So what's it all about, really?

I keep wondering about what the hell I am doing as a holistic practitioner.  It isn't a career that I chose, it chose me.  After thirty years practice and a long hard struggle I find myself with a reasonable and legitimate practice, and yet I feel under used and frustrated.  I also feel pulled between two poles of responsibility.  Some of the questions that I ask myself  have to do with my priorities.  Over the last years as the boys grew up and found their wings I have been working hard to put all my vocational ducks in a row. I worked very hard to get the certifications and training that helps to legitimize the work I do.
I have been blessed with incredibly talented mentors and teachers over the years including the infinite and constant support of The Footless Man.  That in itself outlines one of the places that I linger and feel unable to move forward.  How do I best serve and partner this man who chose a back seat for his talents to give me the best use of the resources for my training?  My work now leaves him at home and me elsewhere, out gathering the respect and doing the hands on healing processes.  I feel very torn,  For much of our lives together The Footless man's well being was my second priority after the boys.
This served both of us well,  He is alive and reasonably healthy considering his age and seventy years of Diabetes. Part of why he has done so well is that care and attention. 
I find myself wondering.  I cannot stop being who I am and doing the work I do, My home days are drawing to an end.  What is the elegant solution for him?
My friend Sherry tells me that I have a problem with expectation.  I keep expecting my work to match something in my head, and it doesn't so I am frustrated.  I can see that.  Sherry has a lot of experience with process looking different than what you expect.  I am doing my best to let go and let it be what it is.
Meantime I would like to have enough clients to pay the bills, For the  Footless man to be safe and for the cat to stop peeing on the basement bathroom floor.   I figure that two of the three are possible, I just don't see quite how.

Striking gold at the foodbank

The Footless Man mad his usual food bank trip  on Friday, and he struck gold without realizing it.  There in the middle of the floor was a 4 x 4 bin level full of clementine  oranges.  The wee ones that  sell in a bag of twenty for five dollars at the store.  He didn't realize just what he had until he peeled one, and tried it out.  He ate something like ten over the course of the day, I ate five that night.
Saturday morning We both went in, and came away with about fifteen pounds of them.

 

They are sitting in the kitchen whispering in little orange voices asking to be eaten.

 

So when Gretchen came in to  spend the day trading audio books and knitting  we at an ungodly amount of them.  

Gretchen has a sock blank that is dyed in briliant rainbow colors.  She is enjoying how it comes out, and she doesn't like the crinkly yarn.  She asked me to help her ravel the blank and skein the yarn, wet it down and rewind it into a ball.  

This is where forboding music should start to play.

Maybe it was all the oranges, maybe I just wasn't paying the kind of attention that I should have been. Anyway I lifted the crinkly skein off the swift without tying it down.  So after it's wetting when we restreached it,

we had a tangled mess.  Do you know what a good friend is?  A good friend sees that you have made a horrible mess of her project.

 And she laughs as the two of you unravel it.
She had to head for home ( well supplied with more clementines) and I worked on the mess until I got it undone, rewound on the swift, properly tied down, soaked again and settled to dry.

I wound it into a ball this morning.

so Gretchen? it is ready whenever you want it. (you can see another orange soon to be gone sitting on my computer desk)

Retro fit plus socks

The footless man went shopping down at the goodwill 50% off sale.  One of the difficulties of having prosthetics  is that they don't fit in pant legs very well.  Over the years we found that the diameter of most pant legs was either a skin tight fit, or too small to go over the socket.  It is a rare pair that could be put on over the tops of the legs.  The solution to this is 9 inch jean zippers, one in each leg.

you can see the zips on the pant leg here.

I have a lot of jeans that are now split and ready to install the zips.  It takes a good hour of work opening the seams and basting the zipper in and a piddling ten minutes to machine stitch them down.  The Footless man loves how easy it is to get legs on with the zips.

This is the obligatory feet in newly finished socks shot.  Somehow when I was winding off the balls I managed to entirely miss finding a repeat match and the repeats are an almost perfect mirror opposite. Instead of the usual identical twin socks, These seem to be cousins.  That's fine,  they are an excellent addition to the drawer.

When I decided to start knitting again after many years away, I thought long and hard about what I should focus on.  The problem that anyone with a passionate  focus on a craft eventually faces, is what to do with the end result.  I decided that socks were a good place to put my knitting energy.  I wouldn't have a problem finding people who wanted a pair of nice socks, and multiple pairs at that. 

I was right, socks have taken up most of my knitting time, and much of my family and a few dear friends get a pair a year for birthday or Christmas or Ayyam-i-ha.  I developed a nice plain vanilla ribbed to the toe pattern with a short row heel that makes a very long wearing sturdy  pair of socks. 

I like the computer patterned sock yarns because they entertain me with wondering what they will do next, and how they will look, if a match is possible. I must be easily entertained, either that or on one level or another I'm not all that bright.

All of this keeps me happy while dealing with circumstances that might have me frustrated to the point of screaming and stomping about like Godzilla on a bad day.

People comment that they don't have the patience to knit.  I don't have  patience.  Knitting keeps me calm.  There is a T shirt I saw and I want it.  It says " I knit so I don't kill people."  In a nutshell, there you have it.

Boring, very.

This week past has been one where I ran out of things to say, opinions, or thoughts.  In terms of accomplishment it was quite good.  The ugly socks were given, the new ones cast on ( I am on the insteps of them now) I saw an adequate number of clients to match with the bills, Knitted heels into two socks( thus renovating  two derelict pairs), went places with the footless man, planned the spinning demonstration for the second graders at the local school, visited both sprats and my parents and went to two potlucks.  I just didn't seem to have a thought or opinion about any of this.
In looking it all over I think that I am in a spring funk.

fun with axes

Yesterday The Footless man told me that the woodsman competitions were going on out on north vine street, and that he would really love to go and see this.
So about nine this morning we wended our way out and spent a pleasant morning in the outdoor bleachers watching people with axes chop the hell out of a bunch of short logs.  I have next to no interest in athletic anything with the exception of dance and dance related stuff. so I tucked my sock in progress into the lower pocket of my pants and prepared for a morning of tedium. 
I am going to have to put my camera into my purse as a normal part of  what I pack there because there were some delightful sights.  I was charmed at the very buff women clomping past wearing foot and shin armor and warming up with five pound single bit Swedish chopping axes.  The teams competed gender to gender and it was a lot more fun to watch than your local softball team.
Tonight is a work related potluck.  I have a pound and a half of salmon salt curing in the fridge.  I need to find someone who will take it on ahead, as I have a late client. 

It is spring!

The yard gnomes are snow free.  I pumped air into my bike tires and rode a ways today.  Short sleeves, first time since October.  I am really really out of shape.  The Footless man hired the RAW to do chores in the yard.  The results await tomorrows sun.  I am tired, It's bedtime.

getting ready to get ready

today was the day the Footless Man wanted to begin the alterations on the cabinet on the living room floor.
We begin with an argument about the ceiling height.  He insists that it is 90.5 inches. I know damn well that it is 90 inches.  We measure.  90 inches. He is sure that I am wrong.

OK, first measure the floor to bottom cabinet.

36 and 3/8 inches. 

now the ceiling to the counter top. 53 and 5/8 inches. It adds up to 90 inches.

Silence.  mumble. re measure.  90 inches.

OK It's 90 inches.

next act is to get the measurements transferred to the cabinet and to set the saw guide

like so

Then comes cutting it. Somewhere in there the Footless man whacked his hand and pinched his fingers, how I do not know.  Cutting  is now postponed until tomorrow.

Sock yarn, the knitters crapshoot

I really love the variegated sock yarns.  I especially love the ones that make a pattern as you knit.  They provide a great amount of entertainment and mostly glorious socks.  I like the dyed skeins that make strange stripes and color puddles too.   I love the element of surprise in seeing what happens when you take a yarn with blops of color of several kinds and when you knit it up there you have a really cool pattern.

 These are mom's feet encased in the socks I made for her.  The yarn ball looked a bit odd and it came out lovely.

However.  Some yarns look  great as a skein and then go patooey as a sock.  Some yarns look like a car crash in the ball and knit up absolutely stunningly.  Then some yarns are as ugly as a sock as the skein promised.

these here are the unnervingly ugly socks I have been working to finish.

the picture looks better than the real thing.

It was a case of  a skein that made up as just as much mess as it promised.  They go to someone who loves them, as do the leftovers.

I just wound out two balls from a skein and will be casting on some socks for me.  What will they look like?  I don't know.  It's going to be a surprise.  The Footless man thinks that I am nuts knitting up yarn and not knowing what I will get.  I think that's part of the fun.  Anyway I know it will be a sock.

Mild befuddlement

I have been knitting on the ugly socks with vim and fervor. This is not because I have even a creeping affection for them but because I want them over, done and off the needles.
This is an odd thing.
Normally, If I hate the yarn or the colors I will give the yarn to someone else no question.  This time I have kept on at them as if there was something important about finishing them and giving them away.  The giftee is ecstatic, she thinks that the color combination ( baby poop yellow plus mauve and aqua,  and Waaay too much baby poop at that) is beau-ti-ful.  Besides that nobody has given her socks and she hasn't ever knitted a pair for herself.
It's a good thing all around.
It sounds sad as I read this.  I am glad that she is getting something she wants and likes.  The odd part of making these is that I am putting a lot of work in these socks, and giving them to someone who loves them, and I don't like the socks at all or the person who is getting them much either.
I wonder what this about, really.

well.

Last Friday at 5 in the morning I hopped into Edith to head across town to my two day a week job as a companion, to find that there was no juice. None at all, not even enough to turn the dashboard lights on.  Sunday then I fished out the battery, hauled it to Walmart, and made distressed noises at the customer service desk.  The upshot of all this is that Walmart replaced my battery for free, no questions asked, no receipt needed. 
Now I don't like Walmart.  I have great dislike of their hiring practices and some of their attitudes towards minority s.  I generally avoid using them if I can help it.  However in this case I must concede.  Car batteries at Walmart  are worth the money and the warranty.
Conversation this morning: "O shoot, I forgot to put the hood down on the {Elderly POS that hasn't run since 1998}truck."
"Maybe someone stole the {six year old ruptured cell }battery."
"God I hope so."

Anybody want a truck with a kludged flatbed on the back? the engine ran and passed emissions when we got it. The footless man would sell for $500.

Vanity vanity, all is vanity

" there she is, two foot ten of conceit and vanity to say nothing of other vices, looking at her shoes and murmuring, 'pwetty.' -JKJ-
Today I went in to the laser Clinic at work and traded a cranial session for IPL,   The present result being  that I look like I connected with a big stick across both cheeks plus other less appetizing effects on my neck and arms.

like this

Tomorrow I will look dreadful; with a moon face and squinchy beady eyes peering over huge pouches.  Then I heal up over the next week or so and the sun damage of years rises to the surface and sloughs off.
If you are wondering what on earth would make doing this worthwhile, it comes down to two things.  In removing the sunspots and brown freckly stuff now, I avoid later sessions with a dermatologist removing basal and squamous cell lesions that most certainly will crop up if I don't.
I am embarrassed to admit the other reason.  The other reason is that it makes me look a bit prettier.  I don't know why this is important, or why it is hard to admit to wanting to improve my  looks enough to endure the snap-sizzle bruising effect of the IPL process.
I never did buy into the pain for beauty equation.  My shoes are comfortable and my clothes are utilitarian.  Makeup was never a habit, and my hair favors a wash and wear process that takes about thirty seconds most days.
If I really work at it I think I can primp a whole fifteen minutes for a grand occasion.  I have been assured by other friends that it takes them a minimum forty minutes  to get their hair and face ready for a regular day.  I have been thinking about this and I d wish someone would tell me.  What are you doing in there? and have I missed something I was supposed to know somewhere along the way?

Guess what I found when I got home.

No really. Guess.  You can't guess? Well  here is a hint. Can you dial 911?