Life, It's A Changin'. . .Again

The past three weeks have brought many changes to me.  Several trips.  An empty nest.  I also quit my job at one horse farm, and almost immediately got hired at another (to start next week, since this week was mostly vacation).  This is definitely a time of flux at this little place here.

In addition to those things, the garden is pumping out veggies like crazy.  The pear and apple trees in the orchard are ripening in succession by variety, so there is fruit to put up alongside the tomatoes and green beans and broccoli and onions and peppers and potatoes that need to be attended to and readied for storage (either in jars, in the freezer, or in cool storage either damp--the cellar--or dry--the basement.) I'm realizing that with only two mouths to feed on a daily basis, I don't need to put up nearly as much food as I have done in past years.  There is a strong possibility that my kids are each going to get a bunch of home grown and preserved food as Christmas gifts this year.

While in the midst of all that preserving the season's bounty urgency, I am trying to plan out some projects, and some goals for various things.  Such as family Thanksgiving and Christmas get-togethers (it's DH and my turn to host his family for the holidays *sigh*), and Christmas gifts to craft, and riding goals for the next six months.

And could I, maybe, possibly, talk DH into doing the interior trim work on the house, finally?  We have all the wood for it, oak that came from a friend's property a dozen years ago and we had milled about ten years ago.  We have all the wood trimming this house could need, and most of what we need for window and door trim we even planed and cut to size eight years ago.  That was when DH and I had differing opinions on the design details of the trim work and the project got shelved. He wanted just plain, flat boards; I wanted twin channels routered in each piece.  I still think those parallel lines would look best, but you know what?  I'm to the point that I'd welcome even plain wood work.  Criminy, we've lived here for thirteen years and I just want the house to finally look finished!

Which would actually add to my projects for this coming winter, as I have window treatments picked out to make for about half the windows and the two patio sliding doors (and even have fabric purchased for them) but need finished interior dimensions for those openings before I can sew up my decor.  Dimensions that won't be accurately known until the trim work is installed.

But let's not get bogged down in that.  For now, now that I should be done traveling for a good long while, I'm aiming to do more blogging.  Especially since I missed yesterday's Yarn Along even though I've gotten a good bit of knitting accomplished in the past week.

Tomorrow is another day.  And hopefully the start of multiple blog posts per week.  After all, I have several vacation pictures I could bore you with.  Because I know everyone just loves to sit through a presentation of someone else's vacation photos.  :0)

Harder on Him?

The house is quiet again.  With DD2 gone off to college for her second year, and all our other offspring living on their own, the nest is empty; it's just DH and I. We did have a brief time, about two months this spring, between when DS1 and family moved out, and DD2 came home for the summer, that it was also just DH and I, but I don't think that really counted.  Because during those weeks, we focused on DS1's recent move, the school year drawing to an end, and guiding DD2 in finding summer employment, and then moving her back home.

This time, it feels more like the real thing.  DS1 has gainful employment and his own home; they most likely won't need to move back in with us.  DS2 has even better employment than his brother, he definitely will not be asking to move home.  DD1 has about another year of college left, and there has been a definite increase in the talk of a wedding between her and Honorary Son; she'll be moving into a starter home with him more than likely, once her degree is complete.  DD2, while only barely started her second year of college, is all ready working on getting an internship in her field next summer, which would mean she won't be moving back home next May.

This might actually be it.  The beginning of DH and my empty nest.

I can unabashedly say I'm ecstatic.  The only people I need to keep track of are me, myself and I;  and, to a lesser extent, DH.  No worrying over who is where, doing what, with whom, and when they will be home (or why they aren't home by now).  No hearing "I don't like that" at least a few meals a week.  Only two people using (and dirtying) the house. The shower, and the washing machine, are vacant and ready any time my heart desires to use them.  I've been working on compiling, and ticking off, a list of things that I want or feel the need to do.

DH, on the other hand, seems to be the one with empty nest syndrome.  It's only been four days since we left DD2 at her dorm, but every day when he arrives home from work, DH asks "Did you hear from DD2 today?" (Yes, she did call yesterday, ecstatic about a particular class she didn't think she would like that has turned out to have a professor who does exactly the research she would like to do--wolves--once she is finished with school.) And after we discuss that  DH asks

"Did you hear from DD1 today?"  followed by

"Did you hear from DS2 today?"  and after that

"Have you heard from DS1 or K2?  How are K3 and Toad doing?"

He also talks about Thanksgiving, when DD2 will be home on break next.  And Christmas, and how perhaps we should plan a family camping outing with everyone next summer.  Plan it now, so they all have plenty of time to put in for vacation days at work.

I suspect that having all the kids grown up is harder on him than it is on me.  I feel like I have completed a long (and sometimes not so fun) career and am now looking into what I would like to do as a second (less demanding? less time consuming?) career.  No regrets, I gave it my all, and I know I've left nothing back in that first career.  I was there, most every time, for most everything.  I think I've earned this 'retirement'.

DH, however, seems to be feeling the loss of every child's birthday, sports game, and special event he missed due to his being at work (either away traveling, or just long hours at the office) during the raising of our kids.  He seems to be wanting regular and frequent contact with them now, while I'm drawing a satisfied breath, putting my feet up, and enjoying the elbow room and the quiet.  I heard their voices daily for decades, I don't yearn to hear them daily now.

Maybe this is where my challenge of adjusting to an empty nest will be.  Not in the 'loss' of  my children, but in the anxiety and doubts of my husband.

Yarn Along 2016.34: Two Projects

Joining with Ginny and the Yarn Along this afternoon.


I couldn't help myself.  I have two projects going right now.  Most of the time, I prefer to be a monogamous knitter.  But right now, I need to stray.  Or, rather, I need to have an 'at-home' project and a 'travel' project going on.  Because last week, and next week, my time is split between home and traveling.  And I can't not knit, you know.  (Well, I could, but then I would need something else to do with my hands while I'm seated, like doodle or write or counted cross stitch. . . because I'm fidgety that way.  Busy hands help to keep my mind more calm; in less of a whirl.)

Last week I showed a picture of the Stylish Square lapghan I had started as a combination stash-buster and Christmas gift.  It will actually be a birthday gift, hopefully, if I finish it in September, since it is for DD2 and her birthday is early October.  It's a big, bulky, project that needs room to work on--in other words, not so great for in the car.  I'm currently about halfway through the second pattern repeat (of four).

Then, on Friday, I started a new project, a travel project. I needed something I could work on in the car while on the road trip to and from DD2's college (it was time for her to go back; classes started on the 29th).  It is also a stash-buster slash gift as I have had the yarn for about a year and bought it with the intention of making socks for DH.  (You knew it was going to be socks, this travel project, right?)

The yarn is self-striping, so I wanted a simple pattern to go with it, and settled on Decathlon socks.  It's a great match.  Not just rows and rows of (boring to knit) stockinette, but yet, it doesn't disrupt the nature of the striping yarn.

The yarn is Berroco Sox, and while the colorway is nice (and definitely manly enough), I have to confess I don't really love this yarn.  It just feels kind of scratchy on my hands as I work it, different from all the other sock yarns I have used in the past.  I guess my lesson here is that all superwash wool sock yarns are not the same, some will be softer than others.  I just hope that when this pair is finished, it won't be so scratchy that DH doesn't want to wear them.  But, then again, this is the first thing I have ever knit for him (he keeps insisting he doesn't want/need me to make him anything), so he won't know the difference between this yarn and, say, the yarn I've made my own socks out of.  It's more of a note to self: I should never make myself a pair of socks with this yarn. (I hate, hate, hate, scratchy socks.  Like a can't-wear-them-rip-them-off-my-feet kind of hate. Yeah, I was a joy for my mother to raise. These days they'd probably label me as a child with sensory issues.)

Scratchy or not, overall, I'm pleased with how my two projects are developing this week.

Not pictured, because I actually finished reading it Sunday in the car and returned it to the library all ready, is a book I very much enjoyed.  At first, I wasn't sure I would like Flawed, by Cecelia Ahern.  I have absolutely loved her other novels, but this one started out a bit dystopian  (I'm not into the dystopian genre at all). I'm glad I stuck with it, though, because I did really enjoy the storyline, even if it does end sort of abruptly.  I'm hoping that maybe there is a sequel in the works?

Yellow and Green

Once upon a time, the technology did not exist to identify the gender of a baby before it made it's debut into the world.  A mother did not know whether her womb contained a boy, or a girl.  She prepared for the arrival of her newborn by having generic clothing in the smallest size.  A very long time ago, that meant white, as whites could be boiled for sterilization and cleanliness, and not lose their color.  And when sanitizing laundry became easier than a pot of boiling water over a wood fire, newborn clothes got some color.  Mainly pastel, mainly yellow and green.

When my first child was born, in November of 1989, the vast majority of the newborn size clothing I had on hand was yellow or green.  Because, even though technology, in the form of ultrasound, was able to correctly tell the gender of a baby at about 5 months gestation the majority of the time, I didn't want to know.

In fact, I never knew the gender of any of my four children until the moment of their birth when the doctor held them up for all to see and proclaimed "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!"

Why didn't I know?  Why didn't I take advantage of the ultrasound's ability to predict for me, whether my newborn could wear pink, or blue instead of yellow and green?  Because to me, it didn't matter.  Didn't matter whether the baby was male or female.  I was going to keep it anyway.  It's not like I was going to say "oh, that's not what I wanted, you can keep it" when the doctor held up that squalling, naked newest human.  And as for that little baby, it cared less what color it's clothes were. It just wanted something comfortable and temperature appropriate to wear.  Besides, babies grow so fast that no matter what color the clothes were, the ones that fit at birth weren't going to fit a mere two months later, so if color really mattered to the rest of us, the next size up (and the next one after that, and the next one beyond that, and so on) could be pink, or blue.

Yellow and green weren't just necessarily for newborn clothing.  Yellow or green could easily be the paint scheme of the baby's room, if the baby were to have it's own room (none of mine did as infants, the crib typically was in the master bedroom for at least the first year).  Yellow and green were easy to pass from one sibling to the next, no matter if the gender changed.  Because, really, does each baby need it's own personalized wardrobe and interior decorating scheme?  Must the clothing, bedding, and wall paint be discarded rather than used again when baby number two (or three or four or. . . ) comes along?

What I find kind of ironic these days, when it seems that everyone must find out the gender of their baby before it's birth so that they can decorate the baby's room 'appropriately' with cars and trucks, or princesses and ponies, and they can have all pink or all blue clothing on hand right from the time the child lands on this earth, is that many of these same parents a few years down the road don't want their child to be labeled by gender.  They let their sons wear their hair long and don dresses, or their daughters have short hairstyles and traditionally male clothing, and let them choose what name they want to be called by.

In other words, the same parents who delight in having a 'gender reveal' party or photo session, with a box that explodes with pink or blue helium balloons when opened, or a cake that when cut, spills blue or pink candies onto the table, seem to end up being the parents who are most vocal about letting Billy be Betty if he so decides at age four, or Veronica be Victor once middle school arrives.

Maybe I'm just too old fashioned.  Yellow and green baby stuff worked for me.  So did letting my boys occasionally clomp around in my high heels or do up their hair with barrettes or paint their fingernails (although nail polish was pretty rare in my house, since I don't like the way my fingers feel with polish on them).  My girls wore not just pink and dresses, but also overalls and jeans and blue and red and black. . . in fact, most winter outerwear was navy or burgundy or hunter green or some other color that could be passed from brother to sister, saving money from having to buy a 'boy' pair of snowpants and boots and a 'girl' set of snowpants and boots in every single size my kids wore from birth to adulthood.

My boys learned to cook and clean and wash laundry and iron just like my girls did (a bachelor's got to be able to take care of himself, right?).  My girls learned auto care, and home repair and how to operate a chainsaw, and how to hunt and to be good at math and science and hold a job and go to college just like my boys did (a single woman's got to be able to take care of herself, right?)

Sometimes I think Americans get too caught up in defying labels--boy, girl, man, woman--and stereotypes--breadwinner, housewife--that they lose track of the yellow and green.  They forget all the common things that both boys and girls, men and women can learn and be good at.  They think pink and blue, but don't want themselves, or their children to be 'stuck' as a pink or a blue.

What they should really focus on is yellow and green.  Things that work no matter what the gender is of the person wearing them, or doing them.

I wear pink.  But I also wear yellow, and green, and blue, and black and red and astonishingly I can really pull off brown.  One of the most complimented dresses I owned was brown.  Which is not typically a color you'd think of for a woman's formal occasion outfit.

I cook, I clean, I sew, I birthed and raised children. I am a woman and part of my 'work' is traditional female tasks. I also harvest and butcher animals for my food, do construction work as needed, operate a chainsaw, cook darn good on a grill, and at times have been the sole wage earner for my family.  Traditional 'man's work'.  To me, it's all just tasks that need to be done, and as long as I am able bodied enough to do them, then I will.  That's the way I've raised my kids.

As I told my husband, when we were expecting baby #3 and he was worried that it would be a girl after two sons (he confessed that he was worried because he had no idea how to 'raise a girl')

"You raise them all the same.  They all need to learn to be adults who can take care of themselves and help others."

Yellow and green.  That's where it's at.

Yarn Along 2016.33: Big Fat Yarn

Joining Ginny for this week's Yarn Along.*

I have something new and very unlike me this week.  It's a project made in super bulky yarn.  Oh my!  For someone who normally works in fingering, and thinks worsted is thick, I feel like I'm knitting with rope.  Soft, fuzzy rope, but rope nonetheless.

It is yarn that I actually bought well over a year ago, with the intent to make something for DD2 because it has the most beautiful shade of turquoise in it, and that's pretty much her favorite color.  But, as often happens, life gets in the way, and all that yarn sat in an overstuffed shopping bag in a closet, not being made into anything.

I came across it last week, after finishing the pair of socks I had been working on, and decided that I should get it knit up and out of my house.  Kind of a destashing, purging, cleaning, jump on Christmas present-making kind of decision.  So I went to Ravelry to see what I could find in the way of lapghans made of super bulky yarn.

And I came across this pattern.

One thing I do like about knitting with clothesline rope super bulky yarn is how quickly I see results, LOL.  This thing is growing quickly.  110 stitches per row, I am almost 50 rows into the project, and its already more than a foot tall.  Then again, I am on the fourth skein of yarn, since there are only 64 yards to a skein!  It is definitely going to use up all that yarn I had stashed.  I might even need to pick up a few more skeins.

*Joining the Yarn Along a day late; but better late than never.  Right?

Yarn Along 2016.32: Done and Done

I am joining Ginny this afternoon for this week's Yarn Along.  And, I'm happy to say, that while the sun is shining brightly, the weather is cooler than any Wednesday for the last month!  "Only" in the low 80s today!  Dare I say, looking at the long range forecast, that our extreme hot spell is over.  I think we hit the 90 degree mark more times in the past four or five weeks, than in the last five summers combined.  I'm glad to be done with that.

Speaking of done. . .

I finished my Solar socks over the weekend.

I also started, and finished, my dishcloth for August.  The pattern I went with came from Knit Picks, and is called Phyllis and Marian.  It's super simple, and knits up very fast.  It looks a little wonky in the picture, but it's not that bad in person.

Now that I've finished the socks, and the dishcloth, I find myself wondering what to cast on next.  I have a car trip coming up at the end of next week, so should probably choose a portable project, like socks.  However, I find myself with the urge to knit something bigger. . . a sweater, a lap blanket, or a shawl.  I might just have to get out of monogamous knitting mode, and cast on both a big project and a pair of socks.

That's one of the best things about doing the Yarn Along with everyone; I can see a bunch of knitting options.

Yarn Along 2016.31: Lots of Progress

Joining Ginny for the Yarn Along on another very hot Wednesday (What is it with Wednesdays this summer?!?  Another 90+ degree middle of the week. . .  I think we've hit 90 more times this summer than in the last five summers combined!)

I spent quite a bit of time knitting over the weekend.  Knitting in the car.  Knitting by the campfire.  Knitting at the campsite while waiting for the rest of our group to be ready to go canoeing and kayaking.  I spent almost as many hours knitting as I did in my kayak floating the Jordan River and the Sturgeon River in northern Michigan.

As a result, my second sock of the pair of Solar socks I am making has grown phenomenally. At last week's yarn along, it was barely cast on.  Now, I'm halfway through the heel flap and starting to feel like I'm heading for the home stretch.  Could I possibly finish this sock in the coming week?  I think maybe I could.

I've just started reading A Distance to Death, a horse related murder mystery.  It is by the same author as Murder, She Rode, that I read and really enjoyed in early July.