Emerging: Melody 2.0

While doom scrolling on Instagram I stopped to watch a short video post from a knitter who just fell down the rabbit hole with sock knitting. Aha! I remember that same feeling when I learned to knit socks and often got up in the middle of the night to finish a cuff or a toe. It is so addictive and sole satisfying (get it?)  to make a pair of socks. Fast and gratifying.  And that led me to Youtube to rewatch a real sock knitting addict talk about her new designs and feel that rush with her of loving the project. Hmmm. Could this get me back on the horse to begin being creative again?

I know I had several old sock starts sitting in project bags and decided to first finish those and then challenge myself to try some new techniques that would broaden my repertoire. I also alerted a student that I was ready to teach her socks if she had time this summer. We meet on the 12th and we'll see how far we get.

Her birthday is the 13th so I got her this book, and then ordered one for me and a different one from the same author. Summer Lee.

This one has all the directions for beginners and challenging patterns for those of us who have an inflated ego.

 I have made a zillion pairs in the years since I began and even created my own designs. But as with all knitting there are endless variations on construction, patterning, and fit, and I want to try everything, before my brain wears out. I love the fact that this idea has lit a flame and I will have something creative to do with all the sock yarn in my stash, plus the new yarn I just ordered (shame on me). 

From left to right: The basic sock as I learned it. Then the afterthought heel where you cut into the heel and pull out a row and then pick up stitches from there and knit the heel. Then the forethought heel where you use waste yarn to knit the place where the heel will be and later come back undoing the waste yarn and putting those stitches on the needle to knit the heel. The last pair are my own design Peppermint Toes, which I knit 16 years ago.  Here are some of the projects from people who have used my pattern.

 This pair just got washed and is blocking on sock blockers. It is the original pattern I learned in 2001. I'm going to clear a drawer out just for socks and make a check list of all the new techniques I want to try and patterns I want to learn. I am listening (on Libby) to John Grisham's The Widow as I knit. This is gonna be a great summer. I will still be a bit of a hermit, but my time will be fuller and probably less napping will happen. 

The Aldi Diet

Along with healing my mind I am also choosing to eat better. And working on having a single woman's refrigerator. 

I found this really good bread ($4) from Aldi and of course these wonderful tomatoes which are almost as good as real home grown, but available all year around. They are just the right size and when I slice them there is no waste. Love that. 

My meals are thus: 

Breakfast is a mix of plain cherrios mixed 50/50 with plain bran flakes, and maybe some strawberries or walnuts or if nothing else is available some mixed dried raisins and cranberries. Oat milk and a cuppa, either tea or decaf with sugar free creamer.

My lunch is a can of tuna, made into tuna salad with mayo and relish and maybe green onion. Two slices of that great bread and two tomatoes sliced to top it. Open faced. Maybe some strawberries on the side. 

That's it. No dinner. Am I kidding ? Nope. That tuna salad sandwich might be switched with egg salad or ham salad but generally that is sufficient. I eat lunch between 2pm and 4pm and that is satisfying and nothing after that is necessary except maybe a cuppa.

The kitchen stays much cleaner.

I am never hungry with this diet. There are no more cookies in the house, and no chips or snacky things. I stopped drinking alcohol and eating ice cream. If there is a birthday or holiday I eat like everyone else and regret it, but go right back to my single girl eating.

What I realized is that there is sugar built into everything and that was what made me get hungry and binge eat.  Without it I don't have those cravings. I use an Equal-like substitute and I stopped baking, which means I have three big cabinets full of baking supplies that are just taking up space. 

Of course this was made easy for me because I don't have anyone else to feed. I've become smug. 

I am not weighing myself as I know that to be a trap, but I can tell when my clothes are more comfortable and I recently went to the thrift store and bought two pairs of jeans that actually fit and are not monsterously huge. 

This was all a hard lesson to (re)learn. I kept throwing out food that I thought I was going to cook, or did cook and then didn't eat and then it became a science product. What a waste! 

So I am eating like this and not caring a whit about what I have given up. Along with my mental health retreat, my watchword is Less is More!

This just in...

Not that I needed a name for it, but what I have been experiencing is called

Emotional exhaustion

Duh. Of course. 

This isn't mourning, and it isn't sadness, it is stress fatigue. 

Healing takes time. Peace and quiet and days, weeks or months without stress is necessary and is not something to feel guilty about. 

Well, I'm glad I found a name for it and that helps me see why I suddenly hit a wall and just couldn't go on anymore being who I had been.  And forgiving who I became when I ran out of the ability to be patient and sympathetic with a mentally and physically ill husband and a flooded house and the financial stress of repairs and the feeling that I had gotten us into this situation by not trusting my gut when I should have...but I was out of touch with that self because of the aforementioned emotional exhaustion.

All that is all over now.  I can breathe. I can sleep. I can thank God.  I can let the dust settle and be repaired.

It has been raining consistently over the last week and that is just my favorite thing. The garden is loving it too. No drought after all. Hurray!

Ok Already!

Hello Gang,

I finally closed on my old house on Friday and it feels great to be a one home owner again. And to have only one set of utility bills, phew. The house sold to a lovely single young lady and I am glad every crazy thing about that house got fixed for her so she can live happily there. She loves the flowers that are blooming currently. 

And now, well, I am really in the groove of solitude and loving every minute. Peace and quiet. Yaaaaay!

I don't have plans but occasionally daydream about travel but immediately talk myself out of it. I have traveled a lot in my career and it is even worse at airports now, so nevermind. I might visit my brother in Missouri but again he is always traveling for work, so that might be delayed indefinitely. 

In the meantime I decided I could lose some weight and have been eliminating things and already I can tell the difference. I hate diet talk but being on this diet means less kitchen clean up so that is another plus. NO I won't be exercising. 

The library is close and I have six books to read on my deck sanctuary, mostly mysteries of course but not so many noir as I had been wallowing in. 

There are stirrings of going through my collected yarn, fabric and art supplies and winnowing out the excess, but I don't feel quite motivated enough to actually start. 

I do get out a bit more now, and enjoyed my niece's 31st birthday party last week at my sister's, and of course I see friends at church, but still I am not accepting invitations and everyone knows it who has asked. Just for now. 

Working it out

It is possible to do nothing for days and the world does not implode.

 Being super busy translated for me into avoiding real life. 

Being alone with my thoughts did not make me lonely. 

Thinking sometimes happens at 3am, and solutions may or may not appear.

My future does not have to be decided right this minute.

I learned how to say no without apologizing, or offering excuses. I just said, I am not accepting invitations at this time,  I'll let you know when I am ready to be social again.

Nobody was upset by this.

Reading on my chaise lounge on my deck is better than a week at a spa, and requires no packing.

Recognizing and being thankful for where I am, and what I have, and how healthy I am becoming, and how much better I am sleeping and eating, and not worrying, but praying more regularly, is how I have spent my time.

Not sewing, not painting, not knitting, not cooking, and not even washing dishes for days, is just OK.

This sounds like a list of negatives, and yet it is like turning the corner to the right street after having been on an entirely different journey for years.

 I have entertained myself with a novel a day and that is a lot of sitting, but surprisingly, my feet don't hurt and my back doesn't hurt and I don't get hungry and my legs, hands and toes are getting tan. 

I can tell I am coming back to life because I bought a new Dirt Devil vac and cleaned up all the lingering dust puppies under my bed.

My hair grew into a bush so I went and got a haircut yesterday, and this morning I (laughingly) put on mascara by using the magnifying mirror, but my upper lids are so droopy that they hid the lashes anyway. O well.

I have no plans, no deadlines, no expectations, and I am going to try keeping it that way for a long time.

Now What?

Now that the garden is in, what is next? This may surprise you, but I am going to try doing nothing for a while. 

I'm going to slow down and reflect. Without getting into the gory details, getting the previous house ready to sell has been awful, and expensive and the underlying stress has convinced me to choose peace and quiet as my 'next project'. 

The weather has been lovely and I have set up my chaise on the deck with a little side table for a beverage, and several good mysteries from the library. Reading is relaxing and it encourages napping too, which is also good for the little gray cells. Speaking of sleep, when Dave was still with me, I slept with one eye open to hear him during the night and that became a habit I needed to break. I tried a prescription from the doctor and that was worse as it made me so thirsty that I had to get up several times during the night, thus negating the new sleep pattern. But recently I remembered a drug I was on years ago, which was a mood leveler and asked for that and yes, it has been great. I now have had more than 8 hours of sleep at night and the catnaps every now and then continue.

I was sewing for a week or two and that was fun, but...get this...I ran out of clothes hangers, so I really ought to access my wardrobe and decide if or what I actually need to add, if anything, or donate. 

I have space to make art but no real desire at the moment, which is partially due to my sister Brooke's new artwork, which is wonderful and I want to share it with you.

I am so thrilled at her creations and to think this is all so recent. We started painting watercolors together in late 2021, as a way of teaching ourselves and she really took off. These new pieces are a mix of materials and she has maintained a work schedule which is amazing. I would say that she is taking her work seriously and doing all the necessary things to get it out there, like posting videos on Instagram, writing a blog, and making her own art site. 

Now what makes me say that because Brooke is making art, I don't feel the need to join in? I guess I feel like stepping back and enjoying her time in the spotlight. It feels right. 

The Garden is in

What makes a good garden?

MONEY.

At least that's how it felt this year. But my other house is finally under contract and in a month when we close, I will be back to normal, without having to watch my pennies so carefully.

Most of the garden perennials I purchased were bare root, and they all took, including the little extra root bits that came in the packages. I have those in the 'nursery blocks' in the front with the impatiens. And since I still have access to my previous garden, I lifted a bunch of hosta and heuchera and brought them to the new garden site.

Of course I did have to make my annual pilgrimage to my fave nursery for a few special specimens, but I was frugal and limited myself to one new hosta and two new heuchera, (Caramel and Dressed Up Ball Gown) and their very nice flats of begonia, coleus and impatiens. 

This planting season I really felt my age, not being able to get on my bad knee, or lifting things as I done in the past. So I am being more realistic about what kind of garden I am able to maintain. As this bed matures, there will be less space for annuals and the cubbies in the blocks will have to suffice for flowers. I am not complaining. I think it is going to be wonderful anyway.

But wait, there's more!

 The pots in the front got filled too. I wanted something tall to put in the back and found these large hosta, at a decent price at Walmart. I know from experience and the internet that they will thrive in pots and will become the foundation for the future. I lucked out with that established Sweet Autumn clematis on the trellis, which is practically a weed everywhere in Tennessee and I found this Eclipse Hydrangea at Lowe's for half price. It will get to 3' by 5', so it will get moved into the yard in a couple of years. In the front of these pots I am trying a new trailer, Licorice Plant.

 The other side of the porch has the same plantings, and yesterday I added some Creeping Jenny to the pots which I lifted from the previous house, where it went nuts. I left quite a lot there. Yes, I still have a nice garden going there currently and I am sure it added to the deal.  I will remove those sticky labels on the pots. I just ran out of energy and daylight.

My brother in law John, who has been my right hand man and the solution to all my fixes, has also been the responsible partner in getting this design accomplished. I was hoping to have a flower bed in the actual yard, but reality hit and I changed my mind. It turns out that the barrel planters could do the trick and so I had John move them from the deck where they were being a little too shaded, to this sunnier spot. They contain Stella D'oro daylilies, Crazy Daisies, Yellow Coneflowers and Blue Bedder Salvia. This year I added four bleeding hearts, some Stargazer lilies, and more purple oxalis. The birdbath came along from the old house and I hope to add another bird feeder somewhere in this space. 

I heard that we will be having a drought this year, wouldn't you know it. So my four dogwood and the one Japanese maple (not pictured) are not going to be planted until the fall. I will keep them alive in pots and late yesterday I brought them up to the new barrel bed, where I could maintain their watering needs. 

So that's it. I am done, and earlier than ever this year. I have a few caladium left to find a home, but they have just sprouted, so who knows if I will even keep them, as my sister loves them and I have no more room. 

I have window boxes on my deck railing, and while I had a lovely crop of fancy lettuces, a squirrel had them for lunch, so never mind.  The purple oxalis (from the old house) is doing great and I actually have them in several other spots growing happily. They reseed so easily, are super hardy and drought tolerant, making them a real favorite for me. 

I'm looking forward to a lot of sitting and admiring, in between watering eveything. But I know that the view will be glorious.