Skip to main content

Thanksgiving, Again?

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S.  Although Canadians celebrated this holiday in October we are impacted by the U.S. November holiday.  Canadian stores are advertising sales for Black Friday in an effort to keep holiday shoppers here even though it isn't a holiday here.  I will be missing out on all of this.

Instead I will spend the day flying to Minneapolis.  A very special little girl will be celebrating her first birthday over the weekend (yes, the celebration is after the fact, but her mom and dad decided to celebrate when family is in town).

There was a cake smash.
When I first got the invitation and RSVP'd that I would not be able to attend, I was disappointed, sad and perhaps a wee bit angry with myself.  This festered until I just decided I had to be there, purchased a ticket and started making plans.  So while most U.S. citizens are working off a turkey- with-all-the-fixings hangover on Thursday afternoon, I will be landing in Minneapolis and walking to the condo.  How lucky am I to have the ability to attend a very first birthday party for my grand daughter.  Which gets me to being thankful.

In November 2012 I put together a list of 20 some things I am thankful for in my life.  That list can be seen here.  It is very fortunate that nothing on the list has changed over the past two years.  Even my parents have their tickets purchased to spend several month in the greater Phoenix area again this winter.

Today, however, I want to be seriously thankful for knitting and what it has done for me over the years.  Here's a few life lessons it has reinforced.

  1. Patience -  Making anything by hand takes time, think weeks, months or years to come together. Creating something one stitch at a time forces the conscientious knitter to remain calm and patient.  
  2. Tenacity - Although knitting can be what might appear to be calming it also can contain moments of frustration.  The conscientious knitter needs to expect these moments and develop coping mechanisms to work through them.  Stubbornness or tenacity sure helps.
  3. Pure Joy - There is no feeling to compare with conquering a challenge in knitting or just about any difficult endeavor and yet words do not describe the emotions when something thought to be near impossible is actually completed.
  4. Companionship - Knitting has brought many wonderful people into my life.  The people working at my LYS are friends, the Knit Night gals, and others who I have yet to meet; we all have an instant bond when we talk about knitting.  There are also all the people I know only through cyberspace, we too can bond about one topic.
  5. Something to Count On - Don't get me wrong, I have many people I can count on.  Knitting however is something I have chosen for myself that I most often do by myself.  I can count on it to be ready for a ride in whatever mode of transportation I choose, or happily spend time in the doctor's or bureaucratic waiting room, and it will sit up with me in the middle of the night if I ask it to.  
  6. Enrich Life - How can anything that adds so much motivation, inspiration, colour and softness into one's life be anything but enriching.  The satisfaction of working with yarn and wool is a gift all in itself and it doesn't add pounds.
  7. Support a Good Life Philosophy - Knitting has reinforced some very solid life lessons like the following:
    • Mistakes are lessons from which one can recover.  Don't worry about making them.
    • When one does make a mistake, fess up right away and fix it.  Don't think the mistake won't be noticed, you will always know about it.
    • Persistence is what will get you to your goal.
    • Frustration or a couple glasses of wine rarely improve a difficult situation.
    • Absence does help the heart grow fonder.  Sometimes taking a break is the best thing to do.
    • Keep challenging yourself; it is good to keep that gray matter between the ears working.
  8. Importance of a Good Friend - Knitting likes to do everything I do.  We like the same TV shows and movies, we like travelling together.  Why one could easily argue we are the best of friends and we are.
As I wing my way back to my grand daughter, her family and friends as well as my own, I won't be alone because my constant (and I do mean constant) companion will be with me.  ~~Knitting~~
Have a great Thanksgiving my U.S. friends!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ode to the Cat

It has been six months since Mike, the cat's, passing.  I think of him every day and miss him especially when Paul is away.  Mike was a being in the house with me and we were close.  Grieving his death has been muddled with my Dad's passing and sometimes I feel guilty about that happening.  As time passes the ache becomes less hurtful for both and I am starting to get mostly good memories in its place. Recently I helped celebrate Pablo Neruda's birthday with Jami, my poet and overall very creative friend.  Guests were asked to select one poem written by Neruda to read to the small group who gathered for the celebration.  I picked this one: Ode To The Cat -- Pablo Neruda There was something wrong with the animals: their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads. Then they started coming together, little by little fitting together to make a landscape, developing birthmarks, grace, flight. But the cat, only the cat turned out finished, and
1 comment
Read more

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time.  One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock.  So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep.  Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot.  And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms.  (BTW
1 comment
Read more

Yarn Barf

It's back to quirkiness and time to step away again from the cuteness for a while.  But as you see I'm someone who slips from one to the other without much effort so anticipate this back and forth to be my new normal. A dramatization of me in the midst of my startitist frenzy Yarn barf .  I'm willing to bet you hadn't thought of putting those two words together, had you?  It just so happens yarn barf can be a reoccurring pain for those of us who use yarns that come in a skein instead of a hank.  (No pun intended regarding the current Noro virus, well maybe a little pun.) Skeins of yarn wound by the manufacturer These are hanks which need to be wound into balls  If you look closely at the picture on the right you'll see the start on the millet yellow skein at the centre right of the photo.  Its start can easily be seen coming from the centre of the skein onto the violet skein to the left.  Easy to find, right!  Sure but what about the remaining 4
5 comments
Read more