I have no idea if such a thing exists...and I suppose if I googled it, I would find out. Maybe I will. Maybe I don't want to know. I'm pretty sure I'm a sufferer regardless.
We all know I have a knitting addiction...and I have moved on into another level of that addiction...Attention Deficit Disorder. I find myself starting lots of projects, getting bored or seeing something new and cute, dropping the first project and beginning the second...only to, once again, find myself bored and have someone ask me to make something - bang, I've moved on again...thereby creating a small collection of unfinished knitting projects.
I started my first pair of finger-less gloves way, way back. I want to say I started them in October. I know. It's shameful. I finished one glove with a little help from my friends...started the second and it remains in a little gift bag waiting for me to wrap it up. You don't even want to know how close I am to finishing it. My problem: I forgot what I learned to do the thumb and will have to ask for help to finish it and I just don't really want to. Partly because, I have since moved on. If I would just take an hour out of my life and work on it, they would be done. Maybe even less than one hour. Silliness.
I love making hats. And I think I like them because they're quick. I remember when I first started knitting, of course, all I could knit was a scarf. Nice straight lines that could go on and on and on forever. Then I learned how very simple it was to make a hat and jumped right into the Fair Isle patterns, which are somewhat difficult, but challenging and beautiful. They are, by far, my favorite type of hat to make. I like mixing the colors and following charts. (Wow, that sounds weird.)
After making plenty of hats and a few cowls or infinity scarves (which, again, I like because they're pretty quick), I forced myself to transition back to scarves...after all, it is Spring (sort of) and people won't be wearing wool caps and beanies (well, in theory we shouldn't be) anymore. Oh my goodness, scarves are sooooo boring. I found some real cute holey patterns that look springy and I did finally complete two...but I won't even tell you how many I started and pulled back out because I got bored with it, found a mistake that I wouldn't let slide, found a new cuter pattern, etc.
I had someone ask me to make a couple chemo hats recently, so I had to, of course, stop the scarf I was working on and dig into the hat. (By the way, that is not a complaint, I love making specific things for people.) I can always come back to that pesky scarf.
If my memory is correct, at the present time, I have one cowl, two scarves, a finger-less glove and two hats in my exclusive, unfinished project pile. It is pitiful that I can't just finish one thing before I start another. This has always been a problem of mine. Re: scrapbooking, photo albums, flower beds...please don't make me go on.
The same could be said for yarn. (Yarn ADD?) I walk into the yarn store for specific yarn, see all those beautiful colors and fibers...and oh my word. I fall apart. What did I come in here to buy anyway? Hmm. Oh well, I'll just get some of this and some of that. And guess what? I never have what I need. My family begs to differ.
So I'm challenging myself to (starting next week, of course) finish projects before starting new ones, and use up some of the yarn I have at home - even if I'm making cold-weather hats for next year - because it's out of control...just a little. Now, if I get requests, I must do what the people want...which may require me to stop whatever I'm doing and buy new beautiful yarn.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Quirky cat
The quirks of a cat are never few and far between, are they? It is sooo funny how a cat can have such a personality. Dogs just aren't near as fun.
Sweet Josie is no longer a little kitten. She is becoming a pot-bellied cat. We decided a month ago to scale back on her food intake. Instead of always keep her food dish(es) full, we fill one dish in the morning and one at night. She will politely sit near her dish if it is empty unless she's not being noticed, and at such time, she will find one morsel and continuously drop it over and over in the metal dish, which creates the tinkling sound to get my attention. "Hey, I'm starving over here..."
Anyway, we think the 'diet' is helping the pot belly.
Josie has turned into that cat that has discovered morning wake-up calls, alarm clocks and when you are not up on her time. She sleeps down at the foot of the bed against my legs and won't rest until I am out of bed in the morning. I'm not one to sleep in past 6:30, but she would prefer 6:00 a.m. or earlier. It is amazing how she can find ways to make irritating noises that cannot be ignored. We can't even shut the bedroom door because she will jump up and hit the handle over and over and over...until you give up...she will not.
And most of the time, if Jay is at work and I'm alone in bed, she'll jump up on the bed, sit where his pillow is and start digging under the covers for my flesh. I'm not kidding. She will reach way under the covers to find my hand or arm and start poking at me.
Her newest fetish is the bathroom sink. We do not have the drain stopper in, never have. Jay doesn't like them. So it's just an open drain. Kitty loves dropping random objects down there. It took us a while to figure that out. "Where are the tweezers?" "Someone had to take the tweezers from the bathroom!" (Okay, I have to admit, we blame our kids for things we don't have explanation for a lot.) We had seen Josie carrying the tweezers into the living room before, but honestly thought the kids had used them and not returned them. Then Madolyn discovered her necklace was missing. The last place she had it was our bathroom vanity - she had taken it off before her shower. It was gone. Weird.
One night we heard the kitty on the bathroom counter, shuffling stuff around, and realized what was going on. Jay took the bathroom sink trap off and found tweezers and Mad's necklace. This has happened a couple of times since, and presently, there is at least one hair clip, that I know of, down the drain. Josie was watching me get ready the other morning, I walked away and heard the clanking noise...there went the clip I use when I'm straightening my hair. I guess she just wants to be noticed.
She also loves the drip-drip-drip of water. If I turn the handle just right, there is a slight drip and she loves grabbing a drink. She will stare at the dripping for a while and then go for the plunge. I think she is fascinated by things going down the drain...and while she's at it, I guess she gets real thirsty.
I had been getting after the kids about deep holes appearing in the drywall. Spots I remembered to be small marks on the wall were growing. You can actually see a bare nail in the hallway by Lane's door and I accused him of picking at it until the nail head was exposed. He denied it, but I was skeptical. Later, he blamed Sweet Josie. Yeah, I've been there, done that, pal.
Until...I saw Jo jumping up and scraping the wall by our bedroom. Somehow or another, we have lost the door guard thingy that goes on the baseboard to protect the wall from the door handle and a small dent developed in the drywall. It wasn't a big deal, except that Josie discovered it and began jumping up and swiping at it...repeatedly. Hmm, so she WAS the one that was making these holes in my drywall. Not Lane. Oops. I don't know what it is about drywall, but Josie sure likes it.
I guess what it comes down to is this: We have a super cute kitty we call Sweet Josie, who causes quite a ruckus and is very destructive. She fits right in.
Sweet Josie is no longer a little kitten. She is becoming a pot-bellied cat. We decided a month ago to scale back on her food intake. Instead of always keep her food dish(es) full, we fill one dish in the morning and one at night. She will politely sit near her dish if it is empty unless she's not being noticed, and at such time, she will find one morsel and continuously drop it over and over in the metal dish, which creates the tinkling sound to get my attention. "Hey, I'm starving over here..."
Anyway, we think the 'diet' is helping the pot belly.
Josie has turned into that cat that has discovered morning wake-up calls, alarm clocks and when you are not up on her time. She sleeps down at the foot of the bed against my legs and won't rest until I am out of bed in the morning. I'm not one to sleep in past 6:30, but she would prefer 6:00 a.m. or earlier. It is amazing how she can find ways to make irritating noises that cannot be ignored. We can't even shut the bedroom door because she will jump up and hit the handle over and over and over...until you give up...she will not.
And most of the time, if Jay is at work and I'm alone in bed, she'll jump up on the bed, sit where his pillow is and start digging under the covers for my flesh. I'm not kidding. She will reach way under the covers to find my hand or arm and start poking at me.
Her newest fetish is the bathroom sink. We do not have the drain stopper in, never have. Jay doesn't like them. So it's just an open drain. Kitty loves dropping random objects down there. It took us a while to figure that out. "Where are the tweezers?" "Someone had to take the tweezers from the bathroom!" (Okay, I have to admit, we blame our kids for things we don't have explanation for a lot.) We had seen Josie carrying the tweezers into the living room before, but honestly thought the kids had used them and not returned them. Then Madolyn discovered her necklace was missing. The last place she had it was our bathroom vanity - she had taken it off before her shower. It was gone. Weird.
One night we heard the kitty on the bathroom counter, shuffling stuff around, and realized what was going on. Jay took the bathroom sink trap off and found tweezers and Mad's necklace. This has happened a couple of times since, and presently, there is at least one hair clip, that I know of, down the drain. Josie was watching me get ready the other morning, I walked away and heard the clanking noise...there went the clip I use when I'm straightening my hair. I guess she just wants to be noticed.
She also loves the drip-drip-drip of water. If I turn the handle just right, there is a slight drip and she loves grabbing a drink. She will stare at the dripping for a while and then go for the plunge. I think she is fascinated by things going down the drain...and while she's at it, I guess she gets real thirsty.
I had been getting after the kids about deep holes appearing in the drywall. Spots I remembered to be small marks on the wall were growing. You can actually see a bare nail in the hallway by Lane's door and I accused him of picking at it until the nail head was exposed. He denied it, but I was skeptical. Later, he blamed Sweet Josie. Yeah, I've been there, done that, pal.
Until...I saw Jo jumping up and scraping the wall by our bedroom. Somehow or another, we have lost the door guard thingy that goes on the baseboard to protect the wall from the door handle and a small dent developed in the drywall. It wasn't a big deal, except that Josie discovered it and began jumping up and swiping at it...repeatedly. Hmm, so she WAS the one that was making these holes in my drywall. Not Lane. Oops. I don't know what it is about drywall, but Josie sure likes it.
I guess what it comes down to is this: We have a super cute kitty we call Sweet Josie, who causes quite a ruckus and is very destructive. She fits right in.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Judge not.
You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Romans 2:1 (NIV)
Funny how it works, I read scripture yesterday about judging others. And I thought to myself, oh, yeah, I know I'm not supposed to judge others and I don't really do that. Not that much. Well, I try not to.
And then...while I was grocery shopping on my lunch hour, I caught myself doing that very thing that I don't really think I do...two times, at least that is all I can remember. In one hour.
The first episode: I saw someone in the store that had declined to help me with something because they were just "too busy today." So I pushed my cart past this person at blazing speeds because I only have an hour, thinking to myself, "Oh, they are so much busier than I am? And here I am on my lunch hour trying to get all this stuff together...blah, blah, blah." Snap. There it was. Instantly, I was convicted.
It doesn't matter what they were doing. It should be of no concern to me. I have no idea what they were doing before or what they were going to do after their own grocery shopping. I have no idea what is going on in their lives and what guidelines they have set for themselves so as not to be overloaded. And really, if I'm feeling overloaded, that is my own fault. I have the power to say no to things. I just struggle with it.
Round two: I load up my groceries and head back to work. Yesterday was the day it was so cruddy out after a very beautiful Tuesday. As I am passing through downtown, I see two adults walking down the sidewalk with two small children tagging along behind. I'm guessing the kids are maybe in the four-year-old range. They do not have coats on. It is pretty chilly. Instantly, I say to myself, "Good grief, what is wrong with people? Get coats on those kids!" And almost immediately I realized what I had done and started laughing.
Who do I think I am fooling? This was another perfect example of me passing judgment on others. Immediately, memories from the past come to my mind, such as, Madolyn wearing a sombrero and plastic dress-up high heels to the mall; heading away for the weekend with my kids and discovering two hours from home that my son didn't bring any shoes (not one pair) with him; arriving at a rodeo with same son and realizing he didn't have on any pants (only a shirt, undies and cowboy boots). What were people thinking of me during these prime displays of awesome parenting?
Good heavens, in a matter of about 55 minutes, I had caught myself doing this thing I don't really do two times. There are 23 other hours in the day, how many more times am I guilty of this?
And I suppose, I could rationalize it to myself and say, well, it wasn't really that bad because I didn't actually convey these thoughts to someone else. Ha! Good trick, Satan. In God's eye, it's all the same. What a great reminder to me that I should never let myself believe I am without this sin or that one. It doesn't matter that I didn't blast someone on Facebook publicly because they didn't have coats for their kids, or text a friend and tell them this or that. I had the thoughts. It is no different.
Note to self: "Do not judge, or you too will be judged." Matthew 7:1 (NIV)
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Hiatus
Don't you just love that word? Ha. I'm enjoying my hiatus...well, actually I've just had other stuff that I needed to do and haven't written for a week or two. I will be back. Maybe I'll protest until old man winter decides to give us a break. I sure hope that is soon. The time change is Sunday, it would be nice if that was the magic switch.
I think the weather is getting everyone a little down. It's as if we've been bombarded with one weather event after another. I keep remembering how dry we've been the past couple of years and try to thank God for replenishing the moisture...if only to make myself feel better.
This verse is a good reminder for me...
When you have all you want to eat, then praise the Lord your God for giving you a good land. Deuteronomy 8:10 (NCV)
I have pretty much all I want to eat, don't you?
I think the weather is getting everyone a little down. It's as if we've been bombarded with one weather event after another. I keep remembering how dry we've been the past couple of years and try to thank God for replenishing the moisture...if only to make myself feel better.
This verse is a good reminder for me...
When you have all you want to eat, then praise the Lord your God for giving you a good land. Deuteronomy 8:10 (NCV)
I have pretty much all I want to eat, don't you?
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