Quiet
Posted on June 23rd, 2008 in family, gift by bethtoons || 2 Comments
Why is it the weeks that are craziest and should spawn a zillion blog posts are the weeks that I’m most quiet? Last week was one of those weeks, and I think I kept the contents to myself because many of the events of the week weren’t all good. It was a rough week for my circle of friends and there wasn’t much I could do or say that would make the pain go away so I opted for silence instead. Within my group of close friends in fewer than 7 days, we suffered the loss of 3 family members. My boyfriend’s grandmother passed away on Saturday the 14th, a close friend lost her dad on father’s day, and another lost his dad later in the week. It was a week of tears and exhaustion, and I wasn’t even in the thick of the mourning. My heart has gone out to these three friends in their time of mourning and that’s all I have to give.
My mom also landed herself back in the hospital for treatment of some open sores that have come and gone in her legs over the last several years and have been getting progressively worse over the last month or so. If the insurance approves the extended 3-week stay that the doctors have advised for her, hopefully the treatment will stick this time and she can stay out of the hospital again for a while. It’s not pretty, and the treatment she’s going through is painful and was horrible to watch on Saturday night when I was visiting. But when they had her legs undressed while performing the treatment, it was obvious that it is ultimately helping despite how much it’s obviously causing her pain in the short term.
But, it wasn’t all illness and death and helplessness in my life last week. I rallied some coworkers to do the heavy lifting and finally bought myself a chest freezer. I made ice cream. I discovered the bliss that is Balsamic Roasted Strawberries. I had a momma turkey and about 8 babies cross in front of my car on the way to get my veggies from the CSA farm. I finally met my uncle’s new wife (they were up visiting from Florida when mom went into the hospital). I knit on some socks. The plants on my patio are going gangbusters and I should be in for a summer of veggie overload. And at the point when I needed it most, I drove through just the right sized raincloud yesterday on my way back home from visiting mom in the hospital, and that raincloud produced a perfect full rainbow.
My mom has a knack for turning just about any hobby into a money making opportunity, and since her hobby is collecting dolls, we were up at the crack of dawn to setup a couple of tables and sell at a doll show on Saturday morning. It was exhausting, but I was able to finish a sock while sitting there watching all the local doll people mingle.
Dad’s socks were definitely a product knit. They turned out perfect, fit him amazingly well and as soon as I gave them to him this weekend he took off his shoes and socks and put them on to wear the rest of the day. That said, they were also mens socks knit on size 0 needles and I was way past ready to be done working through the second sock.
The Christmas knits are slowly coming off the needles. Last night I finished mom’s scarf gave it a quick soak and hung it to dry which was enough to uncurl it and open up the stitches a little bit. It’s gorgeous; I think she’s going to love it and it should look great with her purple winter coat.
Pattern: The same 
I ended it early enough that I have plenty of yarn leftover. I doubt I’ll have time before Christmas with the other projects I need to wrap up, but she’ll likely get a matching pair of gloves for her birthday next month.
Lots of photos, I had a fun little interlude between loads of laundry and cleaning tonight playing with the camera around the tree and my snowball candles centerpiece on my coffee table. That said, the apartment is in decent shape now and all set for Mike to arrive tomorrow night.
