Mark Twain

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do ...
Explore. Dream. Discover." Mark Twain

Saturday, December 18, 2021

Christmas Images and a Holiday Greeting for you.

While the holiday season picks up speed - I thought I would provide proof that I don’t back away from participating.  I think of it as plowing onward a day at a time in an attempt to sweep away the memories of past Decembers, and make this December fun for those that I love.  


She needs no introduction at this point.  
My little Christmas Angel, Eskarina.

My tree as seen from my deck.

Looking at a fully decorated and lighted Christmas
tree works better for me than any meditation. 

We lost this wonderful dog in 2021 - Milo, my daughter’s French Bull Dog and
my grand dog.  What a heart ripping experience that was for both of us.  His passing
is still fresh in my mind and brings tears to my eyes even 5 months later.  It is 
amazing to me how one little dog can settle so permanently inside your heart - as this dog has.

Meathead, my son’s English Bull Dog - gone many years ago
but still much loved.

My tree has bows on it instead of tinsel.  Many years ago we switched to 
bows - cats eat tinsel, as it turns out.  You don’t want to know how I found out.
It involves rubber gloves.

Memories of my mom hang on the tree.  She made these ornaments.

An ornament commemorating Esk's year of birth. 

A Pug in a Santa suit - a nod of remembrance for Grimace, 
my son’s pug that loved me as no other has done.  Gone many years but
still fills a large part of my heart.

A package ornament that my mother-in-law put on a
Christmas gift to me - my first Christmas with her son.
   

An ornament I purchased the first Christmas my
son spent away from family in the Marines.  Another hard Christmas.

Our tree is full of decorations that hold memories.  We never went with breakable ornaments.  There are no glass balls.  After picking my tree up off the floor one year (our very first cat, Ashes, loved to climb trees), I decided that glass balls were out.  But I love the look of trees with them.  Beautiful.

Decorations I inherited from my mother-in-law.  She loved
lighted houses.

Two other houses I inherited.  The Christmas tree was made by my mother.


Her initials are on one of the packages below the tree.  
ELM for Elaine Leona Mesavage. 
Miss you bunches, Mom. 

My helper!  ðŸ˜€

Although it is not clear, she is trying to tie her dress to my tree. 🤣

A visit to Santa!  Socially distanced, of course.
And a big improvement over previous years - the first of which she
cried and cried.  The second of which she had a stomach virus and
threw up in the car on her way to visit Santa.
Ahh ... the memories.
😂


May you all have a joy filled holiday season,
 no matter which holiday you celebrate.  
And may you only have happy memories of past holidays
 - or at least - 
memories that don’t weigh you down.

Be back in the New Year!!

Wednesday, December 15, 2021

The Quilt and the Blanket

I dedicated this past weekend to wrapping Christmas gifts.  

It always takes considerable time.  

Because I am working slower now-a-days - this task which used to fill a full 10 hour day, now fills parts of 3 days.  I just don’t have the energy or desire to push through and complete the wrapping in one day like I used to.  



But I enjoy the process - and this year, at least, I will get a chance to see my family open these gifts in person.  Last year Zoom was my only option and it was better than not seeing them at all.  Man, that was a bummer.



One of my gifts for Esk is a matching quilt and sheet set for a junior size bed in the Frozen theme.  For those who don’t know what Frozen is - it is a Disney cartoon story about two princesses, Anna and Elsa,  their kingdom and their adventure.  If you want to know more - ask any kid who crosses your path.  Any kid and most adults.  Yes, it is that big!

Anyway, before I wrapped the quilt set, I had this notion that I would I open up the quilt and place the blanket and quilt together.  I did this previously as I picked the colors for the blanket specifically using the Frozen color scheme.  Now with just over half of the blanket completed this might be the last time I could catch a picture of the 2 items together. 

So I opened completely both window shades in the guest room and turned on all the lights - hoping to improve my success as capturing the colors of the quilt and the crochet blanket correctly.



And I think I did it.  The colors shown as almost perfect.  Finally!!
In opening up the quilt I realized the quilt is also quite large, so now I am very glad that I am making the blanket as big as it is.  I was a bit concerned that the blanket would swamp the quilt. Glad to find out that it won’t.


And as I snapped a few shots I made another executive decision.


I am not going to wait until her February birthday to give her the blanket.

  I will give it to her as soon as it is finished.  

They are too cute together. 

Note:   If you look at the first picture that showed the quilt and the blanket together - in the lower left hand corner the color of the bedspread can be seen. In every previous picture I took and posted, that bedspread looks a dark beige!  It is not - it is green!  It is amazing how much better natural light is in photography.


Sunday, December 12, 2021

Gaslighting with Pizza Cutters

This morning I was busily cleaning up the kitchen, hand washing a few dishes, emptying the dishwasher and drying some items that had collected in my dish drain.  And then the oddest thing happened. 

I casually looked down at the towel in my hand and the 2 items just dried to determine the drawer they should go in and discovered there were 2 pizza cutters.  Two.  I own one.  Only one.  I stood there in the middle of my kitchen looking at these 2 pizza cutters.  While my body was still, my brain was bouncing around in my skull searching in my memory banks trying to explain 2 instead of 1.

Nothing.  


I quickly texted my daughter-in-law, sure she was missing a pizza cutter.  Logic, of course, didn’t enter into this action because even though she was here several times - why would she have carried a pizza cutter into my home.  No matter.  I texted. God knows what she was thinking when she read my message. Nope!  She has her pizza cutter. Nuts! 

I circled back into my brain for another reason.  

No one visited with a pizza cutter ... I don’t think.  No one of my social circle carries a pizza cutter in their purse or in their back pocket and besides - would you admit something like that?  I wonder if pizza cutters are on the “no fly list” for airports!  ðŸ¤£ I am going to bet they have seen everything.  But visiting my condo with one.  Not likely.   

Could the former owner of the condo accidentally left this pizza cutter behind and I am just finding it now - 5 years later?  Ha!  Only a desperate brain would accept that as a possibility.

It is possible, I suppose, that I misplaced pizza cutter #1 and then went out and bought pizza cutter #2 and just today #1 pops up ...  Nope!   I have no memory of doing such thing and to consider the possibility that I may have completely blacked out on a trip to the store to buy pizza cutter #2 ... well I am not ready to go with that yet.

Is someone gas lighting me?
 I sure hope so!   

So I am going with that - 
no matter how paranoid it sounds
 because all other options have ramifications I am not prepared to accept. 

The opposite problem and I are 'good friends.'   Items ‘hiding’ in plain sight ...  sometimes on the bridge of my nose, on top of my head or right in my hand or right where they should be and I look right past them.  Yes, I know that problem well! 

But I don’t have room in my life for another “good friend” unless that good friend is causing extra $100 to show up in my hand that I didn’t know I had.  

But an extra pizza cutter ... !!

 


Friday, December 10, 2021

The Heart Blanket - An Executive Decision

This is my last progress picture.  I had not yet reached the center of the blanket.

Clearly I have made progress, reaching the center and 
now decreasing.

But with only 15 days left until Christmas it is very clear that this blanket will not be finished when I thought.

Although one side matches the edge of the bed, this side shows about 
4 inches of space not covered by the blanket.  But once the edging is 
added, it will most definitely fill the top of a queen bed - up to the pillows.

It is too bad that the colors are so far off.  The center pink panel is close to the actual color but all other colors are not showing correctly.  Maybe an outside shot when I am close to finished will show better.  To give you some idea of how far off the colors are - the bedspread is green - not beige.

If this wasn’t such a busy month and I could sit for hours each day and do nothing but crochet, I could probably finish this in 15 days.  But with Christmas coming and the a list of to-dos that I have not yet touched, it is not realistic.  This weekend I need to wrap all the gifts - a task that seems to take up a lot of my time when I get going.  Next weekend (the weekend before Christmas) Eskarina will be at my condo for cookie making and a sleep over.   I need to prepare some of that cookie dough in advance so she can do the fun parts when she comes.  And although I am retired, I can’t entirely set aside things like house cleaning and laundry and cooking.  And I started a Christmas Puzzle - jigsaw puzzles are relaxing mediative activities for me, and I need to squeeze that time in as well. So there is very little chance that I can get this completed by the Christmas deadline.

I made an Executive Decision!

My grand daughter has a 4th birthday coming up in February.  Guess what will be one of her presents! I am much happier with that deadline.  


 

Tuesday, December 7, 2021

The Last Minute Granddaughter Blanket

 Here is my first update on a blanket I decided to start on November 13 (November of this year - not last year) as a gift for my grand daughter. The first pictures are November pictures.




The following pictures are from 2 days ago - early December.  It is a pattern that has grown on me the longer I work on it.  The lacy hearts are subtle - not easily seen up close while working on it.



Even when I spread out one heart on my lap, like in this blue stripe, I think - I can’t really see the full structure of one lace heart.


In almost every close up view of my work - as I crochet - the pattern seems lost.


But stretched out like so below, it is easy to see how cute it is.  And the more I do on this pattern,
the more I think about doing a second blanket as some point - maybe one for me.


In the picture below the blanket is extended it full length on a queen size bed.  It will be larger than I thought using the colors I wanted and the size of the stripes.  


The pink stripe is the center of the blanket and at present is about double the width seen in this picture. Pink will be the widest stripe.  As of today, I am about 3 rows into the decreases - meaning I am working on the second half of this blanket now.  And with each row the rows get shorter now.  

I am so glad I decided to crochet this blanket instead of knitting it.  If I was to have any chance of finishing this blanket for Christmas I needed to crochet instead of knit since knitting is so much slower.  And I have really enjoyed making this blanket - the change of the colors, the completion of each row of hearts, the growth in size - all added to the enjoyment.

The real question is will this blanket be done by December 24?  Unlikely.  Once the blanket is complete, I still have a border that is about 2-3 inches wide to complete.  But it should be done by the New Year for sure.   

Monday, November 29, 2021

Please, make it January.

(This is not one of my happy posts.  You can skip it if you need too. I won’t mind. Just giving a voice to feelings that I carry with me around this time of year - in hopes that putting fingers to keyboard I can shed some baggage that follows me during December.)

In the next few days it will be December 1.  

Again!

 December!

  My least favorite month of the year.  

I can already feel the holiday pressure of getting things done crowding me.  How I wish that was my only problem. The real issue is more complicated. I feel concern creeping up on me that the month passes without any bad stuff like illnesses or worse. I know that sounds a little bit paranoid - but December and I have a history together and it isn’t positive.   

How did December get such a bad wrap?   Truthfully, I didn’t always hate December and the number of happy December holidays far outweighs the sad ones ... so why can’t I just throw off the bad ones and enjoy the season? Being a generally happy positive person the other 11 months of the year, I gave this question a lot of thought and discovered only one answer for me: the intensity of events and life changing nature of some of my Decembers sit in stark contrast to the “let us all be happy” message of December.  

The first dent in my relationship with December happened in 1970 with the death of my dad right before Christmas. It was a sudden event - a fall down a flight of stairs that was not discovered promptly and after a few days in ICU he died - several days before Christmas.  His passing was a combination of sorrow and some relief.  He was an alcoholic and he made family life hard.  But I loved him in spite of all the pain he caused.  That Christmas without him was my first experience of sadness while all the world seemed joyful.   Even in the funeral home where our family gathered to say goodbye reminders of the season were everywhere ... tastefully done, of course, but there all the same.  

Ironically, like bookends - the death of my mother came just after Christmas in 2014.  

These events were 44 years apart - certainly healing should have happened in that time.  And it did. Each Christmas after his death I remembered him with forgiveness and love. That yearly remembrance felt like a healthy and realistic admission that sad things can happen at Christmas time, and you can move on and to be grateful for the happy events - recognizing that Christmas happiness is not ‘promised'.  

But my mom's death was preceded by many hard December experiences - each one more difficult than the last until I couldn’t stand the month at all.  

The first event happened about a year after mom moved in with me in 2007.  A vicious GI bug spread through our family the day after Thanksgiving.  It was the worst GI virus I have ever had.  While normal healthy individuals could survive that, my mom was in her 80s.  It devastated and hospitalized her - not once but twice in quick succession.  The second hospitalization landed her in ICU because she was septic. As with all her hospitalizations, I was with her 24/7.  Rehab followed and I followed her there as well.  Getting her well consumed me.  I approached her recovery as a battle to be won.  I pushed medical staff to get her home before Christmas.  She rallied quickly.  When she came home it was December 22 - little to no holiday prep had been done for my own family’s Christmas.  Some gifts were purchased but no wrapping, no Christmas tree, and no meal preparation.  But no matter, my mom was home.   The tree got put up on December 23rd, and the gifts that weren’t purchased by then where replaced with checks. I purchased a fully cooked Christmas Day meal from a local grocery store - and we called it good!  The real celebration was ... Mom was home and doing well.  I won that battle.

I won the battle over several other hospitalizations and rehabilitations over the course of a few years getting her back home, but  each left her weaker than before. At age 85 a hospitalization and a very long rehab experience ended with her being placed in Assisted Living.  And, of course, that happened in the month of December.  The community I picked was top notch, very homey with great staff, and beautifully decorated for the holiday, but I knew mom didn’t want any this.  She wanted to go home.  The final determining factor were the 20 steps up from the parking lot to my townhome - steps she could not climb any more.  I remember riding home that first night she spent in Assisted Living.  The December lights on houses I passed were twinkling brilliantly, the Christmas music was playing on the radio, and I was in tears the entire way home at this permanent change in all our lives.  That night I started to intentionally ignore December ‘cheer’ that tried to invite me at every turn to be happy .

The last 3 years of her life she lived away from home - 2 years in Assisted Living and 1 year in Nursing.  As always, the staff made the holidays as grand as they could.  But it was hard to ignore that fact that about half the residents were mobile enough to visit a family member’s home for the holiday. We couldn’t do that for mom.  I hated those last 3 Christmases more than you could imagine.  As December approached I felt disappointment and sadness begin to grow in me.  To compensate I spent as much time as I could during those holidays with her, and extended family came for visits as well.  We even arranged a separate Holiday family meal with her on site, but the one thing she always wanted was to go home,  and I couldn’t make that happen. Those 3 Christmases cemented my distaste for December and it was when I learned to yearn for January.

Starting in early 2014 at 88 years old she had a number of serious health issues that could not get resolved. Her dementia had pretty much consumed her with only short glimpses of who she had been as my mom.  In mid-December of that year her chronic problems were growing in intensity.  Her eating had dropped off and she had no interest in her surroundings. I was losing this final battle and it seemed like nothing could halt her decline.  When medical staff finally informed me that she was actively failing, I had already known in my heart she could not be pulled back.  The message - your mother is dying - I got on December 22.  They estimated she would make it to Christmas but not much past that.  Needless to say, there was no holiday spirit left to crush in me.  By this time Christmas Day was just another date on a calendar.  My only comfort in those last days and hours were that the dementia I fought so hard against, was finally her ‘friend’ ... shielding her awareness of another passing Christmas away from home. Mom and I lost this last battle together, but at least I was the only one grieving. 

She died on December 28th.  I was numb driving home that evening.  I don’t remember the trip at all - but I am sure without a doubt - those Christmas images I learned to ignore - were everywhere.

This year will be the 7th year anniversary since her passing.  Unfortunately traditional Christmas sounds and sights still remind me of our years of struggle.   I still yearn for January.  But now at 74, I accept that this will not change.  You can’t ‘un-ring a bell' - the memories cannot be wiped from the mind as if they never happened.   I accept them now, however, with more grace.  A grand daughter has helped me to find some peace in these celebrations, but I still feel it is a lot for those tiny little shoulders to bear, so I don’t rest entirely on her existence as my way out of holiday gloom.  After 7 years I am better at hiding that sad part of me by putting a smile on my face during December - especially with family.  But when I am alone with only my thoughts during this month, the memories of holidays mom and I shared appear like a flash flood - sudden and sweeping away everything else.   

Please, make it January.  

(Has the sharing of this helped me shed some of my ‘baggage?’  Maybe a make-up case worth.  Has it increased just one person’s understanding that others struggle mightily during the holidays?  I hope so.)


During happier times when she would sit on 
my front step and just enjoy the feeling
of being outside.

Mom and I in 2011
Taken at the rehab facility she eventually would call “home.”  


Mom, my sister and I in 2012
Taken 2 months after she moved into Assisted Living.

 Is it January yet?


Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Progress Report: Frozen Colors Afghan

I made a bit of progress on the crochet afghan I am stitching for my granddaughter for Christmas, so it seemed like the time for a picture update. 

First picture - taken within about 48 hours of starting on November 13.

The pattern is called “With Love, Granny” Afghan Pattern designed by Crystal White-VanCleemput, of JolieKnotsCrochet.  The word ‘Granny' is a reference to the Granny Crochet stitch that makes up the heart patterns in the blanket.  The ‘With Love' reference is a nod to all the hearts in the pattern. But I love how when you put all the words together in the title it can be understood as a gift from a loving grandmother - which my afghan actually is.

Several days later.

I am glad I decided to crochet this instead of knit it.  There is no knit stitch that covers this much ground this fast based on the speed at which I knit and crochet (which isn’t fast.)


I am pretty happy with the faint suggestion of the heart pattern in this design.  Checking Ravelry, one crocheter called it “Watermark.”  And that is exactly the impression the hearts give - like a watermark on paper. You know it is there but it doesn’t demand the viewer’s attention on the simple background of double crochets.

A few close ups of the design.



Based on how much yarn has been sucked up by this project so far, I had to once again purchase additional skeins of yarn to complete the afghan based on the order I am using them.  Since it is a corner to corner design, the light blue and white are falling into the part of the pattern that is the widest and based on my planned use of the design - there will be more rows of the colors in the wider center ... and therefore needs more yarn.  Thankfully I could get extra skeins and colors I needed at Joann Fabric’s shop near me.

After the light blue is completed, I have a pink that will fall into the center of the afghan.  It will have more rows than any previous color.  Then I will begin to decrease, going back to the light blue, and then the white and then the lavender, etc. etc. etc.  

So based on those plans I think I am about 1/3 of the way through this pattern - only 1/3 because the closer I get to the center the wider the stripes are.

And I gave some thought to the border. 

Designer’s picture from the pattern.
I don’t care for the open lacy border of this pattern.

I don’t care for the border that came with this pattern, and I planned to do something that had a picot edge.  And then I stumbled upon a border called Whipsiderry Border designed by Dedri from her blog called  Look At What I Made.  Although I am always going to be primarily a knitter, Dedri manages to drag me into crochet time and time again with her beautiful designs.  She does the most stunning crochet, and her website is full of her free designs, beautiful pictures, exceeding detailed written and pictorial instructions and links to her YouTube step-by-step video instructions (a must for me with crochet.)  

The Whipsiderry Border I plan to use.

I love the solid look of this crochet border. It is wider than most with a solid foundation of double crochets that match the double crochet background of the hearts afghan I am working on ... and then is topped off with an appealing crochet lace pattern.

This border will add considerable extra work to the afghan once I complete the body (ha!  Just what I need with a tight deadline. Not!)  Other possible designs would have made for a quicker border, but now my mind is settled on this design so it is what I will use - and if it isn’t quite done for Christmas, I will just give it to her after Christmas. 

(See?  I can be flexible.)




 

Saturday, November 20, 2021

Fall - Falls Down

My Gosh!  I have seen some stunning Fall colors in some of the blogs I follow!  And thank God for those pictures that were shared, because in my area Fall has fallen on his face!

You be the judge!


A beautiful lake but low on the color scale. In past years
there were some stunning views - views that were also replicated in the reflection
on the lake.

My husband and I captured these lake pictures on one of our walks.


But the weekend before these lake pictures I had a chance to dog/house sit for my son and daughter-in-law.  I haven’t done this in almost 18 months.  My God - how I missed these dog sitting weekends.  These sweet mutts were all mine for about 4 days.  And while the colors at their house
were not particularly colorful either, they were bright with sun light.




Olivia - watching me, watching her.



The sun makes everything brighter.

The view from their porch!  I really enjoyed sitting out here
each morning enjoying a beverage.  It is quiet and private.  
Quite perfect! 

Ragnar,  laying in front of my son’s office one afternoon!  
I think someone missed his Papa!