Life Choices

 The thought occurred to me this morning that every single person in the Saturday spinning group had a vastly different childhood than mine. My childhood tormenter is near the end.  Which made me wonder what it must have been like if I was not waiting for my next misstep and the ensuing battle royal while growing up.  Even if I did not do a misstep and took the unwarranted blame and punishment for a siblings actions. 

Would I be more sure of myself and my choices in life? Would I have the courage to say no when I really wanted to? Would I still be so insecure about my whole life?  Would I have a stupid autoimmune disease that has been blamed on childhood trauma? 

What I do know is despite everything, I have tried to change the trajectory of my life. Sometimes with overwhelming success and other times with abject failures.  I did my best to be the complete opposite of my tormentor.  Sometimes being a little bit too ridged in hindsight.  I prayed everyday that I could get it right. Some days were better than others.  I also know that if my life had been different, I would not have a stupid scar on my left hand 63 years after a punishment.  I can’t even think about why anyone would do that to a toddler.  

I don’t know if I will ever get rid of my insecurities caused by my childhood.  Even the feeling that I will be all alone because my tormenter called me a bad person and their life and the world would be better without me. As an adult I know that this is totally out of bounds remark that I heard at least once a day.  

I hope and pray everyday that I am worthy enough to be part of my husband and children’s lives.  That my friends can accept my foibles brought about by my less than desirable childhood.  That I can make the world a better place.  That I am a much better parent and human being than my tormenter ever was.  

That the statement that childhood abuse lasts a life time is so true.  Ask me how I know? Many details have been left out to protect the guilty at the end of life.

Please make the effort to treat all children with the respect that they deserve. Please remember that “All G’d’s children are special all the time. “

My First Plying

 Ok I have the first 3 plys done for Tour de Fleece 2024.  As you can tell by the 3 skeins of yarn the first plying attempt was not as good as the second or third.  I find that’s the great thing about being an artist, everything is not set in stone except marble sculptures.  

So instead of going from the top down on a shawl with my Tour de Fleece spinning, I have a new game plan.  The first skein of yarn will go into a one of a kind scarf for a child who utilizes the Flowing Well’s School District Clothing Bank. Since the yarn is way too bumpy to knit.  The yarn will add a unique texture to the scarf.  Nothing goes to waste.  Everything in art has a purpose.  

I will continue with my Tour de Fleece spin and come up with a game plan for the rest of the yarn.  The pictures below are pre snd post washing and thwacking.  

This and That

 As I write this blog post we have had over an inch of rain since dinner time.  There were a lot of micro bursts that broke a lot of power poles.  This time we feel very lucky not to be in the red or pink zones without power.  This storm came in hard and fast  enough to trigger a weather related headache. It is supposed to rain for 2 more hours. I hope that by dawns early light the storm damage will be minimal.

I am almost done with the first  of 3 sections of my Tour de Fleece spin.  Hopefully that will be finished soon.  

I got overheated last Wednesday morning and my body just ground to a halt.  So most of the week has be spent resting.  I use to find the summer heat energizing because I hurt less.  Somehow this summer even dashing between the store and my car is very draining.  I just can’t figure it out yet.  I hope it is only temporary. Only time will tell.  

Testing My Limits

 As a spinner, I always like to test my limits on how full I can fill a bobbin or drop spindle.  My new Hansen mini pro e-spinner is no exception.  While plying my first bobbin of Tour de Fleece 2024 I got to within 1/8 of an inch of the flyer.  I was plying a worsted weight yarn.  I had o problem at all getting the bobbin filled with my first 7 stages plus a coordinating color.  I am spinning up the rest of the coordinating color to use as a break between the stages for knitting my new shawl.

I am still experimenting on where I want the bobbins that I am plying to be. I think I have ruled out having the bobbins adjacent To the e- Spinner, it is just too awkward to pull the yarn out smoothly from the bobbins. Right now I am experimenting with having the bobbins on a step stool which is about 12 inches off the floor. This seems to be working because I am not using my spinning chair. I am using a regular office chair. This seems to be a good distance and an easier plying experience. I also think the yarn looks better. I will have a better idea after washing the yarn to set the twist. 

I am projecting that I will not finish all the stages on time.  This is my current priority spin so I can get the shawl knit up.  I am not sure if I will use an existing pattern or design a new one.  It all depends on the yarn and what it wants to be.  

Books and More Books

 I have turned into a book dragon.  Collecting books faster than I have been reading them.  It may have been pointed out that the books exceed my current shelf space.  So there is only one solution that I am on board with. I will take 30 minutes a day to read the books until the piles are depleted.  I know that this will take longer than the other suggestions that I have received and rejected.  

As I finish the books, I will give you the title and author with a thumbs up or down.  Then if they are not autographed copies which I intend to keep, I have developed a plan of action.  

1. Try Bookman’s first. This is because I can take the exchange credit and trade for new socks for a local children’s clothing bank  that I like to support, this is a win-win for me.

2. One of the tiny free libraries around Tucson.  If by chance I finish a book while traveling, I will try to find a tiny library to leave it at or a coffee shop with a bookshelf.  

If you have any other ideas please let me know in the comment section.  

Things That Make Me Grumpy

 There are some things that make me super grumpy.  Take my ResMed CPAP machine.  Apparently they either have a manufacturing issue or a redesign boo-boo.  Either way I just installed power supply box number 3 for the year 2024.  Please understand that I am a fiber artist not an engineer.  I am not an expert. This is not my field of study, expertise or work area.  However this is July 19th and that means a power supply is lasting a little over 2 months each. I personally think that they should last much longer. Maybe even a year or 2.

I would like to point out that this is not a way to build customer satisfaction.  It is also bad for the environment.  E waste is hard to dispose of properly, many people do not have the knowledge or resources to dispose of e waste, so most land up in landfills.  It is definitely not the way to increase your bottom line. ResMed you have to do better. 

Another thing that makes me really grumpy is when a super big corporation buys a health food store then a few years down the line a new CEO takes over.  The new CEO decides that there are too many items that the store carries.  He looks at his labor cost and eliminates a very large portion of the healthy and vegan food, only to replace it with junk foods.  Yes, the “food” you replace the healthy food with is junk food. The employees are instructed to send the customers to the frozen food section for the items that we used to get made in house. The things do not taste as good.  Also cutting back the number of dairy free alternatives that taste good and not like cardboard is a mistake. I personally don’t consider soda to be a healthy choice.  Yes, Amazon and Whole Foods this is you. 

You have also turned a good portion of the front end into an Amazon return hub.  Eliminating indoor seating in the middle of the desert. You have cut off the restaurant hours to 2 days a week, instead of 7.  You have also cut the quality of the prepared food to go. Yes, people have noticed.  I am now buying my fruit at different grocery stores.  Safeway has a nice selection of cut up fruit at a better price.  Sprouts has a better selection of fresh fruit at a lower cost too. Trader Joe’s has a limited but good selection of fresh fruits and vegetables at a lower price.  

The specialty sector of the food industry requires knowledge of the food industry is a very hard market to do well in. It requires someone with a food industry background and experience. The food sector typically has a lower profit margin. That is usually made up with volume. Maybe it’s time to hire someone with experience in the field to run Whole Foods  

The last thing that is making me grumpy right now is my body and its inability to handle the heat. I was in a warm room for 3 hours on Wednesday morning.  It is Saturday morning and I am still dealing with the aftermath.  My spoons are low. I am aching almost every where.  I want my 30 something body back.  

This blog post was written over 2 days.  

TTFN

Spinning in the Dark

 Last night we had a rather wicked monsoon storm.  Over 32,000 homes and businesses in Tucson lost power.  A special thank you needs to go out to all he crews and staff of Tucson Electric Power Company who cut their weekend short to work through the night to get the power restored to the greater Pima County area.  There were still pockets of power outages this morning.  However the vast majority of businesses and homes had their power restored.  

Now it’s the turn of the cable companies, phone companies and data processors to fix their end of their share of the damage so businesses can run smoothly again.  I know that this will involve replacing some electronic equipment and rebooting other equipment.  This always takes longer.  

What we were doing during all of this.  We were out to dinner when the storm hit.  I just watched the very heavy rains while eating dinner.  It was not until we got closer to home that we saw and had to drive around tree branches that had snapped off of the trees. When we got to the house we realized we had lost power when we couldn’t open the garage door.  

John got all the flashlights ready.  He even had one that was powered off a drill battery.  It was too dark to knit because all of my projects are currently using dark yarn.  So I took my flashlight and grabbed a bowl of spinning.  We moved to the back yard to cool off.  The backyard was cooler than the house. I managed to spin almost 3 rolags in the dark.  I was using one of my Golding drop spindles.  I would highly recommend this spindle for spinning in the dark. The grove can be felt by finger tip. It’s very well balanced. The hook is very easily managed in the dark. Below is a picture of last nights spinning.  For a very low light spin, I am happy with the results.