We’re a few hundred kilometres from home, enjoying the same cottage we pack off to every summer. Usually the way it works is that Joe and I move into the place, and then assorted family comes and goes as their schedule allows. This year we’re lucky enough that Meg, Alex and the grandkids can be with us the whole time, and Amanda too. Everyone else has managed a little time here and there, and it’s been lovely.

I packed lots of knitting. Two sweaters, the yarn for a little dress for Abby (for when I finished the two sweaters naturally) and then three pairs of socks with none of them even past the heel turn. I can assure you as I packed all this, that I was pretty sure I wasn’t underyarned. The dress is lace, the sweaters are big – I have lots. Even if I gave up cooking, organizing, training for the rally and playing with my little grandchildren and did nothing but knit, I would be just fine.

So, I plowed through the first sweater – The Vibes Tee. Nice, right?

The yarn is Trio, and it was a fast, fun summer knit that has inexplicable pink/coral stripes that I adore. I have no idea what possessed me when I saw that colour since I’m usually pretty anti-pink, but something about that particular colour reminded me of roses, and my mum’s favourite shade of toenail polish and it was named “Radish” and I love radishes so suddenly I had a sweater with pink stripes on the needles and I couldn’t have been happier. That shade stayed charming the whole way through too. I LOVE it.

Weird thing though – I went to knit the ribbing on the bottom, and I came up to the bedroom where I have the bag of knitting stuff I brought with me on this trip and I shuffled through the surprisingly small pile of needles and couldn’t find the right one for the ribbing. “Odd as fish” I thought to myself, since I have a really, really clear memory of going to my office with a needle gauge and a list of all my projects and pulling down all the needles I would need and making a pile of them all. Turned out Meg had a spare needle in the right size, so I borrowed from her and kept on trucking.

A little while later it was time for the sleeves, and back I went to the bag of needles for the DPNs I needed for the sleeves and sleeve ribbing. I searched through the bag in disbelief when I couldn’t find them, and then painstakingly went through every other bag I’d brought in case I’d taken all leave of my senses and jammed them into some strange and infrequently visited pocket of my purse or mysteriously slid them down a section of my backpack. I had not. Meg to the rescue again – she didn’t have DPNs the size I needed, but she did have a set of interchangables with almost long enough cables for me to do the magic loop, so I just awkwardly powered through. The needle thing was really bugging me though. That night I checked all the bags again.

I washed the Tee in the lake and blocked it on the dock and while it was drying I went and fetched the Paul Klee sweater I’m working on. The needles are in that, so nothing could go wrong for a bit. I motored along, then measured last night and thought well isn’t this a pretty amazing moment, I’m ready for the ribbing. I went back to the bag AND YES YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED DON’T YOU. The needle for the ribbing was not there. This, I thought to myself, this has gone way too far. Meg was using her needle that size, so I pulled myself together and moved along. I’d knit the sleeves! Nope- those needles aren’t in the bag either. Here we shall not speak of the rage that I felt. It’s unbecoming to a knitter and I may have thrown things around a little in a way that doesn’t reflect my usual level of maturity. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that this petals, is why you simply must bring a lot of knitting on holiday. You never know what will come up.

I calmly (ok I slammed it) put aside the sweater, and went to fetch the dress for Abigail.

This is going to be the Holly Dress, and that’s just a little bit of silk to make it out of. I rummaged the bag almost expecting not to find the 3mm needle I needed, and when I didn’t, I had a brainwave. The body of the Paul Klee sweater was on a 3mm and I was at the ribbing! I could use that one. I put the sweater on a barber cord, and pulled out the 3mm, only realizing as I did it that it was way too long. Not so long that I could do magic loop and start the dress anyway, but too long to cast on. I swore, and pivoted again- feeling very proud of my ability to change tack without a tantrum so many times.

Now, in the course of this story you may be wondering what in the name of alpaca was I riffling through in that bag if it was not needles? It was needles. Lots of needles. A trove of needles – all wrong. Here’s what I just figured out. In the days leading up to leaving for this trip, I did two things. I tidied the house and put all recently rejected or discarded needles in a pile on my desk, ready to put away. Then I made a pile (also on my desk do you see this coming) of the needles I needed for this trip. Then I simply picked up the wrong pile and left. I don’t know how I couldn’t have noticed, but I am certain that the moment I arrive home I will find a very nice and tidy pile of exactly what I need sitting on my desk and looking smug. In the meantime, I am reduced to a few days of just socks before I get home, so thanks goodness I brought so much yarn that Joe looked at me funny.

When not trying to knit up here, I’ve been doing my best to train for the Rally – things are still not great but they are better – Exercise makes me wheeze now, which doesn’t seem to hold me back or make me short of breath, but does make my post-covid lungs sound exactly like an accordion you found in someone’s basement. (It’s much better than two weeks ago though.) The fatigue is improved, so is my stamina, but it’s still me on the strugglebus out there. My Dr said that as long as I’m not trying to push through extreme fatigue or shortness of breath, I’m cool. Exercise sucks, but then I recover just fine and am only as wiped out as I should be considering everything.

All this is a green light to keep trying, and try I have. I’ve been running about every other day, and I brought my bike with me so I could try and get some rides in. Running is pretty rough here – it’s hot and the local insect population waits at the end of the lane to attack people on who venture onto their territory with the accuracy and deadliness of a military flight wing. I’m covered in so many bites I look like I was tied to a tree and left there for a week. (Before you suggest it, know that I am covered in DEET. They mock it. ) The riding has been something else too – There is not a single inch of this area that is flat. It’s hills, all hills and I’ve been out there getting my arse handed to me like never before. I’m reminding myself that the rally isn’t that hilly – no part of it is, so failure here could still mean success there. We leave in 9 days.

I’ve got some Karmic Balancing gifts to give away and I’ll do that as soon as we’re home in a day or two (the internet here leaves something to be desired) and I’m all over it as soon as I unpack and bathe somewhere other than a lake. If anyone wanted a part of Karmic Balancing gifts – here’s how it works. If you help Team Knit fundraise for the Rally, then you can send an email to me (stephanieATyarnharlotDOTca) and make the subject line “I helped”. You should include your name, address and if you knit and spin, or just knit, or just spin. There are LOTS of ways to help. You can donate to anyone on Team Knit, we’re all still working towards our goals.

Stephanie

Cameron

Ken

Or you can share the links with friends or family you think might help, spread the word, use your social media to let people know, all of that counts as helping.

If you would like, you can be a Karmic Contributor – if you’ve got a knitter/spinner thing in your stash that you’d like to pass along to someone else as a dose of good vibes for helping this year, you can take a picture of it and send it to me at that same email (stephanieATyarnharlotDOTca). You can describe what it is, and let me know where you’re willing to ship it. (International, Canada, the US, only Portugal, whatever) and then I’ll open the list of helpers, draw a name at random, and send it to you. You’ll ship it to them, and whammo. Karmic Balancing. The helpers never know what they’ll get except it will be yarnish (or patternish) and it will be something nice they didn’t have before, and that’s exactly how Karma works.

I’m off now, so I’ll give you this picture of Abby enjoying the singular pleasure of being in a lake for the first time. She loved it.

Well, that ride didn’t kill me. I so appreciate all the comments that are so kind as to suggest not pushing myself, not taking risks… I hear you, and I feel really touched by how much you want me to be careful and to keep myself well. Rest assured that I am a reasonable adult who has got this far, and I have professional advice (not just internet advice, as much as I love you all) and there’s actually loads of research showing that for reasonably fit people who are more than 10 days post-covid (that’s me!) exercise can be preventive for long covid, and helpful in its healing. I acknowledge that there’s also some research that says that resting may be protective, but it’s a total mixed bag, and the best advice I’ve got right now is that exercise isn’t damaging, ignoring messages from your body is, so I’m not planning on doing that. Not ignoring messages isn’t the same as not trying though, it’s more about knowing when to quit, so Wednesday when I struck out for a 50km bike ride I was prepared to be flexible. My ride wound out fairly far, but then the last 15km were close to home-ish, so that I could bail if I needed to, when I needed to. This differs a great deal from what I’d usually do, which is ride away from home until I’m halfway, then ride back so that the only way to get back to the house is to do the full distance. I didn’t want to play too much with forcing myself to do anything right now, and good job because at the 44km mark got a nice clear message from my body that it was absolutely finished with bike riding, and I quit. This was a very unStephanie thing to do, but if there’s going to be any hope that I ride the Rally then setting myself back isn’t going to help. I rode the 44km and then I came home and knit, and rested and ordered dinner in.

That’s pretty much what I did for the next day, and the day after. It was scorchingly hot and I told myself that resting a few days was smart. That’s what I said Friday too. (I hope you see a theme developing.) I walked with Elliot to camp, I walked him back. I did some squats and lunges and other things I hate that should help me get some of the strength back that I had before this, and then I wound some yarn because I didn’t see how that couldn’t be helpful.

I should be working on this sweater, I love it and I really want it done, but predictably I’m struggling with the long tea-time of the soul that is the plain grey of the body after the excitement of the yoke. I’ve coped so far by not taking anything else with me when I go places, but I am feeling waves of discontent that are getting harder and harder to ignore.

The first idea I had was that I should use the leftovers from the yoke of this sweater to start a tiny one for Abigail, but I realized that in a day or two then I would have two plain sweater bodies to knit, and I must be maturing because I actually realized before I cast it on that I would be compounding rather than resolving a problem. (I know. I can’t believe me either.)

Then I thought about maybe making a pair of socks, because I have this skein of Barstow that Jill Draper sent to the retreat as an appetizer, and I am all about this yarn. Barstow is 100% Dorset, and I’m thinking about making a fabulous pair of socks, because I’m pretty excited about a non-superwash sock yarn. Dorset is a down breed – so it has a fibre that’s pretty fine, but also tightly and irregularly crimped. Each individual little hair goes back and forth in a wave and spirals at the same time, and that makes it very, very hard to felt – right off the sheep.

I got the Barstow out, I wound it, and I looked at patterns for an hour, and then I went to get a set of sock needles, and I reached up to the little ceramic pot on my shelf I keep them in (so they are handy for emergencies) and none were there. Now, this doesn’t mean that I am out of sock needles. It just means that I am out of sock needles in my office. There are still the living room sock needles and the stash room sock needles and the bedroom sock needles, as well as the ones I keep in my notions kit for when I am not home – but if I reach for some sock needles in the office and they’re not there, that does mean that I must have rather a lot of socks on the go. I put down the Barstow, slowed my roll and took a quick stroll through the WIP department where I found, well… let’s not discuss the number but simply note that I have absolutely no business starting another pair of socks until I finish a pair. Or seven.

I had a proper pout then, the sort that a knitter can really pull off when startitis is denied, and then I realized that today is Sunday, and tomorrow is Monday, and I’m doing a knit-a-long that starts Monday. Knitters from the last retreat are all knitting the Vibes tee- so I’m going to knit my swatch for that, and tomorrow I’ll get to start something new even though I clearly do not deserve it, which is pretty much my favourite way to get things.

Also tomorrow morning, I’m getting back on my bike and giving it another go. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll make it farther than I did last week, but don’t worry, I promise to be a total quitter if I need to be.

My friend Debbi – she’s pretty great in general, but there’s a few gifts she’s given me over the years that are shining stars of enrichment in my life and one of them is the phrase “Don’t panic early” usually followed by “I’ll tell you when to panic.” Well, I haven’t exactly explained my circumstances to Debbi, but for a few days I’ve had this sneaking suspicion that if I did, she wouldn’t tell me not to panic. I think she’d raise a single eyebrow, then whip out a notebook for planning purposes and say “Ok. Let’s panic as constructively as possible.”

That’s what I’m going to try and do – panic really constructively. This year is the Bike Rally’s 25th Anniversary, a big milestone for the scrappy little fundraiser that’s grown to be the sustaining fundraiser for the whole of PWA – an amazing accomplishment considering that it was started by a couple of people with bikes and a barbecue that they moved around on a pickup. In my head, this year wasn’t just the anniversary, it was also the year that it was all going to come together. The last few years have been full of compromises and people doing their best and rising above, and I felt like this year it was more important that ever to get out there. Without being an epic downer- it’s been a really crappy year for the people who are most vulnerable. At a time when it can feel like many human rights are moving backwards, it seemed like a great time to go as boldly forward as we can, and the Rally is such an amazing metaphor for that.

So, I was excited, and Team Knit set a big fundraising goal, and then… well then things started to go a little bit wrong. First, heartbreak those of you who’re Team Pato, he’s had surgery – Don’t panic, he’s going to be just fine, but Team Knit will be down a member for this year.

Then I had a torn biceps tendon (it’s better now, thanks) and I kept saying that I was going to get out there and train and I did, but definitely not as much as I should have. When that was healed enough to ride I gave myself a stern talking to, and then the wildfires happened and the air quality wasn’t something you could train in. I got out there on a few days that the air was good enough, but it wasn’t enough training – and not only that, it wasn’t enough fundraising. I struggled with Ken being far away – usually we train together quite a bit, and I lay awake the night before I was going to fly to Port Ludlow for the Strung Along Retreat and I thought about it being so close to the Rally – and I went over the whole thing top to bottom in my mind. I kept telling myself it was going to be okay, but was it? We’re short a rider, none of us have met our fundraising goals, and the Ride is just weeks away – is that okay? The answer was a firm maybe, if I got my scene together. The next day I flew to work, planned a post like this one, and the day after was my 55th Birthday. I ran 5.5km on the hotel treadmill to celebrate and to try and keep a bit of training going on. I told myself that if I ran every other day while I was away, and then got into the big training rides right away when I returned I’d be okay – it would be a bit of a stretch, but it would be okay, and I’d get on the fundraising too – it’s hard to fund raise when you’re not riding, but I would be riding so … okay. It was going to be okay.

Saturday morning I was sicker than I’ve ever been. After three years of dodging the thing like a ninja, I finally had covid. I spent the whole retreat with a raging fever and wicked cough, feeling absolutely horrible about not being able to teach. I still had my fingers crossed for the Rally though. Most vaccinated people are only sick for a few days, right? Wrong. Not this one. I was too sick to go home for more than a week, and when I got home it was another week in bed, and even now I’m just recovered enough to look in the general direction of my bike. In 31 days the Rally starts and I’m supposed to be one of a few hundred people who will ride their bikes 660km from Toronto to Montreal, and this morning I’m aiming to ride for 50km which is way, way, way too short, but possibly way longer than I can manage. I’ll pop back tomorrow and tell you if I live. In the meantime, while I’m out there trying to train, I know Cam and Ken have their fingers crossed for me, and all of us would love some help making our goals for this year.

This year’s Team Knit is:

Cameron

Ken

Me

I’m thanking you in advance for anything you’re able to do to make this possible. I’m worried about the riding but really it’s the fundraising that changes people’s lives and makes the ride worth it. If you’re able, please give generously.

I’ve also decided on a return to Karmic Balancing Gifts -they’re a lot of work, to be sure, but I feel like with time so short I need to pull out all the stops. If you donate to anyone on our little family team and you’d like to be in the offing for a gift, then please send me an email letting me know you’ve done so. I’ll choose names at random.

Make the subject line “I helped” and send it to stephanieATyarnharlotDOTca. (Note the .ca it’s a Canada thing.) Include your name, address, and whether or not you spin.  (For the love of all things woolly, please use the subject line. It makes your email go to a specific folder and you have no idea what a difference that makes to my sanity.) You don’t need to say what you gave, or include proof. I know you’ll do your best, whatever that is, and I know you wouldn’t lie. (If you’ve already given this year, obviously you should send an email.)

Now, we know not everyone has money to help with – so we’re taking all kinds of help.  If you can figure out some other way to do that, that counts.  Maybe you can tell a friend. Maybe you can post about it to social media. Maybe you can forward the email to people in your family who will give…  There’s lots and lots of ways to help, and if you can figure out a way? Send that email, letting me know you did. No money needed. (Of course, money is always good too, and even the smallest gifts make a big difference.)

*If you want to contribute a gift, I’m trying to make it easier -I have a better shot at getting it all done if you do this: Take a picture of your gift. Email me with the subject line “Karmic Balancing” with the details, picture and a link, if you want me to use one. When one of the helpers is chosen for a gift, I’ll email you the address, and you can ship it right to them. (It’s not a bad idea to let me know if you have shipping restrictions –  I’ll keep track.) I’ll try to get through them all, though it can be overwhelming. Thank you!

I’m off to panic as constructively as possible.