Unsurprising but surprised

Oh Blog – I am as ever in awe of you. When I think of how you’ve behaved in the past I shouldn’t be surprised that you came through for the Rally, but somehow things are so weird for the last year that I am indeed, gobsmacked.  Ken is at his goal, Pato is at his…

(He says thank you, by the way. Such a nice young man.) and both Cam and I are within striking distance. I tell you this, o knitters – PWA owes a lot to you, once again, and so do I.  Looks like I’ve got to follow through with the blogging challenge – I hope stretching this muscle feels as good as it should.

Despite not blogging yesterday, I am not dead. Ken warned me that you might think I was dead – but even though the ride on Sunday had its moments, I am somehow still alive and though the ride had its moments (most of them midway up hills in the rain) I had notifications turned up on my phone so every time one of you sent a donation I could hear the little “ding” and it was incredibly motivating.  Ken and I swept the ride – and sweeping means that you agree to ride slower than the slowest riders – so we began our 115km (that’s 71.5 miles, for my American friends) at 10am, and I rolled up to the front of my house that evening around 7pm.  That’s a nine hour sweep and pretty unheard of- but this is an unusual year in so many ways.  The riders we were sweeping have had limited training opportunities (remember, Toronto still has gathering limits in place) and they were working so hard that Ken and I couldn’t possibly resent the time.

The same cannot be said of my bottom, but it has limited voting rights and we spent yesterday in reconciliation talks. Truly, I meant to blog yesterday, but I slept in (no idea why, weird right?) and then worked on a video for the Patreon for a little bit, and then Joe somehow convinced me to ride my bike 17km down to the marina and go for a sail with him.  My sock and I knit while Joe worked on the rigging – though it has taken years to convince him that I have little to no interest in sailboat maintenance and the high number of spiders encountered whilst engaged in same, he has finally accepted that we are all better off if I knit while he does it.

(That sock’s Must Stash Yarn’s Purple Skein, the pattern’s a no pattern, just knitting a tube.  I threw in a half round of a contrast yarn a few rounds ago, and when I’m a little further along I’ll toss in a heel.  I’ll show you. It’s easy.)  We threw in the anchor by the islands and had a little dinner on the boat, had a swim and made to sail back.

It was lovely, but when I got home I fell over like a tree. Today though, today – magnificent news.  Not only  did I manage to blog, not only are we close to meeting all our fundraising goals and making a difference in the world that changes the lives of people who really need us…

I put in the last seam on my sweater.  Good times, knitters.  Good times.  It’s upstairs blocking, if you can call drying on a bed “blocking” which I do. See you tomorrow. (I’ll get on Karmic Balancing gifts soon-ish, just waiting for a few emails to come in.)

(Sweater is Woven Shadows, yarn is DanDoh Linen, in “Pacific Tone” which might just be about how much I miss that part of the world right now, because otherwise it’s a pretty surprising colour for me, but three points for the person who’s first to notice that I have new glasses and they are…. blue. I can’t explain myself.)

 

38 thoughts on “Unsurprising but surprised

  1. All the best with your reconciliation talks! Those who have more suffering than suffrage have been known to foment rebellion, revolution, and violent overthrow (always best avoided on a bicycle).

  2. I saw those new glasses, thought perhaps you had a second pair for when you want to be fashionable. No, that can’t possibly be right. But I disagree that they are blue – here in New Mexico we call that turquoise. Glad to see you are branching out in both knitting and glasses!

  3. Spiders?!!!?? Boats have spiders?? Do they swim out from the mainland and secretly climb aboard, climbing with tiny knives held in their teeth and little patches over an eye ?

    But I digress.

    YOU DID IT!!!!! You, Pato, Cameron and Ken all raised you goal amounts!! Congratulations!! Well done! Well done indeed!

  4. I just checked and saw that you’ve all met your goals. Glad my donation got in yesterday. This is all good news.

    Now, dear Stephanie, our deepest condolences for you and your family on the loss of another child. My heart breaks for all of you. I won’t give you platitudes but send my love.

  5. I know why you got new glasses! It’s so that they go perfectly with the linen sweater that you just finished. Show us a photo of you wearing your new sweater while sporting your new glasses, please.

  6. So. Joe’s let you off the hook for sailboat maintenance. You might think of some large, involved project to thank him…perhaps a fleece-to-sweater sort of thing?

    Just an idea.

  7. I’ve got some Karmic Balancing gifts to dig out for you today. Ive all the good yarn huddled under the bed where it’ll be ignored if I dont pass it along. As long as the baby naps I should be able to tackle that today!

  8. Yay! You’ve got a Finished Object! (We all know the knitting can be easy, but the sewing’s a *itch!)

    We’ll worry about your color choices when you start mixing hot pink, highlighter yellow, and olive drab. . .

  9. Congratulations on hitting all the goals. What a wonderful accomplishment!! As is doing 71 miles. My butt hurt just thinking about it!

    Love the glasses!! I think I have a pair of cheaters in the same color.

  10. Welcome back Steph! I was worried about you yesterday and so happy to hear you survived the ride. I hope your back-side forgives you soon!

  11. Girl, I have been watching those numbers moving up like a horse race. Congratulations on a job well done. As I mentioned in a previous comment, I’m fundraiser for non-profits for a living and I can assure you that you are the kind of supporter that people like me dream about!

  12. Congratulations!
    I’m so glad you met your goal. I’ve been completely unable to accomplish anything this week. (Work spreadsheet? Here’s some emails. Emails? Excited child runs screaming into the home office. Talking with a kid? Another needs a snack. Cooking? Too bad the kitchen is a disaster. Cleaning the kitchen? Urgent work call. Responding to that call? Nope, internet is down. Etc)

    Yet I kept checking on your goals & even though my little bit was such a little bit, I love the power in numbers that is the Blog. Or the stitches in a project. Seeing the goals met has been the highlight of my week!

    We love you Steph; thanks for all you do

  13. Love the new glasses. Sending much love and light to you and yours. I honestly feel like we are all living in some sort of dystopian alternate universe. So glad you are trying to get back to blogging as it makes the world just a tiny bit more sane

  14. This all just absolutely makes my day, every word and picture of it. Thank you for riding and writing!

    And yeah, we can’t wait till you can come back to the Pacific coast either!

  15. Well, shut my mouth (never easy.) Actually, the opposite happened — I peeked to see how you were doing and my jaw hit the keyboard. Yay The Blog ™ and oboyoboy — blog posts! (and no need for a big catch-up, just the everyday trivia will be finer than fine.)

    Yay!

  16. We love you Stephanie, and would love to hear from you 5 times per week, but we’d also hate to see another “goal not met” simply because it’s too ambitious. We’ll catch you here whenever you can be here.

  17. You don’t even know how much it lifts my spirits to log on and see a blog post from you. A small connection to others in the knitting world. A reminiscence of life from the time before. Good news that goals have been met or will be soon (in contrast to main stream news with stories of Delta variant and rising case counts). One thread of shining light when most needed. 🙂

  18. You’re always an inspiration, Steph! Thank you so much for your post. I loooooove the sweater! And you look great in that color!

  19. I understand the blue. My grandosn Marcus had glasses when he was but two so when I needed glasses, I got blue just like him for no reason at all. Kids like coloured glasses. I’m doing red next. Blows me away too.

  20. I have no idea if you read the comments or not. I’m a chronic lurker.

    I’m also a Canadian and I really want to subscribe to you on Patreon. Could you PLEASE turn on the annual subscription option? Your $6 per month, single tier option is lovely, but it turns int $8 in Canadian Dollars, plus $2 per transaction for my credit card to convert the USD to CAD.

    If it was a one fee per year option, that would only be one $2 fee per year instead of $24 per year. I know that $24 “How dare you not be American!” tax over the course of the year might not be a big deal for some people, but not having to worry about it would be a huge deal for me.

    I can understand why you might not have set that up in the beginning when you weren’t sure you would be doing this long term, but if you are going to continue, please make that an option!

  21. Put in the links to your team in your next post! Npeople have short memories! There’s more money to be made for a good cause

  22. I noticed your new glasses right away! I’m your birthday twin, and I have new glasses too, a deep purple-blue. LOL I love yours and I love mine. 🙂 I am so in awe that you and Team Knit have done so well in such a strange time. 🙂 Well done!

  23. I’m on the side of calling your glasses not exactly blue—they lean too far into green to be straight-up blue. Teal?? Or maybe better: Pacific!?! Ocean… 🙂

  24. Duh. Not spending as much time on Rav as before, and MISSED the Bike Rally?!?

    Fortunately, one can donate post-ride, which I have done – today – to you and Pato.

    Now, Pato and I have never met, but we do have a mutual friend/acquaintance who was a Music student at UWO, so that feels like ‘family’ to me!

    Congrats on another Rally – well done!!

  25. My mother had 4 miscarriages (that I know of). All during the course of eventually having 7 children. I am the oldest living child and it always seemed to me that miscarriages were a natural part of the whole process of creating a family. Not to say that they aren’t hard on the mother and family. I do remember one that appeared particularly hard for my mom. All the best thoughts and wishes to you and your daughter as you go through this process.

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