Happy Father's Day

I miss you.

Dear Dad

I thought this would get easier but it hasn't, it just gets different. I wish you were here every day to guide us. I miss your laugh and your smile, you sarcasm and your sweetness, your infinite patience and generosity. I dream about you when I can sleep and I think of you all day. I wish you were home right now so you could tell me that you want to cook this Thursday but you want to cook ham, not turkey and I'd show up with fresh veggies and hide your canned ones. Later you'd ask me to get you a Diet Coke and then get mad when I brought you water. And I'd sit on your lap like I was still a little girl and give you a big hug and tell you how much I love you and we'd both talk about how we should visit more often.

The Road to Healing

This isn't me, it's my sister. My dad and I both loved to be behind the camera. Unfortunately this means that i don't have any pictures of the the two of us together.

Navigating this new world, the one without my dad, is hard. I find myself wanting to call him and ask him some trivial question or something like that. I may even dial the number but then I remember that he's not there.

My family and I drove up to Toronto on Monday. Tuesday was spent visiting my dad's hotel room and gathering his things, going to the police station to get his wallet and going to the funeral home to finalize some details for the service. I couldn't handle all of it and totally bailed on my family to go immerse myself in some wooly goodness at Lettuce Knit. I bought a skein of Hand Maiden Sea Silk and a Go Knit Pouch. I also got to meet Laura who had just returned from Rhinebeck.

Wednesday was my dad's service. It was hard for me to navigate and I was also very worried about Elah because she didn't seem to quite get it. She was excited to be staying in a hotel, excited we were going to ride in a limo, excited to wear her new outfit, etc. I didn't want her to get there and have everything come crashing down at once. The service was hard. It's good to know that my dad was so loved and I got to hear some amazing stories about him but it was also incredibly sad. My brother, Allan, and my dad's long time friend, Allan, both got up to speak separately and they both broke my heart. Stéphane never spoke but he shared some beautiful stories with me that I will treasure. It's unfortunate but I had seen many of these people since I was a teenager. I'm sorry that it took a tragedy to bring us back together again.

I also have to thank Wendy Grean. She was invaluable in this entire process. Whether it was contacting people in the industry to get the word of my dad's passing or helping arrange the service or coordinating people of providing a shoulder on which to lean, she was amazing. I don't think we would have been able to manage without her.

Finally I'll leave you with my words from my dad's service (at least as well as I can remember them).

I met my dad when I was 7; he and my mom worked on Louisiana together. I had a hard childhood and the one lesson I had learned was that people didn't stay. I did everything I could to make this new person in our life leave but he never did. He was my dad.

These are the things I learned from my dad.
1) People stay
2) It's OK to trust
3) Love really does conquer all
4) You don't need to sacrifice kindness and compassion to get the job done
5) A little sarcasm never hurts

When I called my dad to tell him I was graduating from college and ask him to come to the ceremony, the first thing he said was, "Wow, that's not too bad for a dumb blonde." That was of course followed by proclamations of his pride in me and I could tell, over the phone, that he was tearing up.

This world is a worse place for not having him in it but I am starting a journey on the road to healing. I cry a little less each day and try to remember what advice my dad would have given and live in a way that would have made him proud. I also gain strength from the love of my friends and family. Thank you to everyone for the blog comments, cards, phone calls, and well wishing. I have been totally overwhelmed by the love I've felt.

Good Bye

My dad died in his sleep last night. He was working in Toronto, shooting two projects at once. The cleaning lady found him this morning. I'm going to NY with my daughter to be with my sister, brother and grandmother. I'm totally overwhelmed. I don't know what to do or how to feel or how to tell Elah or what to say to my family or what needs to be done to transport a body across the border or where we'll have the funeral (maybe Montreal because my Aunt can't cross the border into the states).
I'll be absent for awhile.

Who Knew?

Make Yours a Happy Marriage
Originally uploaded by Ann Douglas.

Amanda wrote a very interesting post about marriage, feminism and divorce rates over at Unsprung. Go give it a read when you have some time.

You hear a lot of people running around wringing their hands and talking about the 50% divorce rate. What’s little understood is that number is way out of date—due in large part to a lot of feminist cultural reforms, the divorce rate has been creeping down for a long time now. Now it’s at the lowest rate it’s been since the 70s.

Some Clever Title

<political blogging>
I tend to keep things on this blog pretty fibercentric but every once in awhile I run across a story that just can't be ignored. Please go over to Alas, A Blog and read about Pfc. LaVena Johnson, her suspicious death and the Army's atrocious mishandling of the subsequent investigation.
</political blogging>

For those of you who are all fiber all the time fear not, I've finished reverse engineering the hat I tried on a Sheep & Wool and should have a pattern written up within the next couple of days. I've also been experimenting with some double knitting and picked up CPH again!

In family news, even though Elah was a half an hour late for her own birthday party, she had a blast. Pictures over at flickr

Embroidery & Tutorals

Elah had a great first day of school today. It was so nice to go back to this warm, welcoming cmmunity of parents and teachers. Yes, it's expensive and yes, being a parent/teacher cooperative means a lot of additional work on my part. But Elah thrives there and I know it's the right place for her. This may be the last year we can send her there but I feel very grateful that she was able to have 3 years; it's a good start.

On a crafty note, her shirt was a hit! I'm still working on embroidery practice projects...observe:


I've received a couple of emails from people looking for some online embroidery resources so here you go.
Needle 'N Thread has online videos! (think knittinghelp.com)
Crafty Daisies is holding a free online embroidery class.
Needle Crafter has a ton of free vintage patterns.

Have fun and if you have any questions shoot me an email or leave a comment.

PS In knitting news I've finished designing my first pair of socks. The pattern should be forthcoming.

I'm a bad blogger.

First the good news: I'm all better! That's really it, there's no bad news.
It's been a long time since I last posted and even longer since I replied to anyone's comments. I do still have all of your emails and I will reply soon.

I didn't really knit all that much while I was sick but I have been trying to work on a sock pattern for the Summer of Socks. Here's my test sock. I didn't end up going with any of these patterns.

Click the pick to go to flickr and see all the patterns.
I really like the top pattern but I think it's too much like the snicket socks to be original.
I did eventually settle on a pattern and am in the process of test knitting and charting now.

I also received my package from my last.fm/ravelry swap partner.

The package is awesome! It contained a CD, a card, some beads (not pictured) and a beautiful skein of Cider Moon yarn in Hocus Crocus. I've been wanting to try Cider Moon and I adore the colors.

Here's the playlist from the CD.

This is the second time I've done a simple package and one skein swap ad I love it!

Also in pre-sickness knitting I made a pair of Saartje's Bootees for a woman at work who's expecting.

The yarn is left over from the Bloody Mary socks I knit for my Sock It To Me pal.

What else?

Oh, I've picked up my hoop again for the frist time in about 15 years.

My first practice project.


A shirt I made for Elah's first day of school. She'll be in 2nd grade this year (!) which at her school makes her a Tau. It's a big deal, for the first 2 years she was in the same classroom so this is her first big change in awhile. She loves the shirt and when I gave it to her she gave me a huge hug and told me that she thought she'd cry. Only I could have a child who gets verklempt.

*whew* OK, that's it for now. Sorry it took so long Stoneking and Jess.

Life Lessons

What goes up...


Must come down...


But it can always be rebuilt.

Tuesday Was a Good Day

I took Tuesday off to hang with my family. It was bloody hot outside but we had a good time. Elah and I went out to breakfast and then ran to the grocery store. Next we went to the park and Grayson came along. We don't see him nearly enough; he's sleeping when we get up in the morning, gone by the time we get home and we're in bed buy the time he gets home at night. He leaves for UNCG on August 14 so I've been trying to spend time with him as often as I can.



We ran into my mom at the playground because she was doing a plumbing job at the school and my step mom who was dropping my mom off after lunch so we had a little impromptu family gathering. Playing at the park when it's so hot works up a sweat so we stopped by the corner store to grab a bag of ice and went home to enjoy some iced Red Zinger tea.

Next Elah and I went through all our clothes and ended up with 3 kitchen trash bags and a large box of clothes we took to Salvation Army. Elah normally doesn't like to part with anything whether it's broken or doesn't fit or whatever but she did a great job. Later she told me she was trying to be generous.

For dinner I grilled chicken marinated in lemon juice, oregano, olive oil, salt and pepper. I also grilled corn on the cob and made potato salad. Elah helped me prepare the food and we pretended we were on our own show on Food Network. For dessert I made a peach galette.

Finally, after dinner and after Elah was in bed I got some time to knit. This picture is from Tuesday morning.



The first sock is now done and I brought my camera to work today to take a picture. The pattern has been fun and I've been thinking about all the horizontal design possibilities it opens up, i.e. cables around the leg.

The good times ended this morning when we woke up to this:



That crane is taking that entire tree (what you see is only part of it) and putting into that wood chipper. It. Was. Loud.

Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful

Haircut
Originally uploaded by e_to_the_m.
Click the mosaic for a larger image.

E wanted some new hair for the new season. Really she was tired of having it brushed...

Happy Birthday!

We celebrated the Port's birthday this past Saturday; here's a pic of the estrogen faction.



Dearest Cupcake has more pictures here.

My Weekend or Sunday Night Pic Dump

Here are some pics of the weekend I took with my phone:


Ummmm, what??



Matching rain boots for Elah and myself.


A little bit of truth found on the interweb.


*sigh* They grow up so fast. My ward de facto son little cousin turned 21 on Friday. I took him to a dive bar for a quick beer on Saturday.


No, it's not the latest in elfen-wear, it's an un-seamed, un-felted Fiber Trends slipper in Tiger colors. I have no idea why it's on my head, I was tired and it seemed like a good idea.

Race

Kelly posed the following question on her blog and my short comment turned into a long comment. So I decided to make it a post. Following is Kelly's question and my response.

Have you ever done the "Un-American" thing and dated someone of another race? How did your family feel about it? Did you ever reject dating someone because they were ethnically different from you? Why? Have you ever wished you had the opportunity to do the "Un-American" thing if you've never done it before? Please let me know?

I have done the un-American thing. I’m Caucasian and I’ve dated men who are African-American, Pilipino, Hispanic, Japanese, Israeli, etc. For me it’s always been about who he is, not about what he is. I’m certainly not going to claim that I don’t see race (like Stephen Colbert :) or that it hasn’t been a issue in any of my relationships but it’s never been THE issue.

My family’s been cool, for which I feel lucky. Much of my family (they’re all from Louisiana and Mississippi) is very racist but my branch of the family has never been very close with that branch. My daughter, who is multi-racial (who isn’t?), has been wholeheartedly accepted into the family with none of her treatment or my family’s feelings toward her based on race (as far as I can tell). I do have one great aunt who, when told, said, “It was only a matter of time before we had one in the family.” I think the members of my family who are obviously racist are more like her, latent, ignorant racism, not the loud, marching in hoods, full of venom kind which I guess is something.

The hardest issue I’ve had with race is coming to terms with the fact that because my daughter has brown skin, I can never know what it’s like for her. Because of the shade of our skin people will make assumptions and treat us differently and I can listen to her and try to comfort her but I can never experience it. We want to protect our children from as much as we can but I wonder how I will protect her from something with which I can’t even identify.

Fashion Plate

I was avoiding homework and going through old photos when I came across this series from last summer. Cute & hilarious, what more could you want?

I'm Back!

My computer is finally back home and E and I are freshly back from FL. I have a ton to tell you and even some knitting content to share. I'm trying to finish up some homework for this weekend so it might have to wait until Sunday but I'll leave you with this.

Happy (late) Solstice!

Guess Who

I'll give you a hint, it's 1979.

And can I just say that I love the pom poms on the curtain?

Solstice Revisited

Solstice was great! My mom ended up opening her one glove on Saturday night, Solstice Eve, and I managed to finished the other glove by Sunday night. The best gift I got was a gift certificate for a deep tissue massage. I really, really want to go get it as soon as possible but I'm trying to wait until after registration and the first week of classes since I'll probably really need it then.

Elah was worried that she wouldn't get what she wished for because she told her wish. Imagine her surprise when, on Solstice morning, she found a golden headband, dress, gloves and slippers; exactly what she had wished for. That Good Witch of the North sure knows her stuff.

The best part was getting to spend the night at my moms' with Elah and my sister, Sunshine. We get to do it all over again with Sunshine, my dad and my brother, Allan, on Christmas Eve. I won't lie, the presents are great but I love being able to spend some quiet time with my family, that's the best part.

Happy Solstice

Elah and I are about to head out to my moms' for out Solstice celebration. My sister, Sunshine, is coming from NY too. We'll all spend the night and then open presents from family and the Good Witch of the North in the morning. I'm wrapping my mom's one finished glove and bringing the other with me. You can see it here.