waiting for next month’s Read With Us bookclub selection, How To Say Babylon (current wait time 6 weeks… sigh.)
And there you have my re-starting of the knitting and reading! What about you? What are you engaged with this week?
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
P.S. I wrote this post early in the day on Tuesday before my hearing aid fitting appointment… stay tuned for an update later this week!
by Kat | May 13, 2024 | General, In My Backyard, In This Moment
Like much of the world on Friday, time stood still for a few minutes while I saw the effects from the coronal mass ejections (or CME’s) with my eyes in the south hills of Pittsburgh!
Yes, it was amazing. Yes, I took pictures (because our eyes are limited but a camera lens is not!)
And I have not stopped thinking about the aurora borealis since… and those memories will carry me through my list today as I count the minutes to being a hearing person again tomorrow! (1893 minutes at this writing!!)
Happy Monday all! See you back here on Wednesday!
by Kat | May 10, 2024 | General, Looking Back
What is there to say about a place where the Warbler Chorus is punctuated by Oriole Arias? Birder’s Heaven? Because that perfectly describes the week in Erie… specifically at Presque Isle. And those Oriole’s? Well, I saw dozens of them… dozens. I have never seen so many Baltimore Oriole’s in my life!
We were in Erie for The Great Migration… and let me tell you. It absolutely is great! And yes, I saw new-to-me birds… still. And that amazes me! I feel so fortunate that we are so close to such a significant migration route!
My brief, but spectacular “new bird” list included Common Yellowthroats, Indigo Buntings, Great Crested Flycatchers, Blue-headed Vireos, Yellow-breasted Chats, Black-throated Blue Warblers, Nashville Warblers, Eastern Kingbirds, Eastern Wood-Pewees, and Tennessee Warblers.
But perhaps the best moments of all on this vacation were the hours we included Sherman. I am not sure how many more “vacations” we will have with Sherman. Earlier in April we invested in a Dog Stroller… yes, I have become that person… and it might have been the absolute best part of the trip! He has never liked being “left behind” but since losing his hearing being in his crate really stresses him. But there was no way he could walk as much as we do when we are in Presque Isle… even with the new medication he is on. The stroller made amazing LONG walks possible and their “paved path system” is one that goes all around the peninsula… so we just kept walking! Sherman thought he was in Dog Heaven… all the sights, all the smells, *almost* none of the walking!
The weather was perfect spring weather… some overcast days, some days with light rain, some days with sun… and all days cooler! I watched the trees go from bare branches to new leaves and all the stages between! Presque Isle is a place that is never the same any day but the leafing out was so dramatic and gorgeous to experience!
Carolyn had sent a text about what looked like an amazing exhibit at the Erie Art Museum and I really wanted to go but Steve absolutely did not (and it was not worth an argument, lol) so I missed it… sigh.
I did not take a ton of pictures… I leaned into Margaret Renkl’s wise advice: “How truly valuable is a device that makes you take your eyes from an experience so momentary you might miss it altogether?” So for the most part, my phone stayed in my pocket!
And speaking of phones – and technology in general – perhaps that was the best part of our time away… being truly away. I was not scrolling apps. I was not looking at emails. It was such a good break!
The ONLY thing I regularly used with my phone was the Merlin app… sadly, I cannot hear most birdsong so Merlin telling me what it was hearing was helpful for me to then find the bird with binoculars. Thankfully, that Warbler Chorus was loud and lovely and constant! And those Oriole Arias… unbelievably delightful!
I only had one incident with a tic and it appears I found it before it bit me! Whew! (But I kept thinking “something” was crawling on me for days afterwards!)
But as great as the week away was, it was so good to get back home. This is my last Friday without hearing aids… yes, I go to get them next Tuesday and I really cannot wait!
Thanks for revisiting our Erie getaway! Have a great weekend and I will see you all back here on Monday!
by Kat | May 8, 2024 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Greetings Unravelers and Happy Wednesday!
I am having a bit of a struggle settling back in to my normal routine… I feel like I am behind on everything (because I am!) and that is not a fun feeling at all.
One thing I did not bring on vacation was my Daily Stitching project… so I am working on trying to finish April and get May caught up. Thinking about trying is really the truth… I have not picked it up since I got home. There are more pressing things bumping that off the list!
Also… my knitting mojo has up and left. Gone. I barely knit on our trip. Barely. Like less than 3 rounds on a sock. Non-existent.
I ripped the *second* sweater start before leaving… the bump up size was not bumped up enough. The yarn is in time out.
I brought Steve’s vest thinking that would be good “round and round” knitting… but I made him try it on… and it was too big. I measured my gauge in the sweater and it was not at all the gauge of the pattern and when I got home I doubled checked my swatch and the swatch is on gauge, so my knitting changed… argh! That is in time out as well.
I tried to pick up the sock last night, but I was not really feeling it at all.
But the garden beds have been weeded! My sourdough starter has been revved up and is now ready for baking again. And all the laundry is caught up! (I still have a stack of winter sweaters to wash and put away if it would ever stop raining….)
The reading has equally been sparse. My finishes were two books of short stories… but they were each so good. My current listen finds me back in St. Denis with Bruno as he solves a mystery! He is a good companion for garden weeding!
What about you all? What are you making… please inspire me to get back to knitting!
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
by Kat | May 7, 2024 | General, Words
Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use. — Earl Nightingale
One part of my Year of Time was to contemplate blocks of time and I felt like a 100 Day Project was a good thing for contemplation. So way back on January 19th I began a journey. For 100 days, I committed to stitching 15 minutes a day on a 7×5½” piece of fabric… 20-7×5½” pieces of fabric – to be exact.
I was leery of the time constraint … 15 minutes seemed like not enough. I had no idea what I would do. How it would go. But what did I have to lose… 15 minutes a day? Some scraps of fabric? A small investment for a time study.
And so I pulled out a few handfuls of fabric scraps… left over bits… unusable bits. Or so I thought. I am ever so grateful that past me did not just toss these bits!
And over the last 100 days I have discovered that 15 minutes can hold joy. It can help you focus! It can help you discover new ideas… in places you never imagined! Time helped me release every preconceived notion of what I thought… and showed me what could happen when you intentionally let those 15 minutes be all. And those 15 minutes each day… well they were so full! And in those 15 minutes I found an authenticity that I did not know I had… a creativity… a delight in not knowing what was next.
It has been the best use of 15 minutes ever… on any day!
I have “done” 100 day projects before but not one of those had the impact that this project has had for me. If you asked me before January 19th what 15 minutes could hold… I would have said not much. Now today… I can tell you that 15 minutes can be everything!
I don’t love every page… but I learned from them. I stopped “trying” and began just doing… and in that doing I found that those 15 minutes of time was perfect… the most creative minutes of the day. I spent just 15 minutes doing the actual stitching, but as I discovered that creative spark… I spent more time letting ideas simmer. And the ideas just kept coming… it was just so amazing!!
But on April 27 when I put the last stitches on that final page… my heart ached and I shed a few tears. I was not ready to “be done” at all. 100 days and I really felt like I was just beginning! I did not want to lose all that I had discovered. I really did not want to lose my creative momentum… and what stepped into the stitching space was a surprising delight!
On vacation I opened a small art journal I picked up and continued the 15 minute habit with pencil, pen, and sometimes water color paints. Who knew that I would ever consider 15 minutes to be the best minutes of any day… but friends, they are the most magical minutes of all!
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How it started… the view from the kitchen window in our Airbnb.
And the apple tree blooming in the back yard.
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And the start of one of our favorite paths at Presque Isle. (Excellent for bird watching!)
I am simply loving time this year… it was a brilliant word and I had no idea where it would take me!
I am late to join Carolyn’s link up… but sometimes vacation should just be vacation! (And vacation time… well, it is best if it is uninterrupted!)
See you all back here tomorrow with some Unraveling!
by Kat | May 6, 2024 | General, Welcome
May is the month of expectation, the month of wishes, the month of hope. — Emily Brontë
Simply put… I love May. It is the month of “best of” so many things!
I have, at least, one bunch of allium bulbs that are blooming… and they are stunning. My expectation was low… but the bulbs did their thing… and extraordinarily bloomed!
AND…when we arrived home on Saturday afternoon, I saw hummingbirds visiting those glorious blooms! I am holding hope for the remaining bulbs I planted… if they only do half as good as the current bloomers, I will be happy!
This month I should set some intentions. But if the only thing I accomplish this month will be to assemble my 100 Day Project into a book, I will be happy!
The video above (my backyard birdsong included!!) shows all twenty pages in the order I did them. Today I will make my “cover and last” pages and begin thinking about the order I want them in! The Book is the only tangible thing on my list this month because I think that the real work of this project is about to begin! (And maybe if the rain stops, I can begin the Great Sweater Wash this month as well!)
But I will be savoring lots of intangible things as well… like glorious May days, backyard birding (a pair of robins have “selected” our hedge for their nest and it currently holds one egg), and savoring every moment of this amazing month!
I also have quite a bit of “catch up” to do! I have missed you all and will make my way through what you have been up to! I will also catch you up on some highlights from our vacation… there were some amazing things! And, I have an April update with my word as well!
See you all back here tomorrow with that word update! Happy Monday!
