The Year of House Improvements
After years of putting off, and putting off, and putting off - we have finally decided to do more than just clean the house! It started in the spring with trimming the yard and mulching. Mulch makes everything look better. And then a new front storm door was installed today. Coming up we are replacing 3 bathroom floors and some window screens. Let's not forget the defective bathroom mirror upstairs that has to go, and the light over the kitchen sink that was cheap and ugly (and new) when we moved in 28 years ago - and has not improved with age. Finally the aluminum siding is DIRTY and GREEN (neither color is light gray the siding was born to be) so a pressure wash is in our future. Who knows, if I get on a roll this year I might do some of next year's things - interior house painting, 28 year old carpeting that needs to go, kitchen cabinets that have out lived their usefulness. We put so much stuff off for so long that we are now facing change after change after change.
This year I added some color to my simple uncluttered external environments. I have bushes, trees, mulch and some brick. That is it! Simple, uncluttered, easy to maintain. But I love nurseries. I love picking out plants, putting them in pots, watering and fertilizing them, pinching off the spent blossoms, talking to them over the morning coffee - I haven't done this for awhile but it lifts my spirits. After my frustrating Mother's Day ... I needed a little spirit lifting. But I do feel sorry for these small gentle blossoms because they were adopted by the killer of green things ... just saying.
The Mother's Day that wasn't ...
Mother's Day was an "up and down" event for me. It was Sunday so that meant church with mom, which was an "up" because it is so important to her. And lunch with her at Assisted Living was an "up" - the food there is great. But her allergies were making her miserable - a "down," and I discovered her allergy meds were discontinued at some point in the worst allergy season in years - a "great big down" for both of us, and her legs seemed to freeze up at times making her very unsteady - another "down" that worried me quite a bit. Then there was the sour "icing on the cake" - I discovered that a beautiful hand woven wool shawl (shown in the picture) I made for her a few years ago had been accidentally machine washed and dried by the staff. It was now a napkin! You can't machine wash and machine dry wool. Big fat "no no" unless you want a felted napkin. Mom loved that shawl when I gave it to her and she enjoyed it mostly during the winter months when she would get cold. She doesn't know it is gone. Reduced mental functioning has saved her from this disappointment. I was, however, upset enough for both of us. By the time I got home my kids were on to other commitments - that was OK - I was focused on getting some of mom's medical issues corrected. And I had the company of my kids earlier in the weekend.
My daughter ordered me a FitBit Pedometer for Mother's Day which will come in June and I am totally excited about it. And my son and daughter-in-law made a lasagna for our Sunday dinner before they left for the evening. That was totally yummy and I didn't have to cook. Big thumbs up on that!!
I guess the ups and downs finally balanced out this Mother's Day.
My Crafing Life ...
I treated myself to a new set of Interchangeable knitting needles by Knitter's Pride - LOVE, LOVE, LOVE these needles. Go out and buy them. Buy them even if you don't knit. :-) I started a new shawl for mom right away using these needles, and I love the feel of them. I am using the same yarn as the woven shawl for mom's new shawl - except I added a strand of purple yarn to boost the color. I am pleased with the product so far. But the knitting list has got to stop growing. Here is my 2013 list:
- Mom's shawl - 10% done
- My Autumnal Cardigan: - 40% done
- My daughter Leaf Lace Shawl - 0% done - but working on the guage swatch
- My cousins' Faery Ring Jacket - 0%
- My son's Dr. Zoidberg hood and mittens - 0% done
Walking is going ok - in a not-so-ok sort of way!! :-)
Ok ... in that I am not giving up, and I am walking at least a few days a week, and I am getting my step counts up, and I feel better now than that day several weeks ago when I went for the first walk and felt like death!
Not-so-ok ... in that I am not yet walking 5 times a week and I don't reach 10,000 steps every single day. But I hit 7,000 to 8,000 steps a day most days. That is better than the 4,000 to 5,000 I was doing.
So this post is the iceberg of my life - the pieces that are showing.
Hope your corner of the world is treating you well.
9 comments:
How could someone wash a wool shawl in the washing machine and dry it in the dryer. Are they nuts! I would be soooo upset . . .
Quite the knitting projects you have . . . you are going to be busy!
Your mom's new shawl will be fabulous and even a bit more purple to jazz it up. Sad they ruined her original shawl. Sounds like you had both ups and downs re Mother's Day this year.
I've decided Mother's Day is just "life," maybe life with flowers or something else that doesn't come along every day, but it's still just "life." But the ruination of that beautiful shawl, that's a TRAVESTY!
Folks are so used to everything being synthetic these days they don't regcognize real wool when it's rubbed in their faces and they don't know what to do with it.
You have some lovely (and big) projects to look forward to. I'd have been upset about the shawl as well. I think I would ask the staff not to touch the new one.
Discovering the ruining of the hand woven shawl had to be the worst. But it sounds like your life is in balance with lots of positives happening everyday. Its good to focus on the positives whether they are large or small :-)
I wonder that some people just don't get that some things are machine wash and dryable. That must have been such a disappointing discovery.
Onward and upward! Good luck with your many projects and your walking too!
-Laura
Oh what a shame about that beautiful shawl!!!!
Your mother's day was better than mine - my daughter completely ignored me!
After you get done with all that work on your house, you will think you moved to a new one. : )
THat is such a shame about the shawl. I worked for years in a long term care facility and they don't take very good care of the resident's personal things. Better to take the good stuff home with you. Or not let them do any of her laundry
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