Knitting Blogs

The last couple days I've been reading knitting blogs. Who knew there were so many? And beautiful beautiful pictures of yarn and finished and in process knitting projects. Seems they also like cats as much as I do. It's inspiring and so maybe part of the reason knitters write so much and read so many other blogs. It's also humbling that I can't knit nearly as well as they do but there are so many things I enjoy doing, it's hard to fit them all in. I'm wanting to knit socks and I have some yarn to try them out. I found a pattern that looks reasonably not too hard but we'll see. I'm famous for starting things and not finishing them. Oh, I do eventually but it can take years sometimes. Fibers and yarns are so wonderfully tactile and soothing. Some of the colors you can get are truly wonderful. I'm hoping to go to Taos or Santa Fe or SOMEWHERE this weekend for my birthday and a nice meal and try and find a yarn shop. The blogs I've read make me feel that it's not really a guilty pleasure to buy yarn with no plan in mind, no project in mind. That would make me happy. A delightful thought. These blogs make me want to get my own digital camera and start taking pictures. Maybe a beginner knitter blog. Or maybe I will just keep reading since my blog will probably be some other bizarre unrelated topic the next time I write. I'm famous for that too. nk's to D

Coveting

I had an interesting exchange the other day. A woman that works for me was talking about how she has a neighbor with a nice house. It's bigger than her house and and it seems they are always fixing it up, improving it, making it better. She looks at her house and wants to do the same, there are things that need fixed, improvements she wants to do, but she doesn't have the money to do all of these things. She said she would look and look at this house and wish she could do even some of the things they were doing. Then she tells me, 'One day, I was doing this and realized, 'I'm coveting this house' Well, that's not something you hear every day. Coveting is mentioned in two of the ten commandments but it's not an everyday word. I knew she was very religious because she mentions something like that nearly every time she works for me. She knows I go to church a lot because we've talked about it. So, is God trying to tell me something about my life? Is she trying to tell me something about my life? I wouldn't be surprised if she was trying to hint something to me because I always have in the back of my mind of the stereotype of Christians trying to make you feel guilty and acting holier than thou. But she really doesn't know me that well so perhaps her admission was a really true one and she wanted to share what she felt. Obviously it's made me think about it a lot. I may not always covet the things people have, but maybe the money that it would take to buy those things. This society seems to be made up of coveting people, hence the phrase 'keeping up with the Joneses' Our consumerist society pushes us that way. "It's good for the economy if we buy, buy, buy" I'd like to think I try to be a little bit above that although I long for things sometimes. Maybe the point of this whole thing is that I appreciate someone making me think a little harder and longer about something. I know I don't always have to agree with them, but thinking more about things is really a good thing.

Stamp Collecting

Stamp collecting is one of many small hobbies that I have. To me it has always sounded really boring and something a bunch of nerds do. But, either I am one of the nerds or it's really not. Each stamp is really a work of art, unique and interesting to look at. I can literally spend hours sorting out stamps and trying to figure out where they go in my book. Today I ordered additional pages and a few stamps for my collection. What I really realized is that my grandma used to save stamps for a church project. I think the stamps were sold to a dealer to make the church a little money. With very little effort I can imagine that a few of the stamps I've bought for my collection were actually saved by my grandma over 30 years ago. That is a pleasant connectedness feeling. That makes me happy.