Things

Things that I do not like (Sam I Am):
Old Hickory (a boat that, while I am elated to be rowing, seems to soak me regardless)
Erg tests (another, the last of, the 2K tests “required” on the competitive team)
Waiting
Searching for a fit
Night classes (I thought it would be nice to take some to keep up with ASL over the summer…instead I already do not like being away at night)

Things I do like
Summer with Ellen
Hiking
Biking
Rowing (did you know it is still fun? Just takes an adjustment in the mindset!)
Friends
Birthdays (Ellen’s, mine, Kate’s, Ana’s…May was a good month)

Who knew?

When you apply yourself it is possible to pull a 100% out of your hat on a General Psychology exam?!?

The good with the bad

I think I am experiencing allergies for the first time.  How do people do it?!?  I feel alternately drippy and dry (nose), cloudy and clear (head), alert and tired (body) and generally aggrivated that I cannot find a fix.  However, Ellen has been having one of those seemingly rare great days.  Are they all so good and I am too preoccupied with cleaning/school/you-name-it to notice what a wonderful thing she is turning into?  Possibly.  I will say that I was pulled aside for a “funny story” at preschool about how she had made up the “three-person rule” in order to exclude another little girl from play.  The teacher, C, thinks this is a natural progression.  I remember her being the one who was excluded last year and I am resisting the temptation to punish Ellen and/or take a case of wine to the mother of the other little girl, both of whom I adore.

I have found a groove with knitting and have finished  a project that has been on the needles since nearly the beginning of time.  It is called Oregon Vest by Oat Couture.  I will have to hunt to find the name of the yarn I used.  I know I have the label somewhere.  Although, finished is subjective, since I still have to add a zipper.  How I am going to do that…I have to figure that part out still.  And I have to choose which color zipper I am going to use.  Oh…and I also have to block it, I think, because when I crocheted around the armholes it went all wobbly on me.  So, yeah, that is finished.

I am also working on another Habitat.  This one is in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock DK in the Java colorway.  It is the same colorway I used to knit socks for R.

Possibly the best news of all recently is that I have been rowing ON THE WATER with the competitive team.  I fear I am in so far over my head that I risk drowning at any moment, but for now I am thoroughly enjoying myself.  Next week there is talk of my learning to scull which will subsequently mean two practices on those days, one at 5:30 am, one at 6 pm.  I am exhausted just typing that.

Habitat

I have finished several things and started more. Always too much on the needles.

I finished the Simple Yet Effective Shawl.  I saw SouleMama doing it and it sent me straight to my stash. I think it is the first thing that I have ever went “straight to the stash” for and actually cast on and off with any persistence.

I also finished Habitat by Jared Flood of Brooklyntweed.  Nothing inspires me to knit quite like the designs of Mr. Flood.  Almost immediately I cast on a second hat and am toying with the idea of the accompanying fingerless mitts called Humanity by another Jared-lover.  (as a side, E was all too happy to model the hat…as long as she could read while she did it…)

I finished a hat for a friend at church who has just finished chemo (no photo, it was on and off the needles in a couple of days), and am also finishing a vest I cast on long (long, long, long, long) ago. I have started a shrug for E that I am totally winging because I cannot find the book I knit the first one out of.

And that doesn’t even begin to cover the things that are older or in the cue…a knitter’s work is never done!

Sometimes I think I’m the only one…

I really enjoy reading blogs.  I sit with a cup of coffee, diet coke, or any other variant of caffiene and read and dream of how my life would look if only I could get it together.  Instead on dreary dark days (and I am referring to emotion not so much actual weather) it is really all I can do to pull myself out of bed.  Not really conducive to life with a 4-year-old.  I am always so inspired by all that some do with their children, and yet…

I have been wanting to try finger knitting with Ellen for a while.  I knew that, given her ridiculous fine motor skills, she would take to it easily.  She did, but only for about three minutes.  Still, I got that much out of her, and the whole time she said over and over, “I am knitting!”  That should be enough, right?

…and another thing…

I have had some sort of trouble with the blog. I hope it is over now, because I got a lot to say, man.

So, without further ado, two words.

Central. Library.

I have always enjoyed the library. I remember the woman who ran the library in the small town where I grew up (Dorothy Dexter) and I will never forget how excited she was about books. I grew up in Delton, Michigan; a very small town kinda northeast of Kalamazoo. When I lived there, the library was this very small building next to a gas station (I think?).  I remember the first time I got to choose books from my sister’s “section” (young adult) and I remember the hours I spent perusing the titles.  They moved the library to a new location across from the elementary school, which is more practical, but I my first image will always be of the old building.

Ellen has a similar fascination, but with so many locations to choose from I don’t know if she will have the same memories of just one. Although, I do try to get to this one the most.  The building is simply amazing.  The stairs alone, all marble and concave from years of use, are a thing to behold.  I hope that, along with our general love of books, she will always have fond memories of the library as well.

Plastics make it possible

Seriously, Costco?  This is ridiculous.

What I love

I love winter for many, many reasons.  Which is a good thing since I live in the frozen tundra of Minnesota.  I love days like today that are so very, very sunny and blue and beautiful…and then you step outside and are frozen to the spot.  I love cold weather, because you can always put another layer on but only take off so much in the summer, know what I mean?  One of the things that always warms me is this image:

I love the way Minnesotans don’t seem at all effected by the cold.  And when the boys (and girls, I am sure, but my neighbors are boys) walk over to the local ice to play a pick up game?  Not anything you’d see outside of the frozen tundra.

Let’s see.

I will give this another shot.  I will start with a photo from Christmas…and then another from a few days later.  What is the difference?

Shine the Light

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

a return to love – marianne williamson

PS:  I have been trying to remember where I heard this as I had it written in a notebook that I have not used in a while.  A variant of it was in the movie Coach Carter with Samuel L. Jackson in 2005, and then again in Akeelah and the Bee in 2006.  Both good movies, just so you know.