So, I'm finally getting around to answering some of the questions Larissa tagged me for a week, or two(?) ago. I answered a similar meme that covers some of the same things awhile back so you can go here if your interested. Here are the rest of my responses:
What were you doing 1 hour ago?
Eating lunch with the boys and C and the crew of 4 people who are working with him at the shop. They come over and have lunch with us at the house at noon most weekdays. It's a nice break in the day to spend time with other adults. Meanwhile, I ran to the laundry room in the shop to throw a load in the dryer and got the seats arranged in the van so we are ready to take C's sister, her husband, and their son to the airport later this afternoon. They're off to Jamaica for two weeks, as a late "honeymoon"!
Five (or so) creative things you want to achieve this year.
1. Knit less. 2. Knit more. 3. Work on the afghan pictured above that I started making with my stash of plant dyed yarns (pattern is the Community Afghan from Handknit Holidays), and another patchwork blanket recently started out of felted sweaters. 4. Find more fun and interesting ways to approach homeschooling. 5. Learn to use the Dremel tool given to me by my in-laws at Christmas. 6. Knit lace. I have the yarn for a Flower Basket Shawl in my stash. 7. Read more, mostly fiction, in hopes of fueling creative endeavors. 8. Build a tree house with C and the boys. That isn't five, is it?
The next 5 movies you'd like to rent.
1.Wedding crashers. 2. Frida, again. 3. Sense and Sensibility. 4. Brokeback Mountain. 5. ?
I know that some of these are still in the theater but, since I can be fairly certain they will never show at our dinky local movie theater, I'll just have to wait until I can rent them.
Why has this taken me so long to get to this meme? Honestly? I quote myself from my previous meme responses: "Scattered." "Lollygagger." But there is another reason: I have this tendancy to become a bit mute when reading Larissa's blog. Hers is one of the first few blogs I ever placed in my Favorites folder, long before I started blogging, so she's one of my blogging heroines. Not only does she knit, but she's a "real artist". You know, the kind with installations in galleries, the kind that I have so much admiration for, the kind who does "important" work. You know what I mean. And she writes these articles for Knitty, highlighting other artists. Only somebody way cooler than me does stuff like that, right?. It's a bit intimidating being asked such questions, particularly ones relating to my own creative goals. How can mine ever compare to hers?
But, then I remember that she's another person out there living her daily life, trying to find balance between raising a child and having a family and still having the time and energy for her own endeavors and ideas, and figuring out how to make it all work for her in her own way, AND she's doing a great job of it all, from what I see.
I quickly realized after the birth of our first son that ultimately, one of things raising a child does, above ALL else, is challenge your creativity in new ways. How do I/we soothe a colicky baby, especially when almost nothing works and what works one evening doesn't work the following evening? How do I accomplish even a small portion of what I used to in a given day? How do we wean a baby? How do we parent our children together? How do we maintain a relationship with eachother when we can hardly even hear eachother over the ruckus and constant questions? How do we teach them to be good people? How do we get them to eat dinner? How do I stay sane? I could go on and on.
I've never fulfilled my duties with any chain letter yet. I'm afraid it stops here. Let lightning strike as it may.
So, to change the subject a bit but still remain on the subject of Portland knitting bloggers, We Heart Yarn is the relatively new site of four Portland women blogging together. They're doing their very own Jaywalker knitalong together within the bigger knitalong. Shannon is the only other blogging knitter I've actually met in person, and she's also the only other person I've known to knit in the dark wearing a headlamp, only she knits like that in the bar (bold woman!) while I've only knit that way around the campfire.
Yet another long-winded post.