What's In A Name

It's always a little awkward for me when people ask me about my name. The name itself sounds nice enough on the surface. It's the follow up questions that are the problem.

"Are you named after anyone?"

Well. Sort of. I'm named after Marie Antoinette. It's really clever. My first middle name is Antoinette and my first name rhymes with Marie. Nothing says "I hope to marry you off at a young age so that you can live among strangers who will relentlessly abuse you for being a foreigner who doesn't speak their language until they finally cut your head off" like naming your child after Marie Antoinette. My second middle name means "born again".

And let's just pretend for a moment that I'm wrong about this connection. It's worth noting that my brothers all have strong German names that directly tie into our paternal family tree. And my name is French.

"What does it mean?"

Well, it's a French word that's an endearment but it's in the masculine form. My second middle name is also in the masculine form. It's kind of a funny thing. I took a year of French in high school and one of the few things I remember is what my teacher called the ne pas sandwich. You take a word, like run, and you want to say don't run, so you put ne in front of it and pas after it. Ne (French word for run) pas. And now it's don't run. There's just something about my name being masculine, feminine, masculine that reminds me of that ne pas sandwich. Antoinette means "beyond praise" unless I'm right about that ne pas thing and it's meant to mean unworthy of praise.

Maybe you think that nobody thinks things through like this, but if I can think it up, where did I learn to think this way?

Anyway, it's just an awkward little moment. Usually I say that I'm not named after anyone in my family tree and my name is a French endearment. All the other stuff is just too heavy for small talk.

The name of this blog is much more straightforward for anyone who has seen me in real life recently:

I had some weird ideas about when and how I would start telling more people about my blog. But part of my fight against perfectionism is letting go of those kinds of ideas. So here I go....

More Memories

On this day ten years ago:

Tonight's kidism: "God made the moon, and the stars, and the sun, and the daytime, and the fish and the trees, and the <bunch of different animals> and um, um....um...
ME: "what about cats? Did God make cats too?"
TARYN: "No"
ME: "Oh He didn't? Well then where do cats come from?"
TARYN: "The store."
<should have seen that one coming>

We had adopted Milo only a couple of months before this conversation. Here's a picture of the two of them in September 2009:

And six years ago today, our little artist:

Caelie saw this picture at church this morning. Here in a minute I'm going to upload her artistic representation of this picture.

And Caelie's version:

Switching Gears Part 2

And now for the exciting conclusion.

The fifth project on my list is the You Are My Sunshine CAL which I began in May 2018. In a way it's the opposite of the Solar System, since it's sunny and bright. I haven't really picked colors that are in my usual comfort zone, so I don't know how this is going to go. My task was to finish part two.

The sixth past project is one I'm going to abbreviate as GCG. I began it in September 2018. It's possibly the first project that I've felt like I could really put a title on it and label it like a work of fiber art. But I'm going to hold on to that title until I've finished and given it to the intended recipient. It is equal parts HILARIOUS and thoughtful. I finished up a part that I had been stuck on and un-crocheted a part that wasn't working.


Seventh on my list is the Hooked and Locked CAL that I began in October 2018. It's a really different technique that I wanted to try, but I couldn't work on it because I need to buy some yarn. So I made a rude gesture at Perfectionism and skipped right on.


The 8th project is called Reyna which I also started in October 2018. This is a knit shawl which uses sock yarn. I'm getting closer to the end but there isn't really a set section I could break it down into like many of the other projects. So I just knit 3 rows and moved on.

Oh the ninth project on my list. It's pretty silly. I had come across a pattern for a knit Sampler Scarf. It uses 6 different beginner stitch patterns. This project and Reyna were both things that I came across and thought "this would be a good way to level up my knitting skillz" But I thought while I was at it, I might as well go ahead and double down. There is a sort of fad in scarves lately called "super scarves" where everything is just obnoxiously sized. So I decided to make it twice as wide and each section 10 inches instead of the 6 inches recommended. This is a good way to go insane. I'm calling it my Super Sampler Scarf, I began it in December 2018. My task was to finish the first stitch pattern which is the most boring one, garter stitch, I had to knit a little under 4" to meet the 10 inch plan.

The last past project that I've finished work on this week is called the Hygge, it's a shawl, but rectangular. I fell in love with this pattern in October of 2017. At first I was going to get my standard cheap-ish readily available yarn, but I just couldn't find colors that would do justice to the pattern. So I asked Tim to buy me the yarn kit for Christmas. The more expensive European yarn is just necessary for this project. But then I was overcome with anxiety about getting the gauge right because if I'm off, I might not have enough yarn and that would be a mess. Finally in December 2018, I figured I better start working on it before a full year had passed with it in my possession. I didn't get very far because holidays and I wasn't in love with the colors. It turns out I don't like the red, orange, yellow, side of the rainbow but once I get the green on I start liking it again. I finished the first part of the CAL in January.

The last time I packed it away, I was really pretty close to finishing part 2 as well, so that was my recent task.

I'm pretty excited about this project, if you can't tell by the word count alone. After that day, I focused on a sewing project as a bit of relief from yarn projects and also just because I've been too stressed out. I needed a more mindless project. I don't know if it's working in terms of increasing the good chemicals in my brain, but it beats doing nothing.

Switching Gears Part 1

After finishing the past project the other day (or a week ago, whatever), I decided to take a different approach to finishing things. Instead of trying to do one project until it's done, I thought I would maximize the potential hits of happy chemicals I could get by completing a billion tiny tasks. In other words, working on all the projects at once. Well, one at time, I still only have two hands. All of these projects are easily broken into smaller parts.

The first project on my list was born in my mind in the summer of 2015, or possibly before that, I can't remember, actually. But I know I didn't buy yarn and start working on it until July 2016. It took a long time to find a pattern that suited me and then it was a huge disappointment. Last time I picked it up to work on it, I had decided to switch gears rather than unmake what I had. So this time, I just finished putting a border on the piece I have. This picture doesn't really show the weird size/shape of it because it's folded in thirds, but you get the general idea:

The second project on my list is a crochet along called Around the Bases. I started it in November 2017. It starts with a choose-your-own square in the middle. I picked one called Blizzard Warning. And then each "inning" is a different border around the square. So my task was to complete the 5th inning, of 16....if I choose to do all of them




The third project was a crochet along from the Moogly blog. I started it in January 2018, but I was also making my life harder (as I do) by simultaneously working on the Moogly blog 2014 crochet along. So this is theoretically going to result in a stack of squares to sew together into a very large blanket. I had left off on a 2014 square that was bowl shaped instead of flat. My task was to un-crochet that and re-crochet it in hopes it would be flat. I don't know if I had miscounted or left out something, but it worked up perfectly.

The fourth project on my list was a Solar System crochet along that I began in January 2018. At some point I had started a second one in a different color scheme. That second one was in my backpack when it got stolen. And then one of the cats peed in my project bag on the first one. So my task was to bag up the yarn so I could launder it. Which I did right away that day and soaked it and the washing has taken several days but it's finally done. While I waited I had moved on to the next project on my list, but I feel like this post is long enough so I'm going to break it into two parts. Stay tuned.

Grateful

In times like these, I am just kind of in awe of how generous and kind my friends are. So many people have been involved in helping me put one foot in front of the other the last couple of weeks. Giving me a ride and/or taking my kids places, bringing me tools and parts, helping me run errands, spending time fixing parts of the van, and many others just simply reaching out. I truly feel like I'm part of a community and don't have to try to do everything on my own.

And I'm deeply, deeply grateful for all of it.

Are You Ready Boots?

So I fell asleep too early this evening which always results in waking up at weird times. In this case I just crashed because I took two long walks during the day. My van is broken. It's been down for about a week and now we don't know if it's even fixable. We have no means for replacing it, if it really is dead.

Being a one car family has it's ups and downs. But a no car family? I don't know if I can do it. I can't physically handle walking everywhere I want or need to go. There is a bus system now, but some of the places I want to go are complicated and I could probably get there faster with my own two feet. Not to mention the bus stops at 7pm.

Having a working vehicle is such a privilege that I am totally guilty of taking for granted.

Sleep

Two days in a row of 8 hours of sleep at times beginning before midnight! What even is this life? What do humans do with so much sleep? Eat breakfast at breakfast time? Put on clean clothes? I don't even know what to do with this.

Two years ago today:

Tried to relive part of my childhood. Almost died.

Five children tried to get themselves lost. They almost died too. From more than one potential cause.

One year ago, I expanded on that thought:

Yes, on this day a year ago 5 little girls tried to get lost in the woods and very nearly succeeded. But I managed to find them and aside from having to walk under some really thick spider webs full of a million spiders, we made it out unharmed.

I also posted a much longer, very dramatic telling of that story, but it comes with 34 pictures and I don't know how to put that many pictures in a blog post, so I'll save that for another time. Thankfully, it was too dark to get a picture of the spider trees.