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Restingmotion

  • Talismanic Knitting

    Giant purls Friday I started a new project.  It was a simple project utilizing a fun yarn I had just picked up at my friend Theresa's new yarn shop:  Out of the Loop.  It is basically a bulky wool yarn, meant to be knit on size 15 to 19 needles, with felted balls of wool tied periodically throughout the skein.

     

    I intended to make a simple cowl and thought it would be a fun hospital-knitting project.  Little did I know that this simple project would prove to be my lifeline on a rather difficult day. 

     

    But first the specs:

     

    IMG_4206 Yarn:  U-Knitted Nations Giant Purls 1 skein equals 80 yards

     

    Needle: size 17 circular needle.

     

    Pattern:  a simple tube.  I cast on 48 stitches, joined them and simply knit until I ran out of yarn.

     

    I am very happy with the results of this project although it is far from perfect.  If you look closely you will see quite a bit of variation in my tension and the general texture of my knitting.  As I said it proved to be a difficult Friday.  

    My tension at the beginning was rather consistently loose.  I am, by nature, a loose knitter and I was focusing on trying to keep the stitches loose as I wanted a rather soft fabric with nice drape for this cowl and I feared it would become too stiff.   I actually think the felted purls fall more nicely where the scarf is more loosely knit.

     

    The day began innocuously enough waiting for the doctor to come in with the results of a bevy of tests.   The results were not good, were not what I wanted to hear, what I expected to hear.  My knitting would be shoved aside, then picked up again and I would knit desperately, as if wrapping a small bit of yarn around a stick would make the world right again.  My tension varied widely during this period, although I was not aware of it at the time.  

     

    Then after many discussions with many doctors, I entered a phase of fierce determination.  We would figure this out.  I had a list of rehabilitation hospitals to research and I was determined to do the best job possible over the weekend.  But first I had to finish the cowl.  For some reason I felt I could not walk out that door, I could not move forward, until I finished that project as if dangling yarn was an omen of doom.  My hands were holding the needles tightly and my gauge became much tighter and more evenly spaced again as I raced to the finish.  The end result was that the cast-off end of the cowl is smaller than the cast-on end.  But it works and I rather like it this way.

     

    I've had many projects that remind me of the place and time of their knitting.  I treasure these sweaters:  the sweater I knit on a flight to Paris.  The cabled sweater in Noro Kureyon that I knit as we drove around western Texas the year we went to Big Bend.  The sweater I knit on my first Amazon Cruise.  Now I have this cowl, and although it does not remind me of exotic locales, it is equally treasured, its inconsistencies speaking volumes.

     

    IMG_4195 I kept that cowl in the bottom of my purse all weekend as I toured rehab centers.  I would occasionally reach my hand down into my purse just to feel it there as if the softness of the wool and the nubbly felted balls would help me with my decision.  At one point on Sunday I even wore the cowl as I had run out without a coat and there was a cold wind.  The warm cowl brightened my spirits as well as my neck as the wind whipped about. Every stitch of that wool was a piece of the puzzle, every stitch would help me make the right decision.

     

  • Transfer Day or what I wore on Tuesday

    IMG_4169 To tell the truth, I never intended to be absent so long, and I hope to be able to maintain a more stable schedule now that G has been transferred to a rehab facility.

     

    You see, he has been in the hospital since last Wednesday and I have been tired, worried, hopeful, sad, tired, frantic, angry, busy, and, did I say tired?  I have meant to write but I come home exhausted both mentally and physically.  I try to sleep but I only sleep a few hours and then wake up worrying about everything:  What will happen?  What do I need to do?  When will G come home?  Will G come home?  What will he need?  Am I doing the right things?  

     

    G used to be the one who would lay awake at night worrying, while I slept sweetly beside him.  Now it seems that this house requires a worrier, and in his absence I have assumed the mantle. I am hoping that now that he is in rehab, things will be calmer and more stable, and perhaps I shall worry a little less, or at least that I shall worry a little less under cover of darkness.

     

    It has been cold and windy here and yesterday my car was due to go into the shop and G was scheduled for possible transfer so my cushy life of driving my car from my warm garage to the hospital garage where I could walk through the indoor walkway to the hospital without being outside for more than a few feet was about to come to an end.

     

    Picture 8 It was time for a coat.  This one was chosen by G a few weeks ago, when we were out shopping for other things and he was his old bright charming self.  It shall remain nameless as it has no tags, but is warm filled nylon with a rabbit collar.  I wore it with the Elm skirt which I purchased last spring and Brian Atwood boots, purchased from Yoox a few seasons back.  I was hoping the coat with its strong positive G-vibe would be a good luck charm, and, feeling in need of positive reinforcement, I also chose these oxidized silver earrings by Annette Ferdinandsen which G gave me for my birthday two years ago, even though they were a bit light for the gusts of wind and were beating about my face whenever I was outdoors.

     

    IMG_4162 Underneath the coat I wore a gray rayon jersey draped top I made a few years back using the Hot Patterns Weekender Renaissance Tops pattern.

     

    The nice thing about being bone tired is that apparently I am far less inhibited in front of the self-timer on the camera.   My stiff reserve has been beaten under the table and my more uninhibited silly side has been allowed to sneak out.   I know G would like the first photo better, but I am rather fond of this one, as it captures my more spontaneous ridiculous side.  I'm going to hang on to it to remind myself of the importance of being silly no matter what else is going on in life.

     

     

  • Shhhh!

    I'm sleeping, but I will return.

  • Sometimes I wonder…

    "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men", as Robert Burns said, "gang aft agley"…

     

    Well, perhaps not as seriously awry as they did for poor Lenny Small.  

     

    Still, there was no gardening yesterday.  There was not much of anything but waiting and worrying and helping. Not that I am complaining about that, because such is not my purpose.  

     

    Apparently it was the sciatica that kept my G in bed on Sunday, and allowed me to garden, which kept him from being able to walk on Monday and sent us to the emergency room where he was examined, x-rayed, and promptly sent home, still basically unable to stand more than a few seconds or walk more than a couple of feet at best.  We feared a hip fracture or dislocation, but there was nothing more serious to be found other than sciatica, which is apparently not an adequate diagnosis for admission, even in an frail elderly male whose grip on ambulation is often tenuous in the best of circumstances. But that too, and any thoughts I might have on age, aging, and healthcare in one of the richest countries in the world, are also not the purpose of this post.    Although they might be.

     

    Instead my musings run in a more frivolous vein.

     

    Would G have been sent home if he lived alone?  What if I, his spouse, were older and also frail and unable to support him and keep him from falling, or God forbid pick him up from the floor after a fall?  Would they have sent him home?  I don't honestly know.  Actually no one asked about his home situation.  This may not be surprising as I was there with him.  Except that everyone assumed I was his daughter.  This often caught me by surprise, and I did not really expect it as I told everyone I was his wife.  The ambulance crew knew this, and I informed his nurse, the admitting clerk, the x-ray tech and the doctor the first time I met him.  So why did he ask me if I learned anything about sciatica growing up with my dad?  My dad was a history professor, and yes I learned a great deal about Ren & Ref but not much about sciatica. The doctor must have forgotten, although it is true that I gave up on correcting him.  Perhaps he just wasn’t connecting what I said, what should have been there in G’s record, with what his eyes and his own biases were telling him.  And this does bother me.  If the medical staff cannot overcome their own basic prejudices concerning this, whether I am wife as I say or daughter as they feel I appear, if decisions and opinions are based on faulty perceptions, what else are they missing?

     

    We have been fine at home.  Yesterday I stuck close and looked after G.  I am strong and I can help support him.  Getting up the steps into the house is proved far easier than getting down the steps would have been.  But I knew that would be the case.

     

    Today I will have help in looking after G so I can look after the other things that need looking after.  And yet I still wonder what I would have done had I not the resources to bring in help.  I suppose I would have made more of a fuss.  I didn't.  I knew G would be happier at home.  I knew I could handle the situation, at least in the short term, beyond that I don't yet know.  We hope for improvement.  

     

    Still, I wonder….

     

    We have come a long way from the age when a family might tie an aged relative to the bed to keep them safe… or have we?

     

     

  • Who Knew?

    Who knew that this woman, Texas born and bred, loved working outside on the chill autumn days?  Not I apparently, although perhaps I should have realized this by now.  

     

    In the summer heat I hated the garden, hated working in it, longed to hide myself indoors peering out.  I liked early morning walks through the garden, at least on those early mornings where the humidity didn't start out at 90%.  In the heat of this past summer I wondered if I truly had it in me to garden, to work outdoors.  I thought I had lost my mind planning flower beds and vegetable gardens.  I forgot how nice it was to be outside on a cool crisp day.

     

    Yesterday was a gardening day, and it started in a bit of a panic.  I have been working in bits and pieces here and there, but not getting enough done, and Sunday morning it really hit me that it was almost November and November means  "winter is a coming in" after all. Not only was it almost November it was cold and blustery, and the first time I went outdoors, I came right back indoors in search of warmth.

     

    But there was too much to do that I went right back outdoors, and you know what?  I loved it.  I planted another couple of hundred bulbs and finished planting the stone beds in the front yard, or at least I finished all the planting I had planned on doing this fall.    I even managed to clean out some of the pots and wash them, allowing them to dry in the sun before putting them indoors for the winter.  

     

    I loved feeling warm and toasty in my down vest while the cool wind licked my face and made my nose run.  I love the way the vest allows me to have my arms free to work, but provides just enough warmth so that I can be both cool and toasty all at once. I loved the red-cheeked feeling of the wind against my face.  In the cool sunshine work didn't seem quite so onerous.  I had to work after all to stay warm and the work felt like dancing.  Pushing bulbs into the soft soil, making spots for new perennials and a few small shrubs, cutting back and mulching, always moving but not rushing.  Even though the need to put the garden to bed for the winter is a kind of ending, it is also filled with promise and I felt myself smiling and felt my own eyes laughing as I  nestled plants in the soil, snug under their mulch blanket, ready to come out next spring.

     

    Of course I didn't finish.  But I got far enough along that now I know I will finish in time.  Soon enough the planting will be done, the pots will be put away, and winter will be at my door.  This year I feel ready for it, ready for rest, ready for hibernation, ready for sweet dreams and bright new beginnings.  Autumn feels full of promise to me, like slipping between the sheets at night ready to slumber sweetly and face the new day.  

     

  • Simple

    Sometimes I wish all days could be simple clear and lovely.

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  • What I cooked

    IMG_3980
    Baked Eggs with Taleggio     from Shauna James Ahern and Daniel Ahern's new book Gluten Free Girl and The Chef.

     

    What's not to love about this:  eggs, butter, cream and Taleggio cheese baked to custardy goodness that is like silk on the tongue, almost dessert for breakfast (without the sugar).  G tells me he would happily eat it every day. 

     

    51qTMtqKSGL._SL500_AA300_ So far this is one of only two recipes I have made from this book, although I have been reading the essays and I want to cook almost everything.   The second recipe, for white beans slowly cooked in olive oil is also sensational, although I cooked mine in a slow cooker rather than using the method described in the cookbook.  

     

    The book is lovely; I've been reading Shauna's blog for a long time, even though I have not been much of a commenter.  Shauna's writing  helped me find my way from seeing my Celiac diagnosis as a burden and a struggle to making it an adventure and her books will always hold a fond place in my heart for no other reason than that.  But the recipes are good too.

     

     

     


  • Anticipating Spring

    IMG_4051 It is possible I got a little carried away.  I thought I was being cautious.  I thought I was only ordering a few things, that I was sticking to the plan and not letting my dreams run away with me.

     

    You see I have really missed the flowers.  

     

    I used to have crocuses in the old front yard, before they got overgrown and trampled, before the yard was dug up and the dirt was hauled away and then replaced with other dirt hauled from some other part of the yard.  Those crocuses may appear in surprising places.  I shall keep my eyes open.

     

    My plan for the new front bed is for mostly foliage plants, plants that don't need a lot of care.  I love the textures and contrasts available in shades of green.  But I also miss my flowers.  I know how much I need to see those spring crocuses.  I know the irises need dividing and need to be moved from their current place which has become to shady as the neighbor's trees continue to grow and cast a longer shadow.  I used to plant hundreds of tulips in my rocky craggy clay-filled soil, replacing the bulbs every year as I couldn't plant them deep enough to insure a repeat bloom.  I want all these things and I want to plant them now so that next year my world will be filled with flowers,

     

    So perhaps I did get a little carried away.  I always overestimate how much I can get done and how much time I have in which to accomplish any given task.

     

    The tiny Tsuga you see above sits alone in the large stone bed on the north end of the house.  Nothing else will be planted there until next spring, so he shall have to face the winter alone. I've dreamed of this particular Tsuga for years and once we started building this bed I knew it would be the perfect place for him.  I was lucky to find him languishing among the end of season sale plants and he (why do I think of him as a "he"?) is one of the few plants I have purchased.

     

    This is not true of bulbs.  It seems I have purchased hundreds and hundreds of bulbs. I am amazed at how quickly buying a hundred bulbs here, another few hundred there, and so forth turns into a huge mound of bulbs that need to be planted.   I suppose it is better to dream big than to underestimate oneself.

     

    So the push to plant and finish, while the weather is still amenable, is strong.   I dug and planted then dug and planted some more.  This weekend I planned to transfer the dwarf irises and hakonechloa and plant crocuses and other tiny bulbs.  But the first day did not go so well.  The soil is rocky and hard and filled with clay, a bit of a struggle to work in, and not quite what I expected.  That was my own fault as I never made my expectations clear.  I added humus and manure last weekend, but my arms were already tired and I did not manage to dig it up and work it in as well as I wanted.  I could dig big holes for the plants, but planting hundreds of tiny crocus and species iris bulbs, approximately 15 bulbs per square foot, proved impossible.  

     

    IMG_4112 So I scraped off the mulch and dug the bed up again, mixing in the manure and even more peat, breaking up the clay and dragging buckets of rocks off to the woods.   I hadn't planned on having to do this, but it was necessary or my vision would never take root.  I interplanted the hakonechloa and hellebores with crocuses and the tiny bulbous irises that bloom in the early spring. Some of the irises were transplanted from another bed where they were hidden by larger plants, but I ordered more as I did not think I had enough to fill this new space  

     

    For a few moments, as I started opening bags and tossing bulbs onto the newly spaded soil, I had misgivings.  I thought I over purchased even though I had measured the space and calculated the square footage and ordered just what I needed.  In the end it worked out perfectly.  I had exactly the right number of bulbs.    The bed looks a little messy here, but the plants are settled and about 400 bulbs have been planted, and the mulch has been put back as much as possible.  I spread the mulch a little more thickly than I found it but luckily  I have another bag which I can use to cover the bare area.  

     

    I had forgotten this nervous excitement of planting.  I had forgotten how nice it is to settle roots into the soil, gingerly teasing them apart if they have become compacted into a ball, pushing bulbs into the yielding soil.  I had forgotten the giddy thrill of anticipation as well as the twinge of nervousness and fear — what if they don't come up?  What if I've done all this work but it is not enough?  No matter how many things I have planted, no matter how much I have learned, I always feel that working in the yard is a bit of a gamble. But I also know how I excited I will be if any single one of them survives and I have pretty flowers in the front yard next spring, how each new shoot will make my heart sing, and how I will peer at the soil nervously and impatiently waiting for everything to emerge.  

     

    And I can't wait to get out there and plant some more.  It is all I can think about right now, all I dream about.  I look at plant lists and make plans, and measure beds and start diagrams to maximize ideal spacing.   Someday it may all pay off.  In the meantime I have a lot more digging to do — if all the other stars in my life align.

  • My Menagerie

    Picture 15 Last weekend, when G and I were up in Rhinebeck, we stopped at Hummingbird Jewelers to see a special showing of jewelry by Anthony Lent.

     

    I had been in the store a couple of weeks earlier, dropping off a necklace that I was having shortened, when Peggy told me about the show.  I really didn't know anything about Anthony Lent, but after her glowing description of his work, and then receiving the card, showing this ring, my interest was definitely piqued.

     

    We got there on the early side as we were on our way to the sheep and wool extravaganza at the fairgrounds, and they were still setting up.  Luckily they were happy to let us poke and prod and look at the pieces while they worked.  The jewelry was beautiful and beautifully crafted; I was amazed at the detailed workmanship.  The ring pictured above was stunning, but so were many many pieces.  G often needed a magnifying glass to properly catch the precision of the design, and I was happy to oblige him as I too loved the opportunity it provided to admire the finer details.  I really can't describe most of the pieces, but there is a website, which has a few pieces,  and more photos on a Facebook page. 

    There were quite a few things that caught my eye, but we left anyway.  As we were walking around the wool-fest my mind kept wandering back to the jewelry, to one pair of earrings in particular, and this perhaps made the yarn less tempting. I am not sure that I can really justify rationalizing the purchase of jewelry by praising myself for not buying yarn, but I shall console myself by stating that the jewelry, perhaps, has more intrinsic value.

     

    IMG_4109 IMG_4104 Suffice it to say, I did go back and buy the aforementioned earrings.  When I returned there was more to see than on my initial inspection, but I stayed true to my plan and purchased these darling little turtles with silver shells, gold bodies, and lovely little diamond eyes.  

     

     

    I'm posting another picture to see if I can get a better view of the details, because they really make me smile.  I love the shells, the texture of their wrinkly scaly skin with the little folds around the neck, and their big round eyes. That these tiny detailed creatures, less than an inch long, were created by human hands fills me with awe.

     

    And so it seems I am building a little jeweled menagerie without ever really setting out to do so.  I can't say I was oblivious to the appeal of  jeweled creatures, more that they were just something I admired from afar.  That changed this past spring when I fell in love with another pair of earrings, a pair of earrings about which I hemmed and hawed, debated and fretted, for some time before actually making the purchase.  It was a purchase I do not regret, as those earrings now seem so perfectly essential to my wardrobe.

     

    IMG_4101 In fact, aside from being beautiful, I was attracted to these turtles precisely because they reminded me of this other pair of earrings, purchased from Beladora last March, which are also reptilian, although the two have little else in common.

     

    Perhaps it is the scaly skin.  Perhaps it is that both are highly detailed and both have tiny diamond eyes, although you would be hard pressed to see this detail in my photo. In fact these Barry Kieselstein-Cord alligator earrings are more substantial, with nearly an ounce of 18k white gold between the two. They are substantial enough that my ears are  often happy to be relieved of their weight by the end of the day, but not so substantial that they don't get worn frequently.  

     

    I do think there is room for both of these creatures in my jewelry box and on my ears. The alligators are more serious, the turtles more playful.  They fit different moods, play different roles and should happily coexist for many years to come.  

     

     

  • Weekend Reading

    Picture 16 The new WSJ magazine is out.  I intend to spend the evening shirking responsibility as I peruse the pages, reading about art, vintage jewelry, fashion, and food.  I am open to the possibility that I have underestimated camel.

     

    Have a lovely weekend.