While I was waiting for tea to heat this morning in the microwave, I did, as I often do, a bit of exercise. Today it was my close as I can get to a Tree Pose.
That's the one where you balance on one leg, one foot resting on other thigh, or calf for me, hands high over head.
Very calming, terrific for maintaining balance in an aging bod. I alternate legs. No use having one stronger than the other, probably find myself walking in circles.
Also, in my case, exercise is onan endless possible source of entertainment among passersby, since my kitchen window faces the street and I always have the curtains open. I often do poses and stretches and shoulder flexing in the couple of minutes while the microwave hums. Micro exercise.
Meanwhile back in the yarn department, I've started to knit a pair of gloves for me. After 20+ pairs of socks and half a dozen pairs of gloves for the Sock and Glove Ministry, over the last year, I think it's okay.
I decided to use two strands of this lovely stuff
And, since this makes a finer yarn than the previous three strands I was using, I did a test knit then tried on.
It slipped nicely over my hand, fits my wrist, so we're off.
While I knitted, I watched Atomic Shrimp on YouTube. He's an endlessly curious and enterprising and happy man, full of ideas.
Today it's collecting seaweed and bringing it home to his garden, then doing some seed prep. He's planting pennywort in the crevices of his old garden walls while I knit along.
On the subject of knitting and anyone can knit, men too, I was in school with a family of five sisters, whose father was a merchant seaman
He would be away at sea for months. Then when he came home, one sister would be wearing a new knitted dress. He did a dress on each stint at sea, so everyone got her turn.
They were beautiful, fine knitting, flared with knitted-in godets and lovely narrow lacework each side of the godets.
A godet, for them as don't know, is a triangular area created to make a fitted bodice flare out in the skirt.
In dress making, they're inserted into the main skirt, but a skilled knitter can incorporate them while creating the skirt.
Always the right size and length for whichever sister was up for a dress. I think it kept him close to his family while he was away. I've never forgotten his expertise. A lot of long voyage sailors knit and do knotwork, too
Then, back in the yarn dept, the sun came out, the wind dropped a bit, and I got my act together and went walking
Here's Handsome Partner's daffodils starting.
They're all over this local patch of woodland. After 9.11, he wanted to make a memorial that would improve our little bit of the world, so he bought a sack of mixed daffodils to plant.
At that time he was already losing mobility, could walk with Handsome Son and me, but couldn't dig. He pointed, we dug. We let him know this was a labor saving way to garden, for him!
And they've come up and spread, year after year, some picked by people who didn't know they weren't for picking, some dug up and stolen by people who know better, but wherever they are, they'll still bloom and be meaningful. It's always good to survive another winter and see them.
When Handsome Partner died, I planted daffodils in his memory, in 2011, and the ones in my garden are for him. Quite a few friends did likewise, and I'd get updates from a couple of them in spring.
And here are the Stella d'Oro daylilies I started in the trees from my divisions.
Today's winnowing is about fabric, I think. Not yet done, but will be.
So that's where we are, and I found a great reminder on Richard Rohr's newsletter this morning.
I thought you'd like to see it. Whenever I manage to remember it, my day improves. Disregard the first word, which belongs to a sentence saying much the same thing as our excerpt.
What a beautiful way to enjoy daffodils!
ReplyDeleteI like the rush of good memories when they come up each year.
DeleteA lovely memorial for the victims of 9-11 and also your handsome husband.
ReplyDeleteI love daffodils. So pretty after a long dreary winter.
I might have to plant some myself The yarn your using is beautiful can’t wait to see the finished product
Plant some they're lovely
DeleteWhen my brother died, his eight year old daughter wondered about red flowers on his grave. He died in September, so I managed to find several bags of red anemone. My youngest daughter and I stayed so late planting them, we were locked in the cemetery and found our way out by spotting the groundkeeper, following him home through the grounds and leaving by his drive. Now, fifty some years later, red anemone bloom in the spring, several feet around his grave.
ReplyDeleteThat was a lovely idea. So much better than cut flowers.
DeleteDaffodils are such happy flowers. As are your gloves. Happy, not flowers.
ReplyDeleteMy mother gave my mother in law a rose she had grown from a cutting. When my mother in law went into care I managed to get a cutting to strike and I now have that rose in my garden.
We do need to live in the moment. Happiness is nowhere if not here and now.
I love that history in a plant. My iris are heirloom ones, from the garden of a friend's grandmother, originally planted two generations ago and shared around many local gardens.
DeleteYour titles are perfect. Boud. I am always eager to see where they lead.
ReplyDeleteI too micro-exercise at the microwave. And thank you for the quote - a good reminder.
Chris from Boise
Thank you about the tities. i always hope they'll be interesting enough to go on reading.
DeleteWe have a reminder her that happiness is the journey not a destination - same sentiment. The yarn is beautiful and we fully sympathize with whatever you felt about people digging up the daffodils. People who do that don't seem to realize that at the time they are beautiful to admire, they are least likely to survive a move.
ReplyDeleteI felt a bit despairing about the daffodil thieves, but have lived past it. Eventually.
DeleteThe daffodils are a great a cheery reminder. It makes me think of the defendants of Dad’s forget-me-nots that still come up every year, more than 4 decades after he initially transplanted them in our yard form his.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds lovely. I love forget-me-nots. I've never grown them, maybe I should find some.
DeleteThat is a very Zen quote! I also love seeing the daffodils come up every year right where I planted them. It's amazing how durable and dependable they are.
ReplyDeleteWhere I lived in the Yorkshire Dales, there were wild daffodils not far away, in Farndale, planted by the monks centuries before the reformation, still growing and spreading. Miles of them.
DeleteHow I love the image of a merchant seaman, knitting his daughters dresses. It's an entire book, right there.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing more appropriate as memorials than flowers that come up yearly, saying to us, "We are always here, even in the darkest days of winter."
Your gloves are going to be a thing of beauty.
It's certainly a little known area of seagoing lore. Yes on the flowers that return, such a token of continuing life.
DeleteI think I've said before that I never learned to knit. I can't imagine knitting a whole dress. or knowing just how big to make it for a particular daughter who grew during the months he was at sea.
ReplyDeletemy daffodils are done, just one small clump.
They fitted fine, and I used to wonder the same thing.
DeleteIf I tried the tree pose, it would be 'timber'! The daffodils are pretty. They have deep meaning for you and HS. You have earned socks for yourself and I need to remember the quote.
ReplyDeleteThat's funny about the tree pose! My own tree's a bit gnarly nowadays.
DeleteI used to do the tree pose when my mother was lecturing me on something. I didn't have my hands above my head, just hanging at my sides as any unimpressed teen would do. I was bored of her threats and yadda yaddas. Often, it amused me and got me in trouble.
ReplyDeleteGood memories!
We do this in Mobility class and giggle when some of us wobble.
We are going to have up to 10" of snow on Thursday night!
That's more snow than we've had in a year. I can't say I miss it, though.
DeleteIt's wonderful that your Dad was a knitter and, by the sounds of it, very accomplished too. I think I remember reading at some point that knitting was actually something that only men did.
ReplyDeleteI've never been able to stand on one foot and live in fear that I'm ever pulled over by the police and asked to 'walk the line' because I know I would be a dismal failure at it (even without imbibing beforehand!).
Not my dad, not a merchant seaman either. My school friend's. Mr Taylor was a wonderful knitter.
DeleteI wonder why you can't stand on one foot? There's a very tall guy in YouTube teaching physical therapy who says his feet are so small in relation to his height that there are some balance things he can't do.