Exercise, manly work and the pursuit of happiness, also gloves

 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.

Happy day everyone, enjoy the exact moment you read this word!

The Ides of March, and other more cheerful thoughts

Today's the Ides of March, the day his wife, Calpurnia, warned Julius Caesar to not go to the club meeting with his buds, give it a miss, and he went anyway, despite her saying beware.  And when his best friend, Brutus, joined in the fatal attack, exclaimed "You rotten brute, you!"  Or something.  

Anyway, on this and a couple of other months, the Ides falls on the fifteenth.  Not every month though, for reasons I have forgotten, in the midst of studying how Julius Caesar was busy dividing Gaul into three parts, also for reasons I have forgotten.  The rewards of a classical education.

Onward.  Today's stitching was a bit tricky, very difficult getting the needle through several layers of fabric.  A needle with an eye big enough for three strands of floss is not easy to pierce with.   I did the ties on the Robe, two of them, anyway, so as to have them harmonize with the rest of the work. Then my hands needed a rest.

The sashiko stitching, that's the running stitch you see here, will be on one layer only in the next part, much easier to deal with.  I mixed the thread colors in the needle, too, so as to give a bit more subtlety to it.

Here's the threads in a very messy heap, waiting for action

And here's the sashiko done on two of the ties, so that they look like this

Now the ties look like part of the work, not an afterthought.  Next I have to mark the curves and shapes of the sashiko to be done on that side, seen here as the left, after I stitch down the peacock motif permanently in place.

Then there was lunch

Fast food again, this time a dish of frozen cooked leeks, potatoes and onions from the freezer, leftovers from some earlier pasty caper.  And the last little ball of dough from the tortilla recipe.  

I really recommend this fast food idea.  You make the flour tortilla recipe, I don't think the harina one would be sturdy enough, knead and divide into six bits, wrap separately in parchment paper and freeze.  Then an hour of thawing for one piece, roll it out on a floured countertop, fill, seal, bake at 400f for 20 minutes, spritz olive oil on top to keep it pliable.  You can make one big pasty like this one, or two smaller ones, from one ball of dough.

It's about 25 minutes from thinking of it to eating it, if you remember to get it out of the freezer, time to wipe the counters, do a few dishes, little bit of macarena around the kitchen.  I do like my little kitchen dances, who knows what the passersby think, since the window opens on the street.  Then your lunch is ready.  And, a nice misfits salad, fit for a queen. All the veggies in the pasty were misfits too.  The yellow potatoes make really great stuffing types of results.  And you've done a fitness exercise, too.  

I often do stretches and Eight Pieces of Silk exercises in the couple of minutes I'm waiting for something in the microwave.  Balancing exercises, all that. A couple of minutes is plenty, done fairly often.