Been There (Both Sides)

With thanks to dear friend Debi, I give you this.  Is it a tad manipulative and simplistic?  Well, heck, yeah.  Does that make it less true, or less important to remember?  Well, heck, no...

Go, You!!

This is for my son and his friends.

Young adulthood can be a wonderful time, but it is also full of pressure and stress and unrealistic expectations and fears for the future. All of this because you don't yet know who you are. Your strengths, your challenges, even your weaknesses... you are really just discovering these things and don't yet know what to do with them.

To add to the discomfort, there are plenty of people willing to give you their opinion - and whether they really have your best interests in mind or not, whether they are right or not, those opinions can hurt. And figuring out what to do with the information you are being given can be tough and confusing. It's not always easy to tell the difference between Persistence and Idiocy.

So here's the thing. When you are feeling confused or dismayed or stressed-out about a particular issue, talk to your gut. Find a quiet place, take some deep breaths, pay attention to the sound and feeling of your breath going in and then out of your body. When you feel relatively calm, explain (silently or out loud) the situation to your internal guide - your gut - as though you were telling your best friend about your problem. Since you are speaking to your best friend, expect a sympathetic yet honest hearing.

Choose two options (or three, but your clearest answer will come from the clearest, simplest choices) that you are seriously considering as actions that will address the problem at hand, and say each one - out loud if at all possible - as though you have already decided to take that action. And then just pay attention to how your stomach and body feel as you make that statement. Make each statement as simple and positive and immediate as you can. Use the present tense, so that your gut believes your statements and reacts to them directly and clearly.

For instance, if you are deciding whether you want to accept a job that will pay your bills but that seems like a dead end, or whether you will decline the job and risk losing your apartment, you might make the statements:

I will take the job.
(pause to assess your body's reaction)

I will not take the job.
(pause to assess your body's reaction)

You could, if you like, add a third...

I will take the job, but save $200 per pay check. If I am unhappy in a year, I will have a cushion that will allow me to quit and look for something else.
(pause to assess your body's reaction)

Your stomach or your muscles are going to have something to say about these statements, if you pay close attention. Some statements are going to cause discomfort, and some will feel less troublesome. That is your gut, speaking to you. Pay attention. Your gut is often a lot more in tune with your Intuition than your overworked brain is.

And if you are feeling overwhelmed and discouraged, remember this:

We Are What We Eat

With thanks to friend Denise for posting it to her blog, I give you this - because it's important that we know what we are doing to the Earth, and to ourselves. You can put those two things in either order, according to your own beliefs - it's equally compelling either way.

This is a movie, not a quick video segment. But it's well worth taking the time to watch.

Invisible

Why is it that I can never find my Chibi when I need it?

Just askin'...

No News...

General update on my life can be found here.

On the Crafting front:

I'm plotting several knitting projects, all of which are gorgeous and perfect and charming and completely doable... because they are currently in the 'theoretical' stage that comes well before the actual 'planning' stage, and eons before the fun 'going insane in the Local Yarn Store' stage, and (blessedly) light years before the 'flinging self prostrate on the floor and pitching a fit because there is NO WAY that this #@&# thing is ever going to get finished before the end of the century' stage.

This fog of happy delusion is not the least bit dissipated by the fact that I already have two projects on the needles that are currently at the fit-pitching stage.

One is a scarf intended for my sister, made of a handspun yarn that is getting a bit ragged, having been completely knit up and then completely frogged TWICE. I do not seem able to admit to the obvious fact that there is not enough yarn there for a scarf, and I will either have to add some complimentary commercial yarn to the project or scrap the entire thing and instead knit up little tiny scarves for my sister's birds. The purchase of commercial yarn and a thorough re-design is of course the logical choice.

I'm trying to figure out whether there is enough yarn in my handspun skein to make some teensy matching beak-warmers.

My other project is an afghan intended for my aunt and uncle. I am at the stage where I am supposed to pick up 121 stitches for the edging at the top of the blanket. I have picked up 148, ripped back, picked up 89, ripped back, picked up 113, ripped back, picked up 134, ripped back.

Now, of course any sane person would have admitted defeat and divided up the edge into marked sections by at least that 89 stitch fiasco. But not me. I am made of thicker sterner stuff. It takes at least four abject failures before I cry 'uncle!' and admit that running headlong into a brick wall is not the only way to get out of a building...

Maybe there's a reason I'm not rich and famous by now. It's just possible that I'm not always as practical as I could be.

Confessions of a Color Bigot

I have a lot to get off my chest today.

First, the good news. Look what I ended up with left over after plying!

That's twice now. Brilliant!!


Now for the weird news - and a big lesson learned. For some reason at the beginning of both bobbins I started out spinning the singles at about the weight and twist that this wool really called for.



On both bobbins, after about 2 yards or so, I evidently reverted back to habit, and although I thought I was spinning at a much heavier gauge than usual... I actually was spinning pretty close to my current 'setpoint'. It looked thicker in my hand, it looked thicker on the bobbin - but when I plied it up, there it was: 2 yards or so of worsted, and then back to fingering. It clearly wants to be worsted, so it's more thick-and-thin than it should be for fingering; the Spinning Universe was trying to teach me, and I was not listening.

I am in a Spinning Rut.

Now that I know this, I know that I must choose the gauge right away, then tape a little length of the spun single to a card and regularly compare what I'm spinning to what is on that card. A pain in the neck, and I won't bother doing it when I'm spinning to my 'setpoint', but for wool that calls specifically for a certain type of spinning, obviously it's necessary.

Darn.

And now for the brilliant bit - and a second Lesson Learned.

I confess that when the Paos so kindly sent me that roving, I thought, "Well, it's very smooshy and will be lots of fun to spin, but what am I going to do with the colors?" Because for the most part they weren't at all the colors I would have normally got on my own, and I couldn't visualize making them Mine. The darker pink and the turquoise seemed my style - but they were so much brighter than the other muted, sandy colors that I was worried they (the turquoise in particular) would stick out like a sore thumb once everything was spun up. But I thought, "Well, obviously lots of other people like these colors, so I will do the best I can, and hopefully someone will want it."

I still wanted to make it in 'my style' of colorways, so I took all the colors apart and laid them out in the order that I thought would work decently together, and off I went. After the singles were done, I thought, "Oh, well, it's not awful, but it's still rather dull-looking. I hope it won't look too monochromatic when it's all put together..."

Off I trudged to dutifully ply it up.

And, well, this is the result.

It's gorgeous! I LOVE it. I am an idiot, and a color bigot, and I apologize profusely to the Paos for thinking that they might not have quite caught my taste when they visited; they clearly are brilliant, tasteful people and I will never doubt their wisdom again.