Broken Resolutions and Unfinished Crafts

The first week of the 2024 is over and all I have to show for it is a pedicure and a ten dollar bill from winning at Bingo. Considering it costs five bucks to play it’s not a win big enough to celebrate. But the popcorn was free and the company was good so there’s that. I never played the game before moving here to the continuum care campus but as the saying goes, “When in Rome do as the Romans do.” Side note here: Does anyone else find it interesting that that idiom was first found in writing in 1777 and we still use the phrase today? Supposedly it was a quote spoken by St Ambrose and written in a letter by St Augustine about napping in the middle of the afternoon. I’m almost sure the phrase back in that era in Rome also referred to pigging out at decadent parties and a few other things that one would not put in a letter to the Pope. But at my age I might have a foggy memory of the allegorical paintings I studied in art history class back in my youth and I could be a half century off on when the Decadent Movement was at its height in Rome. I hate that I can remember obscure paintings like the one above but I forgot to buy baby aspirin when I was at the grocery store yesterday.

If you are a long time reader of this blog you know I’m not fond of getting pedicures and have only been getting them for a few years of life. I resent the time and money spent and trying to make myself understood when I say things to indicate that I want the cheapest pedicure they give but still end up paying $50 plus a tip. Once it was $60 and I have no idea how that happened!

Finally, after getting my first ingrown toenail---that, by the way, cost over $300 to treat!----I have a pedicurist I like. The foot doctor’s office has one under their umbrella of services and you have to have their recommendation to get on the client list. They don’t push polish, did a great job, it only it took a 1/2 hour and the charge was $40 plus I tipped her $10. They call them medical pedicurists and they are trained to look for issues like ingrown toenails, fungi and other potential issues we don’t want on our feet.

The new year came with a couple of new resolutions but already I fell off the wagon of carrying them to the goal line. But before I share that part I want to ask if anyone has done the Swedish Death Cleaning? A few years ago there used to be a blogger in our circle of bloggers who did it---Judy gave away everything she didn’t use anymore, finished up all her unfinished projects and drastically de-cluttered her mobile home then deep cleaned it thoroughly. The idea is to make it easier on your family when you die. The name gives me the willies but I saw clips of the Swedish Death Cleaning TV series and from what I saw it was a kinder, gentler version of Mari Kondo's show.

I live with a lot of guilt over not downsizing as much as I could have/should have when I moved. And with the turning of the new year I made up my mind that I need to do something about that. I’m 80-fu*king-two, after all. But that notion lasted about a half a week when I couldn’t decide where to start. So instead I planned to finish up a few craft projects. One was a cashmere scarf that I started seven years ago but life got in the way and I stopped working on it. Picking it up now it took me three days just to figure out where on the complicated pattern I left off. I finished it but if you look close enough you'll see my skill level has gone down hill.

Next I tried picking up a project I started on circular needles and after a night of working on it I gave myself permission to rip it all out, put the yarn in my stock box and declare that I don’t need to know how to do everything. That felt good too. My mom did beautiful sweaters on circular needles and even though I've done a lot of knitting over the years I never liked holding the circular needles. 

Next up was either a half done knitted teddy bear or a cut-out 3” velveteen teddy bear to construct or a cross-stitch that only has a one inch square left to do. The cross stitch I started back in the1960s when my brother was hospitalized after his appendix burst and I’ve only worked on that cross-stitch when someone in the family was hospitalized. I no more than put the kit case by my La-Z-Boy when it spooked me out, thinking if I start working on it someone will end up with a medical emergency. I listened to my inner voice and put that project back where I found it. 

The next day I completely failed at my resolve to finish up all my unfinished craft projects when I bought some yarn on impulse to start something new, a sampler of knitting stitches. I might be 82 but I’m not dead! I thought standing in front of the yarn bins. And maybe if I make a sampler project like I did when I first learned to knit as a teenager it will turn out to be a good thing, like putting a period at the end of the last sentence in a book. Ya, I'm not taking any bets on whether or not this will turn out to be my last knitting projects.

Until Next Wednesday…  ©

                                                                 My Seven Year Scarf  

*The painting above by Thomas Couture is titled: The Romans in their Decadence. (French: Les Romains de la décadence) First shown in Paris in 1847.

 

Baby Sweaters and the Danish Boat Lift

Last week before I got sick I went to a lecture that was spellbinding and mesmerizing---yes, there is a difference---and at several points it had the hair on my arms standing right up. That was a common reaction. I’ve been going to the Life Enrichment Lecture series at the senior hall for many years and this was only the second one where the speaker got a standing ovation. What was it about? It was titled “When Good People Do Something” and it was an uplifting account of what the people of Denmark did during WWII to save 98% of its Jewish population (7,200 people in all) from being rounded up by the occupying Nazis. The speaker was a professional storyteller and a Professor of Humanities at Lawrence Technological University, born in the Bronx and was great at doing accents. She took us through the steps the Danish people did spontaneously when they got wind of the fact that the Nazis were planning to raid the synagogues on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and send all the worshipers to concentration camps.

With less than 24 hours’ notice, gentiles and Jews alike sprang into action. They passed the warning around not to go to the synagogues and to find places to hide away from their homes. Strangers and neighbors took people in to their homes to hide, businessman provided money to help them flee the country and hospital workers helped sedate Jewish children so they could be hidden in fishing boats for an impromptu boat lift to take the Jewish people off the peninsula that was Denmark to neutral Sweden where they could apply for political asylum. Only 500 of Denmark’s nearly 8,000 Jewish population were rounded up by the Gestapo and deported to Theresienadt concentration camp. By far, the most successful Resistance Operation in all of Europe.

Denmark was important to Hitler because it was his breadbasket to feed his troops. Along with its rich fishing industry they also had some of the best boat builders in the world and Germany brought all their ships to their ports for repair. The Resistances repaired them in such a way that they’d break down again out at sea. The lecturer read some words written by the King of Denmark in late 1930s about Adolph Hitler and they were the same words we often hear used to describe Donald Trump. She snuck that quote in so fast and kept right going to another antidote that it had everyone looking at each other, wondering if we just heard what we heard.

When good people do something. Christian churches hide artifacts from the synagogues until the end of the war and when the Jewish people were able to come back to Denmark two years later they found their houses just as they left them only they’d been cleaned, the cupboards stocked with food and fresh flowers were on the tables. But the Danish people were not the only ones who did courageous things during those dark days. Historians speculate that the person who spilled the beans about the planned raid was a high ranking German in charge of occupied Denmark who had lived there long enough to learn to love the country. Another high ranking German, historians believe, let his humanity show when he pulled most of the Germany patrol boats off the waters to “paint” during the month while the boat lift was in full operation and that added to their evacuation success. 

The lecturer, Corine Stavish, ended her talk with these words: “People were presented with a clear choice between good and evil and they choose ‘good.’” She’s active at National Storytelling Festivals and, if you get a chance to hear her talk, go. She’s witty and poignant and she knows how to make history come alive.

Switching Gears: Let’s talk knitting. The sweater and vest below are my last projects of the 2018/19 winter. I have to put my knitting needles and yarn away because it gets too hot and sticky to knit in the summer. The lady bug sweater is for my youngest niece’s cottage where her grandkids often need a sweater on cool summer evenings on their pontoon. The vest is for my oldest niece’s grandson who loves wearing vests, and he loves his grandpa’s John Deere tractor.

My mom used to make graphic pictures on sweaters but the tractor was my first attempt. She also used to make entire sweaters with patterns like on the lady bug sweater’s front panels only fancier and with more colors. With the vest I learned how to use yarn bobbins---at one time there were nine bobbins hanging down the back of the tractor---and I can see how they can take the frustration out of those Scandinavian designs. I may try another next winter. Anyway, good-bye knitting and hello eBay. May is here! ©

NOTE: Photo at top is from the Danish Jewish Museum and shows one of the fishing boats used to smuggle people to Sweden. Can you imagine how many trips it would take to get 7,200 people across the bay to Sweden? Our speaker said someone tried to burn that musuem down recently but they saved it.

Birds Singing in the Forest: Inspiration for 2019

Searching for inspiration to spark a New Year’s blog post I came across these words stitched on fabric: “Use all the talents God gave you for the forest would be very quiet if only the best bird sang.” Being a person who drags around a lot of guilt for wasting time and my minor league talents, those words struck a chord. I’m good at hiding my voice in the shower because it isn’t as good as someone else’s. I’m not talking about actual singing talent, of course. I left that aspiration back in high school before years of asthma and old age came into play. Now I have trouble singing anything that doesn’t hurt my ears and send the dog off to another room. I’m talking about what I perceive as my God given talents and how I take them for granted. And don’t we all? Please tell me I’m not the only one. So instead of New Year’s Resolutions I’m cataloging my talents and vowing to appreciate and use them more in 2019.

1) I’m good at organizing things whether it’s a basket full of nuts, screws and washers or a complicated family genealogy book or---back in the day---flowers for a country club wedding with 500 guests. I can see the big picture and making sense out of all the snippets that feed into it. So how do I plan to put this talent to work in 2019? I'm starting with a walk-in closet I can barely walk into anymore. It needs a major purging of things I’ve been holding onto because my weight bounces all over the place. I’m afraid to let go of things that are too big or too small and please tell me why I’m holding on to worn out things that fit! It’s not like I don’t have the money to buy new clothing. Ohmygod, I wanted to write some New Year’s Resolutions that didn’t include the classic weight related ones and the first thing I put down on my bullet point list took me right to that place!

2) Painting. I’ve struggled with low self-esteem issues for years when it comes to not having enough talent to be another John Singer Sargent, portrait artist extraordinaire. But I do have some talent. So maybe it’s time for me to join the realm of backup singers, so to speak, who approaches art for the shear fun of dabbling. Maybe it’s time to change the style I’ve been working towards since my teens and go for something that frees what talent I do have to go where it’s never been before…abstract, funky, sideways...anywhere but in an upward trajectory towards a discipline I’ll never achieve.

3) Handcrafts: knitting, quilting and sewing. I still knit and still enjoy it and I definitely have/had a talent for sewing. I took tailoring classes back in college and actually made men's lined suit jackets that looked every bit as good as any you’d find in high end stores. I was a great seamstress but I lost my interest in sewing somewhere in the '80s when free time was harder to come by and we played dress-up less and less often. In the past decade I tried to revive my once-love of sewing by taking a class on quilting but I was bored quilting using a sewing machine. I’ve since made a couple of quilts entirely by hand, which was akin to meditation that I loved doing, but I’m losing my finger dexterity so I’ve hesitated taking on another quilt project. For 2019 I hope to find a couple of handcraft projects that inspires me. And if I don’t I’ll know by the end of the year that it’s time to cut my losses and run from my past successes.

4) I have a talent for long range planning, if you want to call it a talent. Some would call it a boring way to live but it’s served me well and it’s a skill that I couldn’t shake if I wanted to, having been raised by depression era parents who both knew what it was like suffer hardships. With that in mind, I took the DNA health test from 23andMe and the results should be coming the first part of January. I read somewhere that only 10% of the population wants to know if they have the gene markers for the health conditions the test reveals including Alzheimer’s. But isn’t knowing just an extension of gathering facts for long range planning? I might regret the decision because once you look at the test results you can’t un-see them and they say it affects you in ways that you can’t predict. For me, I think if I have the marker for Alzheimer’s I’d either obsess with estate planning or want to cram as much fun stuff into my life as I could while I can still remember doing it, which begs the question why don’t I do that now without knowing my health future? I could get hit by bus tomorrow---well except for the fact that there isn’t any bus service here in the suburbs where I generally roam. But you get the point. 

“Use all the talents God gave you for the forest would be very quiet if only the best bird sang.” Henry Van Dyke, an American author, educator and friend of President Woodrow Wilson is credited for writing those words. And for 2019 I hope to use that sentiment to keep my voice strong doing the things I have some talent for doing...and that includes being one of the birds that sings in the Blog Forest. ©

This entry was published a day earlier than my usual schedule so I could wish you all a Happy New Year! See you again on Saturday.

It's all Over but the Crying...

It’s the middle of December and Christmas has come and gone for me. I started the season out gleefully anticipating the six parties on the calendar but I only got to go to four of them before winter got in the way. Wednesday the Alberta Clipper dumped 6-8 inches of blowing snow where I live, creating havoc for drivers and my Red Hat Society party got canceled. Since the fifteen of us were supposed to meet at a restaurant, we were able to move the reservation to January when the weather could very well interfere again. On the good side, the gift I bought for the exchange is one I really love and I will be thrilled if I get to keep it. Everything has a silver lining. I’ve never come home from a Red Hat party with something that didn’t go directly into a donation box. I wish they’d go to the ‘consumables only rule’ that is popular down at our senior center. All door prizes and gifts given down at the hall cannot add clutter to our houses. Twice I tried giving consumables at Red Hat Society parties but they didn’t go over as well as things like cookie jars, flashy jewelry, lawn ornaments, tree ornaments, kitchen gadgets, etc. Clutter for people with more life behind us than in front of us.

The road crews did a great job clearing the roads after our storm and the next day I was able to go to our book club party. We each brought a tray of finger foods and no gifts except for the one the club bought for our facilitator. Several people raved about the tarts I made and I’m going to get sick of them before the year is out because I had already brought the ingredients to make them again for my family’s party but I won’t be able to attend. I can’t drive after dark, especially out in the boondocks, and the niece who was going to drive me back to the city with her husband following behind in their car has decided to go south for a couple of weeks. Good call on her part. I’d take a beach community over snowy Michigan, too, if I could. But the knitted hats I made for everyone are with my other niece so they'll make it to the party.

January marks the beginning of knitting season at my house and I have to decide what to make. The hats for twenty-nine people was too ambitious a project for me. I got bored and tired of making them and I barely got them done by spring. The year before I made sweaters for babies and three winters ago it was baby car-seat blankets. Another year I made mittens for the senior hall sale but they don’t hold their annual crafts sale anymore. I will probably make something for my niece’s grandma drawers. They both have houses on lakes and they are carrying on a tradition my mom did with them. She had a chest of drawers with extra clothing for her grandkids because weather is often colder around the water and parents forget to bring extra sweatshirts, sweatpants or hats and with winter sports, dry mittens are always in short supply. I’m not fond of knitting with four needles but I’m thinking about making kid sized gaiters. I love gaiters and finger-less gloves. I wear both all winter long including inside the house. It’s a thyroid thing. I’m always icy cold, even in the summer.

I won a beautiful pink poinsettia at the union hall Christmas party and it’s the only holiday thing I have in the house. Unless you count the decorated tree that is nicely wrapped and sitting on a shelf in the basement and the two beautiful door wreaths with big velvet bows in their custom wreath boxes stacked on the same shelf. How lazy was I this year! Three trips up the basement steps could have put some holiday spirit in the house, but it felt like I'd be putting ruby-red lipstick on a whore hoping to score. See my big red bows, stop by for a visit! I've got holiday cheer inside! But I’ve been faithfully visiting my tree and wreaths when I go down to check on the mice and I’m happy to report that I’m winning that war. Ya, I know. I could have multi-tasked while I was on mice patrol and brought my Christmas stuff upstairs since I was going that way anyway. But I didn’t and I don’t really know why. Sometimes it’s better not to exam things like that too closely because we might not like what we find. ©

It's All Over but the Crying

The Ink Spots

It's all over but the crying
And nobody's crying but me
Friends all over know I'm trying
To forget about how much I care for you
It's all over but the dreaming
Poor little dreams that keep trying to come true