Changing the Name of My Blog

I’m thinking about changing the name of my blog to A Texas Girl Sucks, and here’s why:

I made a ridiculous rookie mistake while knitting The Sweater.

Everything I’ve submitted lately has been rejected.

My truck stopped running for no reason at all.

Heck, I even ordered something from Amazon to be delivered 2nd day just so I could give my UPS guy the Christmas gift I bought for him weeks ago, and the package was delivered by FedEx.

Anyone else feel like it’s a good thing breathing is an automatic body process?

To Ponder: The real problem is most of us are idiots. We just like to think we’re not idiots because we use sh*t a bunch of smart people figured out. But how many of us understand that sh*t? If I left you in the woods with a hatchet, how long before you could send me an email? |-Joe Rogan-|

 

 

Counting My Blessings: January 2015

1. A couple of days after Christmas, I received a message from a fellow Raveller. She added me as a friend, then sent a note of introduction that read, in part, “Your blog is wonderful and I hope you keep designing and writing for a long, long time!” Really. She wrote that.

I’m so thankful that a) anyone at all reads my blog, and b) a girl who is half my age is inspired by it.

2. My yoga student Judy came to the first class of the new year with a cold bottle of beer—Dogfish Head Namaste. She saw it while shopping at Central Market in Austin and thought of me. Sweet, right?

Namaste is a Sanskrit word used by yogis everywhere.

I drink what I can afford, which is Lone Star Light in cans, so this was a nice upgrade.

It was unclear to both of us what the clapping skeleton had to do with its name, but we agreed that it was cool.

3. This exists:

A device that lets you sit and knit in warmth.

4.  A Mother Superior at a convent purchased my Ironheart Pullover pattern.

What colors would a nun choose?

I hope she loves it enough to ask the Big PR Guy in the Sky to promote it.

5. The inside driver’s side door handle on my car has been broken for about two years, and I have to roll down my window to open the door from the outside. (I know…classy.) Then a couple of months ago, the outdoor handle snapped off when my door was frozen shut. I could still open the door, but I figured it was time to get both of them fixed. I ordered the parts on eBay and my sweet brother replaced both of them for the price of a Whataburger bacon cheeseburger. (And regardless of what he says, I DID help.)

6. Last week, I house- and dog-sat for my friend Kate. She and her husband live in a warm house full of floor-to-ceiling windows, a wrap-around deck, incredible paintings, a funky art collection, a hot tub, and home-brewed beer on tap.

The best part was seven days and six nights of absolute peace and quiet. No dogs barking in the middle of the night. No headlights shining into my bedroom window when Mr. Neighbor leaves for work at 0600. No redneck neighbors running power tools until midnight. No crazy neigbor and her foil-draped house. Just the sound of the creek running behind their house and the occasional Chewbaca noise when one of the dogs wanted his belly scratched.

(Well, okay, the best part was the beer on tap.)

7. New year’s resolutions=more yoga students=more sweet, interesting people coming into my life.

How have you been blessed this month?

To Ponder: Talking about our problems is our greatest addiction. Break the habit. Talk about your joys. |-Rita Schiano-|

One Approach to the New Year

The past few Saturdays, during my volunteer shift at the library, one of the patrons has smelled like woodsmoke.

That’s a smell I can’t get enough of. So honest and comforting.

A couple of years ago, some new friends invited me to their New Year’s Day celebration where they had an outdoor fire going. I didn’t wash my hair for a couple of days because it smelled like smoke and I wanted it to linger.

After that, I ordered this cool incense sampler with seven natural wood fragrances.

Now I know what alder smells like.

I sometimes burn it in my office while I knit and watch TV shows on my computer.

And one of my favorite times of the year is when the county-wide burn ban is lifted and people set fire to their burn piles that they’ve been building up with felled or fallen trees and branches. It’s usually after a rain, so the fires are quite smokey, and when I’m driving along and sight one, I roll down my windows and start sniffing.

So this person who smells so heavily of woodsmoke at the library isn’t so unusual.

I smelled smoke every time I went to the information desk to chat with the librarian when I wasn’t checking out books and DVDs, so I knew it was a patron using a computer because the desk is right in front of the bank of them, and the computers see a lot of action on Saturdays.

Last week, I was at the circulation desk, annoyed that my black cashmere sweater was pilling so much, when one of the computer regulars, a woman whose face I know, but name I don’t, came up to me, smiling, and said she had gotten some great news. Her friend in Florida just paid her cell phone bill and she’s finally going to have phone service after being without it for a couple of months.

She likes to talk, and often starts conversations randomly. I had spoken with her a few times over the summer, mostly about how she had lost her employment due to a serious health problem and is having a hard time finding another job.

As she told me about an upcoming trip to see her teenage son who is living at a boy’s home in north Texas, I realized that she was the one who smelled like woodsmoke.

“Now I just have to go over to my neighbor’s house and charge my phone,” she said. “I don’t have electricity.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “Why is that?”

“I lost my job a while back and my husband is disabled and can’t work, and we couldn’t pay the bill, so they shut it off.”

And then it hit me: she smells like woodsmoke because she’s trying to stay warm.

If you’re reading this from your computer at home, your power is on. Your heat and air conditioning work, as does your refrigerator, stove, oven, microwave, blender, coffee maker, lights, washer, dryer, television, water heater, and phone charger. You have the money to pay the electric bill, so you’re healthy enough to work. You probably even have a car to drive to your job.

Isn’t that wonderful?

This year, what if we are grateful for what we have and don’t worry so much about what’s missing.

To Ponder: Trade your expectation for appreciation and the world changes instantly. |-Tony Robbins-|

Finito: Inspira Cowl

Last week, I posted about my Inspira Cowl in progress. After 13 hours of pure knitting pleasure, we can stick a fork in it.

That’s a great book I’m holding in my hands. :-)

It’s called a cowl, but it’s more like a capelet, and it’s quite warm. I wore it to volunteer at the library last week, and three patrons who said they were knitters loved it—one used the word “stunning”—and wanted to know every little detail.

I imagine my little town will become very colorful very soon.

The yarn does all the work.

My brother took these pictures on Christmas Day. Late in the day because we had stayed up until 4:30 that morning playing Galaga and then Jenga Gigante* with his wife. I lost every game, both electronic and analog.

But I can knit like a boss.

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*His wife loves the game Jenga, and last year he made a life-sized Jenga game for her for Christmas. The wooden blocks are the size of bricks, and you play it on the floor. You also have to say Jenga Gigante at the volume and in the way a World Cup announcer says Gooooooooooooal!

To Ponder: Making a decision usually means taking one of two roads. One is doing the right thing. To take the other road, you have to sit back and spin a story around the decision or action you are taking. If you find yourself thinking up an elaborate justification for what you are doing, you are not doing the right thing. |-Wayne Sales-|

Counting My Blessings: December 2014

You know, when you start your day being grateful that you’re getting out of a warm bed after a full night’s sleep and that clean water comes out of the tap when you turn it on—not because you’ve had water problems lately, but because you live in a time and a place where it’s even possible—you can look at everything that happens to you the rest of the day as a blessing.

Here are some highlights from my month.

1. Last year, my friend and yoga student Jean and I were talking about keeping our drafty little houses warm without turning on the (expensive) central heat. I set my thermostat at 58 and use little electric space heaters in my bedroom and office. She uses a portable oil-filled space heater—one of those big ones that looks like a radiator that New Yorkers are always complaining about not working.

My bathroom is the warmest room in the house.

They aren’t too expensive, so I could have bought one, but I just don’t have room in my house to store it for the 10 months it’s not needed. Jean had an extra one that she let me borrow last year, and this year, when we had our early cold snap, she brought it to class for me to borrow again. Aw.

2. I always know when a package is coming in the mail because I’m the one who ordered it, but last week I opened my mailbox to a surprise Christmas gift from my BFF—three divinely fragrant handmade soaps from a company that her friend just started.

Thanks, Tina!

3. At the end of the farmer’s market on Saturdays, the food vendors trade their leftovers amongst themselves. I don’t participate because my knitting isn’t going into the compost bin if someone doesn’t buy it that day.

Last Saturday, one of the farmers came up to me as I was packing up and said I should come to his stand and pick out some vegetables. My friend Angie, who sells bread and pastries for the restaurant she works at, had given him two loaves of bread and let me have the vegetable trade. Aw. I got broccoli, garlic, and mixed greens.

4. My yoga students are always so sweet and generous, and especially so at Christmas. The students in my Tue/Thu morning class pooled their money and gave me an Amazon gift card. The students in my evening class gave me individual gifts: cash, wine, coffee beans, fruit, chard, raw cacao truffles, raw energy bars, raw honey from a sister’s bees, artisanal olive oil soap, Neutrogena sesame oil, a Specs gift card, yoga-themed notecards, handknit socks, a ceramic coffee go cup, copper earrings from Alaska, and a handmade copper-and-silver necklace.

Their friendship, kindness, and thoughtfulness are always a blessing.

Hannah always makes her Christmas cards; this year she tatted snowflakes.

Kate designed this necklace just for me. Wow, right?

Kate also decorated the gift bag.

5. The infirmed mother of my friend Chris came to live with her, and Chris had to get rid of the bed in her guest room to make room for her mother’s special bed, so she gave me the mattress—a queen-size Beautyrest that’s less than a year old.

She and her sister helped me get it into my house, which was a job, I tell you, because my property is on an incline and it’s stone steps all the way up. Chris also let me store my old mattress in her storage unit in case this one didn’t work out. (So far, my back likes it.)

6. My little red truck has been acting up the last couple of times I drove it, hesitating on acceleration. It felt like a fuel problem, so I put $20 of premium in the tank, hoping that would fix it. It didn’t. This is a second car (a blessing in itself), and I don’t drive it much, but when I need it, I need it. (Ref #5 above.)

Last week, I drove it here and there on some errands, hoping that I just needed to run more of the premium fuel through the engine, but that didn’t work either, and the problem seemed to be getting worse.

Before I took it to a mechanic, I tried one more thing: a fuel additive called BG44K.

Little can o’ magic.

I bought it at NAPA (from the same nice guy who had cleaned my corroded battery connections earlier in the month), drove to the Valero station, poured the stuff into the tank then filled up with regular gas. It worked immediately.

7. Jesus blessed us all with His birth.

Matthew 2:1-12

How have you been blessed this month?

To Ponder: The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life. |-William Morris-|

 

Decision: Man Hat by Knit Picks

Yesterday, Knit Picks responded (two days early) to my submission for their Fall 2015 Men’s collection. In my experience with them, such a quick decision means an acceptance.

But this email included the word “unfortunately.”

Really starting to dislike that word.

On the bright side:

• If I ever get done with The Sweater, I’ll have another pattern to work on right away.
• I’m starting to consider not waiting until the last minute to send a submission.
• For the past couple of days, the temperature has been lower than 75 degrees. Maybe I’ll even get to wear the rejected hat before Valentine’s Day.

I don’t have a relevant picture for this post, so let’s enjoy this image of my crazy neighbor sneaking around my house.

On the case.

To Ponder: To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain and play with it. |-Charlie Chaplin-|

 

Counting My Blessings: November 2014

Living next to a neighbor with a mental illness means that things are ever weird over here in the little red cabin in the woods, but it’s balanced by plenty of good things.

1. For the second cold weather season, I’ve been selling my knitted wares at a local farmer’s market. I don’t go when it’s too warm because nobody wants to even look at wool, but I sell a lot—and get lots of compliments on my knitting—when I show up.

Finally—a cold day in central Texas.

2. My friend Shar has unwittingly become my therapist, listening to me tell the same stories about my crazy neighbor, rehashing my options, what-iffing my future, rejecting all of my own ideas only to revisit them again. The best part is that she acts as if it were the first time she’s heard everything.

3. When I told my BFF Tina that one of my possible plans for the future involved living with her for a while, she said, “Yay!” When I told her I wanted to attend poker dealing school so I could deal in Las Vegas, she said, “That’s a great idea!”

What fun this would be.

4. I bought a couple of tomatoes from the guy who runs the most popular stand at the farmer’s market, and he threw in some extra ones. They were frankentomatoes, but still.

Beautiful on the inside.

5. Knit Picks published my Snowman Draft Stopper as a free pattern on their website, and knitters are knitting it.

6. Knit Picks accepted my City Cowl pattern, which will come out next year.

7. The Flaming Sumac tree outside my office window is flaming.

Can you see the heart in the sky?

8. I have friends who care about me; shelter from rain and cold; a kitchen full of food; and a hot shower any time I want one.

How many blessings are you counting this month?

To Ponder: Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else. |J.M. Barrie|

 

Counting My Blessings: October 2014

In spite of some bizarre and challenging issues with a paranoid and delusional neighbor who believes I’m sending radio frequency waves into her house (seriously!—she tried to convince the sheriff’s office to file criminal charges against me), my life is blessed with infinite good stuff.

1. My friend Bob returned from a month-long visit to Canadia to visit his family, and returned with a pint of Captain Morgan rhum foncé for me. That’s a fancy way to say dark rum. It’s a blend of Caribbean and Canadian rum, and is not generally available in the United States of America. I don’t normally drink hard liquor, but nothing about my life has been normal lately. The rhum was quite tasty and I look forward to the next time Bob leaves for a month.

Worth a trip to Canadia.

2. We had a cold snap in Texas. In early September. Calendarically still summer, and what they call the dog days of. It rained the day before, then the temps were in the low 60s the following Saturday. It was even too cold for my outdoor yoga class, so we moved it indoors. I wore long sleeves and knee-high boots the rest of the day. Bliss defined.

3. During my Saturday shift at the library I showed a little girl named Alyssa how to knit. She was maybe seven or eight years old. Those little hands and fingers trying to deal with yarn and needles. The powerful concentration trying to remember the movements.

4. Lately, I’ve been wrestling with making some major life changes, and my BFF Tina mailed me this magnet o’ wisdom as encouragement to git ‘er done.

Not that I live according to sayings on magnets.

Mind you, my life has already begun, but it’s all locked up in a box and nothing ever happens anymore.

5. A gal on Ravelry messaged me that she found my blog a few months ago and is “thrilled” to follow my successes. Aw.

6. I live in a free country that allows its citizens to vote their leaders into and out of office without inciting violent protests.

7. I sleep in a warm, comfortable bed. Every. Single. Night.

What blessings are you counting this month?

To Ponder: Every increased possession loads us with new weariness. |John Ruskin|

Counting My Blessings: September 2014

Adding to the blessings of health, shelter, transportation, no consumer debt, and regular income there are several more that make my life sweet and beautiful.

1. I celebrated a birthday recently, and my yogis took me to dinner at a nice seafood restaurant. Everyone has their favorite spot in class, so they’re next to the same people all the time (including me and the front row students). We usually spend the few minutes before class talking about whatever is on our mind at that moment, but these occasional klatches shuffle us together in a different way, and we have new conversations with new people.

Judy is trying to talk her husband into a scotch-tasting tour of Scotland. Vickie deals with feral hogs making foot-deep holes in her back yard by involving her entire family in a divot-stamping party. And Kate acquired a taste for raw oysters as a child at her grandmother’s knee.

Unending stories.

I love these little glimpses into their daily lives, and I especially love watching them connect with each other through their stories.

2. My long-suffering BFF Tina, has been listening to me go on and on and on about my paranoid delusional neighbor and my conflicted feelings about whether to tough her out or sell everything I own and start over somewhere that has four seasons and trees. She offers practical advice (that I argue with), and helps me keep my own paranoid delusions in check when I start to chicken little everything.

3. Tina also sent me a beautiful card that I keep on my nightstand and some cher pickleball gear for my birthday. (Because pickleball is what I was on and on about last month. Perhaps she’ll send me a new neighbor this time? :-)

4. I was asked to give a talk to the local Lion’s club about the benefits of yoga. My audience was mostly men in their 60s-80s, so I knew it would be a tough sell. After we pledged allegiance to the American and then the Texas flag (I had no idea there was a pledge), sang the national anthem and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, listened to a joke about a three-legged chicken, and ate lunch, I was introduced to the group of about 30 people. As I described some health issues they might be experiencing and how yoga can help, everyone was sweetly attentive (not fiddling with iGadgets—a blessing in itself). After the Lion’s roar that formally ended the meeting, one of them came up to me and said he wanted to try yoga!

5. A woman I didn’t know gave me a bunch of nice yarn and vintage knitting magazines.

6. My Voussoir Hat came out in Interweave Knits, and is one of the three most popular patterns on the Ravelry listing for the issue.

Insert Sally Field’s 1984 Oscar acceptance here.

7. I spent a few evening hours with my friend Angie, catching up after seeing her only briefly this summer. We sat quietly on her couch, ignoring the noise and antics of cats, dogs, kids, birds, a ferret, and her husband and his friend doing electrical work on their new addition, drinking wine and talking about new jobs and plans for the future.

8. I received so many thoughtful birthday gifts: fat Turkish figs, organic raisins, a handknit scarf, and a handmade card from Hannah; a bottle of Cabernet and a lavender-scented eye pillow from Chris; a handmade blown glass ornament from Sandy; a Daily Bread booklet and cash from Paris; a gift book about how great I am from Jewell; a Visa gift card from Shar; an Amazon gift card from the yogis who took me to dinner; a green stone pendant necklace from Angie; and a rare book and handmade pearl necklace from Kate.

Kate attached pearls to knitted silver wire, making 50 wishes for me as she worked.

The gifts were sweet and perfect, but the true blessings are the people and thoughts behind them.

What are you counting as blessings these days?

To Ponder: When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself. |Tecumseh|

Rejection: Tee by Knitscene

Saturday’s mail brought my Padre Island Tee swatch in an envelope from Knitscene.

I’ve had more rejections than acceptances in recent months, so it would be easy to get discouraged, but I know that the competition for these national magazines is intense, and my chances of shining brighter than the well-known designers who are regularly published are practically nil to begin with.

Sometimes I could take or leave some of my designs, but this tee is a good one, so I’m going to keep it in my pocket.

I don’t have pictures of my design, so let’s enjoy this drive-in movie screen my paranoid neighbor erected between our houses.

She’s afraid of my nefarious activities concealed by the backboard.

On the bright side:

• I can submit the tee for another spring/summer call for submissions.
• I can knit it in wool and give it long sleeves and turn it into a fall/winter design.
• I can get a job at the new grocery store coming to town and not worry about any of this ever again.

To Ponder: Paranoia is just another word for ignorance. |Hunter S. Thompson|