And there were robots

Well, there. Youngest daughter is not only married, but the occasion’s now been properly feted, and I can’t even tell you how trashed our house is.  Not the kind of trashed that comes from not cleaning up for a few days because you’re busy, I mean the kind of deep trashing that comes from three sisters doing their nails while searching for just the right earrings (everything from my scant collection was rejected, and in the end Megan gave Sam the ones she was wearing) while a father tries to find his cuff links and tune his guitar while another installs fairy lights all over a venue, while people drop things off, and pick things up and Pato and Ken cut signs out and Megan arranged props for the photo booth and Amanda’s trying to secretly tune a violin and there was rehearsal and sound check and all of my pairs of tights had holes and my hair was trying to come out funny and we cut and arranged all the flowers and made three kinds of salad for sixty people while there’s glitter goddamn everywhere and there’s a hairdresser doing Sam’s hair in the living room and auntie’s are being picked up and dropped off and another one is bringing over the favours and who did we think was picking up the samosas, and I baked six batches of brownies and then we had to figure out how to get a brownie tower and all the flowers to the venue and then it started to rain.   That’s what put us over the top, I think.

(A few quick shots of her shawl, what with you all caring about the knitting, I think. Pattern is Timeless, and the yarn is Shibui Lunar, beads are silver lined crystals.)

It was worth it. Every minute of it. Just look at that Bride shine.

I think it’s pretty clear, from the way I’ve chosen to live my life, that making and doing things for others is a love language for me, and it’s a value I know Joe and Ken share, and one that we’ve worked hard to instill in our children and those we’ve chosen to make our family.

I have never been more confident that I’m surrounded now by people who feel the value in it. From Sam, agreeing to have this party – one I’m not sure she wanted (hence eloping to Vegas) but going along so cheerfully to show us she loves us, and feels the love we have for her… to watching her siblings bust a move so hard to fill the day with things and people that she loves… to the gifts of music and time and energy and hand made things that were special for Sam, and for each other.

 

It was good for my heart too, to see her new husband Mike working to learn this language. He’s a good guy, that Mike, and I can tell his family shares a lot of these values, though the scale of our escapades might be a surprise to him. (Quite possibly, it was the flashmob that got him – when Joe brought out the guitar, and the gathered masses all broke into “You’ve really got me” with a lot more enthusiasm and less skill than The Kinks.)

It is in these moments that I am so proud of this little family – and I my only wish now is that we could learn to do it without trashing the house so completely. (I have washed the kitchen floor twice and I think the silver glitter may be permanent.)

PS. Amanda has been instructed to not even think about dating for a while. Or at least until I get the house clean.

Imperfection for the win

You know, earlier this year, when I turned 50, I wondered if this was going to be the year I finally learned a lesson or two.  (This is a separate wish than the sort I make every night, when I go to bed swearing that in the morning when I wake up it will be the start of a whole new me. The sort of me that finally cleans closets and streamlines her life and never, ever opens the fridge and thinks holy crap what is that smell, or the sort of me who always has a salad for lunch. I like to think that’s normal – as is my inability to wake up as that other person (she says, munching peanut butter toast, again.) I speak here of my failure to learn what I’ve come to think of as The French Lesson.

It’s possible I’ve told you this before, because it’s something I still struggle with (despite it being a really powerful lesson.)  When I was in grade nine, the first year with classes in different rooms of the school – something came over me, and I skipped French. I just didn’t go. Looking back I can’t even remember what I did instead of going to french, although at the time it all seemed important. It probably involved the boy next door. I was pretty deeply in love with him and everything he said seemed right. Anyway, love and complications aside, I skipped the class, and it was the first time I’d ever done it, and I knew instantly that it was the wrong thing. I felt horrible, and guilty, and that feeling stuck.  I had no idea how I was going to face the teacher after doing that, and so… I skipped the next class too.

Now the problem was huge.  I’d skipped two french classes.  Two in a row.  That was just too horrible to face, and so I skipped a third one while I tried to figure some elegant way out. You see where this is going. The whole thing, and this is still just unbelievable to me, even though I was really, really young and stupid, the whole thing culminated in my mum going to the end of term parent-teacher interviews, and the teacher had no idea who I was.  I still remember my mum asking me not just why the hell I’d skipped an entire term of french, but why on earth hadn’t I told her before she walked into the interview.  She was going to find out – in mere moments. I could have come clean, taken a minute and been all “Hey, mum. I kinda screwed up here, you’re going to find out in 39 seconds what I’ve done, so I might as well not make it worse.” Instead, I let her walk in there and knowing it was certainly all blowing up just a few metres away from me, I sat in the hall thinking “I really could have handled this better.”

Anyway, it’s turned out that some things, some approaches are thematic. They crop up over and over again in your life – and for me, this is a big one. Getting in too deep, and then getting in deeper while I try to get out is one of them,  and it turns out that turning 50 didn’t improve it at all… so here I’ve sat for the last while trying to figure out how to write to you when it’s been so long, and it’s not that I don’t have anything to tell you, it’s that I’ve let it go on for so long that now I have too much to tell you.  I have to tell you about Spain and the baby blanket and Sam’s wedding shawl and Sam’s wedding and I knit a cowl and had a retreat and I think I might be knitting more tiny things for Christmas and I need to take a million pictures and…. I’d wake up every morning and try to think about the worlds longest blog post to dig out, and then there wouldn’t be time for that post and then… The French Lesson all over again.

Then I woke up this morning and thought “$%*^ it. Maybe I just won’t be perfect.  (This is the great message of the French Lesson.  I’m still working on it.) So, here goes. Imperfection for the win.

1. I went to Spain with Joe to celebrate his 50th birthday and my 50th birthday. Together we have a century of experience. That seemed like something worth going big for.

2. It was totally worth it, except for the part where I had 9 hours at home before flying off to the November Strung Along Retreat. I had real regrets at 4am when I was back in the airport.

3. That feeling went away pretty fast when I got to the retreat and it was great.

4. I knit a bunch of stuff I haven’t taken pictures of, and I totally finished that baby blanket, and Joe mailed it for me while I was getting on and off planes, and the recipient allegedly loves it, and when I get a snap or two I’ll post about it here. Promise.

5. I’m furiously knitting Sam’s wedding shawl – her “wedding” is on Saturday. I’ve got that in quotes because it’s not really her wedding, because (in a very Sam-like move) the kid woman already took off to Vegas and got hitched. We’re just celebrating on Saturday because if you’re going to freakin’ elope, then you have to throw you family some kind of bone.

6. I think I’m going to make it. I have one row left to go and then a rather ridiculous bind off, but it still seems doable as long as I don’t buy a new dress, get my hair done or clean the house.

7. Luckily,  I don’t care much about any of those things.

8. There’s a chance Sam comes by her temperament honestly.

9. I am thinking about knitting 25 tiny things before December 1st. I have three.

10.  Yeah.

How are you?

Just get in the car

If there is one thing that Joe and I have worked out over the last year, it’s that we don’t know what’s going on, or what the future holds. We’ve been waiting forever for it to be “a good time” for us to take some trips, see a bit of the world, but it’s always been that the girls were too young, or it wasn’t a good time to leave work, or we didn’t have time or… a million reasons.  Since Joe’s Mum had her stroke, and my Mum died, we’ve slowly come to realize that saving this all up for when there’s a better time is probably dumb. (We’re also, a year and change into being Grandparents, working out that this idea we had that our family will need us less and we wouldn’t mind being away as time goes on was pretty laughable. That day’s simply not coming.) Therefore…

Hola!  We’re in Spain.  Less than 20 hours after coming home from the Columbia Gorge and Knot Another Fiber Festival, I got back on a plane and we travelled to Zurich, and then Barcelona, Spain.  (This is the biggest barrier to holidays, we’re both still self-employed full time. There just aren’t many days we aren’t working. We fit this in between two of my work trips. I bet that when I get home next week and have to leave the next day for Port Ludlow I am going to have a few regrets.) In knitting news, I brought three projects with me, and have already worked out where the local yarn shop is. (Just in case.)  I finished the baby blanket (and I’ll tell you all about it once it arrives at it’s final destination. Joe mailed it to the baby in question while I was out of town – so it should get there any minute now. The eagle is flying.) I’ve happily moved onto the next big white thing…

Samantha’s wedding shawl.  The pattern’s Timeless, and the yarn is Shibui Lunar, and the beads are silver lined crystals.

While I’m about as brave as a knitter comes, even I have to admit that beads and white laceweight aren’t the best travel knitting, so in my purse I’ve got a kit from Canon Hand Dyes to make the Graduated Stripes Cowl.  Round and round, perfect for a site seeing tourist on the town.

I’ve also got a sock, but I’ll tell you more about that later. Joe’s waiting patiently by the door (read tapping his foot at me) and today’s his 50th birthday, so off I go.  The two of us are bound for adventure.