Feeling older

My friend C posted this today on Facebook and I thought I would share it here with a bit of my own comments after:

{Here is a nice piece written by Andy Rooney

As I grow in age, I value women who are over 50 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:
A woman over 50 will not lay next to you in bed and ask, “What are you thinking?” She doesn’t care what you think.
If a woman over 50 doesn’t want to watch the game, she doesn’t sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do. And, it’s usually something more interesting.
A woman over 50 knows herself well enough to be assured in who she is, what she is, what she wants and from whomever.
Few women past the age of 50 give a damn what you might think about her or what she’s doing.
Women over 50 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won’t hesitate to shoot you, if they think they can get away with it.
Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it’s like to be unappreciated.
A woman over 50 has the self-assurance to introduce you to her women friends. A younger woman with a man will often ignore even her best friend because she doesn’t trust the guy with other women. Women over 50 couldn’t care less if you’re attracted to her friends because she knows her friends won’t betray her.
Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 50. They always know.
A woman over 50 looks good wearing bright red lipstick. This is not true of younger women or drag queens.
Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 50 is far sexier than her younger counterpart.
Older women are forthright and honest.  They’ll tell you right off if you are a jerk if you are acting like one! You don’t ever have to wonder where you stand with her.
Yes, we praise women over 50 for a multitude of reasons.
Unfortunately, it’s not reciprocal.  For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed hot woman of 50+, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 18-year-old waitress.
Ladies, I apologize.
For all those men who say, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free, ” here’s an update for you: Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it’s not worth buying an entire Pig, just to get a little sausage.}

I’ve always known that I felt older than I am…’an old soul’ as a friend at work pointed out to me the other day while we were talking about taking the time to watch the ducks dabbling about on the small lake outside her window…but reading this really made me feel like I had indeed hit the “50″ mark.

#1)  I rarely ask M what he is thinking about…I just answer the question or offer a solution to the problem that he hasn’t voiced but is pondering.

#2)  Sundays are for football for M.  I do anything else.  And that is perfect the way it is.

#3)  I am so my own person…hence the knitting in public, wearing the clothes I want and the interest and activity in things I want to do.

#4)  I don’t scream or yell but am a good shot.  You have been warned.

#5)  Of course I praise for the little things because if I didn’t,  you wouldn’t want to do the little things anymore and the little lead to the big!

#6)  I’m not worried about my friends or about M.  Not only would the women I call friends not betray me, I know he wouldn’t either.

#7)  Why yes.  See #1.

#8)  Ok, so this is the only one not true but thats because a) I don’t wear lipstick and b) I haven’t found my ‘perfect’ red and c) I’m not willing to buy a bunch of red lipsticks to try.

#9) I’ve recently noticed some eye crinkles and yes, my silver hairs shine beautifully in my dark locks but, let me tell you, I feel much sexier now than I did 10 years ago.

#10)  My time is worth so much more than wasting it being around someone who is being an ass.  I tell.

 

As I tried to think of some witty way to end this post, I realised that everything that I typed sounded trite and twee and just wrong…but why does it need a snappy ending?

Be at peace, my friend, with your ages; real, imagined and soul are all YOU.

Curiouser and Curiouser

I’m knitting socks for M and these, these socks are flying thru my needles.  Aran/Worsted yarn on 3′s…perfect for mens socks and I’m to the heel already.

This is my first ball.  Now, as I started knitting these socks, I KNEW that there would be a yardage issue.  KNEW IT.  So, since there were not 2 skeins at the LYS that I visited, I bought the single skein, came home and promptly jumped on Ravelry to search for a second.  Yes, the dye lots would be different but for two different socks, I wasn’t all that fussed and I knew that M wouldn’t be either.  He has a second sock that is 1/3 another colourway for heavens sake…he loves them and its not a big deal.

I started my first sock toe-up so if I couldn’t find a second skein at the very least I would have two socks with matching toes and then switch at the same place for heels and legs.  Brilliant plan.

However, I got very lucky right off the bat and the lovely Sarah came to my rescue and she sent me her leftover skein from a hat that she had crocheted in 2009 and it arrived yesterday and I squeed and M cheered (he was happy not to have oddly striping socks again) and we opened the box.

Look!  Isn’t it lovely?  Isn’t it perfect?  Oh, I am so glad to have Ravelry and that Sarah was willing to part with her other skein!

But…take another look at those photos…do you see it?

Here, I’ll put them side by side:

 

See it now?

Yup, they are VERY different.  The new skein is much more green than the first and no where near the brown and seems to have much longer colour repeats.

Is this a problem?  Not at all.  We knew that there would be a very good chance that the colours would be slightly different since, of course, I was buying a skein of yarn circa 2009 to match my skein circa 2011 and since they would be making two different socks and since fraternal sock twins are embraced in this house, both M and I are happy, very happy, to have that second skein.

Want to know the REALLY interesting part though?  Take a look at the ball bands, particularly the part about colourway and dye lots:

2009 then 2011

 

Yup.  Identical.  Colour 1580, Dyelot* 38362

Curiouser and Curiouser.

 

*Interesting aside…”Parti” in Swedish = “Party” in English and I get this incredible visual of the hanks of yarn just having a party in their dye bath or the dyers just having the best time at work with music and dancing at the dye table.  Run along now and leave me to my delusions.

Intentions: Healing

Healing: Regeneration of the body, mind or spirit.

To risk a “Duh” statement; Healing is a part of growth.

Healing is necessary to…fix…whatever has been broken.

Make it, whatever ‘it’ may be, better, faster, stronger,

 

more resilient, educated, wiser,

practised, skilled, educated,

regenerated, restored, and meliorated.

Healing is as intentional as unintentional; more so, if you think about it.

People ‘fade’ pretty darn fast when they ‘have lost the will to live’.

Your body will fix itself if given the chance and the right medicines,

but no medicine in the world can really ‘fix’ your emotions and no time can heal your heart if you don’t let it.

If you chose to hold on to an emotional hurt it becomes a festering sore that will eventually seep into every pore of your life and poison all the good things.

An Intentional Healing as a part of life is not about “forgive and forget” because if to truly heal you must have learned and grown from the experience and gotten better because of it;

though the “better” part may be hard to see in your immediate healing aftermath.

Take the time to look at your own hurts and where you need to heal today.

In the spinning of Healing, I know that I did and I feel better because of it.

I’m healing too.

 

Intentions: Fertility

 

Intentions:

Fertility: Paving the way for new ideas, new life and new creation.

Started in April, Fertility seemed to have quite apropriate timing for its journey thru my fingers, wheel and mind.

 

Nelson Lagoon was starting to show signs of thawing as I finished and I was germinating ideas of my new life at the same time.

 

After “resting” for nearly 4 months before plying since I ply when I only have one bobbin left so there is generally a few days of ‘plying party’ in Chez Sisu which, as it happens, also included a huge move, it seemed odd to be thinking again about fertility.

And then I remembered…growth is always.  My growth is continual.

When I spun this yarn, I was living in my own house in Nelson Lagoon Alaska working as a Community Health Aide and it was April.

When I plied this yarn it was July, I was living in Hoquiam Washington with M and his mom and working at figuring out what the heck I was going to do next.

As I write this post it is November, I am living in our own apartment in Port Townsend Washington and I am working as a Certified Nurses Aide.

The only constant IS change and there will always be new ideas, new life and new creation…as long as we are willing to look for that other road…which may or may not be paved.

Not that that makes much difference in the end because there are always going to be bumps, wrong turns, U-Turns, stops, starts and going the wrong way on a one way, paving or no.

But the point is we have to be open to the idea for the newness of things,

for the possibility of change,

for the discovery of new passions and dislikes,

for life to stop being something that is happening and that we are living through and start being something that we are doing and that we are living.

For the growth that is essential to life itself to take place.

My hope for myself and for you?

Be ever changing.

Be growing.

Be fertile.

Timewarp

This whole ‘work hours warp’ is still getting the best of me.  I work the evening shift, from 2-10pm and that means that 2 main things are out of whack for me.

#1:  “Lunch is Dinner”
Since I only get half hour ‘lunch’ break while working and that generally comes between 4 and 6pm, if I get it at all, I don’t really have time to have a real meal.  One of the most important parts of my day is having a meal with M, knowing that I’ve made this lovely, healthy, nutritious meal for us…so that means that I make our big meal lunch.  Since its more healthy to have a large meal earlier in the day than later in the evening, this is a good thing.

#2: Time in general
General Poll:  Who goes to bed within an hour of getting off of work?  Yeah, me neither.

I get done with work and get home between 1030 and 11pm and then spend the next 2-3 hours decompressing and relaxing and chatting with M.  That means that I don’t get to bed before midnight any night of the week because I have to TRY to keep some semblance of routine in my scheduled life.  I also am a morning person so that means, being sick with a cold notwithstanding, I am fully awake and up by 830am.  That would be the time for coffee and BBC world news podcast.  And food needs to be on the table by 1230 so I can relax and eat and get out the door by 140 so I am planning a full dinner at the midnight previous and getting things moving by 10am, a scant 2-3 hours after getting up.  Somewhere in there I also try to get in 30 minutes of running (though not as faithfully as I intend to), knitting on various projects and, oh yes, spinning time too.  The best time for the knitting is in the mornings and the spinning is the evenings and in between cooking and laundry and cleaning, it all gets worked on.  Except for the blog.

But here is a photo list of what I’m working on!

Socks for M.  In Boy Colours.  In Aran weight yarn.  On 3′s. Because a knitters man always has substantially bigger feet than the knitter herself.

This first sock is toe up and the plan is for me to knit until there is 50g of yarn left and then do the second.  Hopefully this works as a plan but I have a call out on Ravelry for a second skein of this colourway (Jarbo Garn Raggi in 1580) so hopefully the de-stasher will get back to me soon!  In the meantime though, I bought some more boy colours too:

   

A vest for myself, which, despite making calculations to get the fit right, I totally made it too big.  So it may be a Christmas gift so I shan’t give more detailed photos than this.

My second attempt at Nanny Ogg Mittens (real name: Hedgehog Mittens by Spilly Jane who blogs here)  You can see my first attempt over here but, I’m warning you, it isn’t pretty.

I’m liking this second attempt much more than the first and I’m actually using two solid yarns and the pattern as written (to a point) this time.  Not that those are connected at all.  Ahem.

My Rimefrost socks using Fiesta Baby Boom in Arctic.  Yes, I know they haven’t gotten very far yet but I can only do one charted knitting pattern at a time without madness ensuing and I need warm hands more than new socks so the mittens come first and the socks wait their turn.  Not too long if last years attempt at the Nanny Mittens are anything to go by!

There also has been some spinning going on and I do promise that I will update you as to my progress thru the Intentions line.  I bought some beautiful merino, alpaca, silk/bamboo blend on Friday that is singing its sirens song (along with much more of my other stash) and I want to move into a new project soon but I am dedicated to my Intentions and give that my focus.

I’m on to ‘Joy’ now and am remembering the joy that spinning gives me and being mindful of all the joy I have in my life.

I know that I am blessed and hope you feel the same way today and everyday.