Daffodowndilly

I'm still planning on posting the fishy sock cable pattern. I just haven't felt like figuring out how to yet. Sorry. It's coming.

Last week I was walking my girl Aussie, the one with two healthy shoulders and way too much energy, and on a whim I crossed to the other side of the street from the one I usually take. What a surprise! In an wide empty space at the top of a little hill, there are large spreading trees and lush grass already, though it is early spring. As I walked along the side of the street, I noticed rows of daffodil sprigs popping up, though there were no sidewalks for them to border. They were perfectly parallel, and occasionally more parallel daffodil rows would wander off to the left at a perfect right angle. I amused myself for a while walking up and down the vestiges of forgotten sidewalks and trying to find bits of foundation where the houses used to be. I imagined the houses, probably like all the other old houses on the street, with little housewives planting daffodil bulbs in the fall, up and down the walk. I imagine they had no idea that their ephimeral flowers would survive their sturdy houses. How surprised they would be to know that the only evidence that their homes were ever there now is the sweet garden they planted.

And yesterday the daffodils began to flower! In a few days the empty hill will be full of a riot of yellow, in perfect rows along forgotten sidewalks. I also pulled out all the bulbs I forgot to plant last fall - daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths and tulips - thinking of putting them in the fridge, to find that many of them had sprouted like onions. I tucked some of them along the front of my house, though the soil is too rocky through most of my yard to allow a shovel to penetrate more than half an inch, threw two hyacinths in pots (ah, the beauty of soil that comes prepackaged at Walmart! Even the noble art of gardening succombs to commercialized lazyness), and, yes, packed up into the fridge the ones that hadn't sprouted too much yet. Many bulbs are still sitting in a basket waiting to have something done with them. Maybe I'll just find lush places here and there in the middle of the yard to plant them. After all, by the time the grass needs to be mowed, the flowers will be finished anyway, right?

I think I will plant bulbs everywhere I live, now that I know how a garden can be longer-lived than a home. As I thought of the thriving gardens that outlived their houses, I remembered one flower from this summer. My husband was showing me where an old house used to stand, right behind one of my favorite restaurants. Local legend said it was haunted, and high school boys used to go in at night for dares. It was abandoned for many years, and finally condemned and demolished. There is no trace of foundation to be found any more. Yet this summer, while we were searching for remnants of the old mansion, we found a single Amaryllis bravely holding its own against the weeds and gravel. The family who last lived in the house over 50 years ago has long been forgotten, and now even the house is gone, but the Amaryllis that once adorned a graceful garden still come up every year. The memory of that gardener will last as long as spring comes to that spot, or at least until the Cafe decides to pave the parking lot. (Sorry, even gardens can't be THAT permanent. Concrete trucks know little of poetry.)

Fishy socks!

Last August a woman in my knitting club brought in skeins of alpaca yarn from her own personal alpacas, and my husband decided he wanted a sweater. With cables. Oh, wait, no, how about a sweater with a Norse colorwork pattern? Well, maybe there's not quite enough yarn for that... how about SOCKS with a Norse colorwork pattern?

I tried. If anybody knows how to make Fair Isle or other color knitting stretchy, please tell me. In the meantime, last August, I announced that unless he had size 2 feet and didn't mind his socks being completely slouchy, these stars and reindeer weren't gonna work.

So he drew a couple squiggles on a page that looked vaguely like a fish, and said, "do cables like these." And I said, "I don't know how to do cables like that!" And he said, "figure it out" and left the room.

He sounds really mean, doesn't he? I thought so too. Only, an hour later, I had completed a swatch that looked quite a bit like fish, which proved to me that I did in fact know how to do cables like that. So he wasn't being mean, he just knew my abilities better than I did.

Now, I am going to beg a favor from my readers. Please kindly ignore the fact that by my own admission this project has been on my needles since AUGUST, and be duly impressed at the completion of...

THE FISHY SOCKS.


They're not green, they're gray, but my phone was on life support, and the life support cord didn't reach from the kitchen table where the light was good to the plug in the living room. And I'm not about to let you see the state of my linoleum; it's embarrassing. Not dirty embarrassing, but should-have-been-replaced-fifty-years-ago embarrassing. Thus we have distorted colors. Such is life.


I'm modelling because, well, the socks are warm and fuzzy, and I wanted to try them out first. Am I a bad person?

Conversations about dogs...

(I'm looking out the window)
Him: Are the puppies ok? Are they still fighting over their bone?
Me: They're fine. They're just eating some vines.

************
(He walks in the door)
Me: What are the puppies doing?
Him: Sir Gawain was chewing on glass.
Me: HOW did they get glass?
Him: You think I know???

************
Him: Well, I guess I have to go get the puppies in trouble. They're chewing on fiberglass insulation again.

************
Him: Sir Gawain isn't going to have any teeth left if he doesn't stop chewing on metal!

Little things that show me I'm loved

My husband read my previous post and thought that "flowers on the table" was about his gift-giving skills, not my gardening skills, so he bought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers and tried to sneak them under my nose at the grocery store. I asked about them, but then he was so disappointed I had to lie and tell him I hadn't seen them after all. Shh, don't tell him. And then I carefully didn't look at them while we were putting the groceries on the conveyor belt. Well, maybe I sneaked a peek or two.

And now my living room is all yellow and pink and red and purple and more pink. Beautiful.



Tell me I didn't marry a wonderful man. Just try to tell me.

The rain is falling

...and freezing as soon as it touches. Tomorrow the world will be covered with crystal frosting like a big crunchy wedding cake. Ice scrapers will probably be thoroughly ineffective on the car windshield, and the power lines will probably have fallen, like they do every time Oklahoma has an ice storm. Thus I spend the precious hours of electricity meditating online about the fact that at least my stove and water heater are gas powered. So technically is the central heating, but we'd have to figure out a way to bypass the electric thermostat. Any clues?

Before I got married, I expected wifehood to be a blissful world of aprons and baby-tummies. I figured that I would be the sort of wife who had fresh flowers on her kitchen table and handmade doilies on every surface, and who knew the natural remedy for every possible ailment. Somehow marriage would enable me to become this person, because obviously as a single girl I didn't have time for it. Oh, I had hours to dream about it, but no time to put it into practice. Besides, I was an ideological aspiring housewife who in practice tended to leave her socks in the living room floor. Laundry? People do laundry? Without having to wash clothes three times over because they sat in the washer so long they got musty? What? And doing dishes everyday? I thought this was why we engaged house-elves!

Intellectually, however, I knew that once married I would in fact still be the same person I was when I was single. I thus buried myself under countless resolutions to become the perfect housewife BEFORE I was married. They would generally last about a week before my messy habits would resurface. And those dreams of potted herbs? Still dreams. I have a brown thumb.

Does marriage really change you, the way I thought it didn't? Is it just because I've discovered from experience that with two people making the mess, if I don't keep it under control it will eventually reach nervous-breakdown proportions? That might be an explanation for why I do laundry on occasion, but does it explain the frustrated sigh at seeing dead grass on the carpet and immediate vacuuming frenzy when I came home from work this afternoon?

The fear of disproportionate messes also doesn't explain the simple satisfaction I get from perfecting my house. It must be simply because it IS my house: not my parents' house, not a house I share with roommates, but my house, mine and my husband's, and I am the wife and mistress of the hearth. The sunlight falling past the blue windowsill onto my drying dishes could only be more satisfying if there were a lace curtain (with roosters!) filtering the light (and hiding the ugly windowshades that the landlord won't let me take down, but we're not discussing that right now). I fold the blankets and arrange the pillows on the bed, taking care that the seams on the striped pillow shames mirror and don't chase each other, because it must be symmetrical. I turn on lamps, I open blinds, I arrange, I tidy, I stress out when things are messy and I can't help it anymore! There are currently a tissue, a jar of peanuts and two empty bowls on the cedar chest/coffee table and it's driving me CRAZY. However, I'm warm under a blanket and not going anywhere (c.f. note about the ice).

You might think I'm bragging about how I'm a perfect wife. I could demure and say that I don't cook very often, having been lucky enough to marry a much better cook than I am, and therefore I don't live up to wifely ideals. I could more justly say that there's a big pile of laundry, and then give the excuse that since my dryer is on the fritz, the clothes have to air dry, and there are only so many loads that can air dry at once inside a house in the middle of winter.

Instead, I think I'll be honest. The point of being a wife isn't keeping a beautiful home, or using your handmade apron to pull a from-scratch cake out of the oven, or having many children with starched pinafores and shiny clean faces. The point of being a wife is to love your husband. And how can I love my husband when all I do when I'm home from work is stress out about the mess in the house? I get so irritable when I'm distracted from a task that I feel is important; even (and I'm ashamed to say it) when what is distracting me is a tender caress. What I need to learn is that no task is more important than my man is.

How insidious pride is. I deceive myself into believing that I am performing acts of love and service by spending so much time and energy in minding my house, when in fact all I am doing is feeding my own newfound clean-freak ego. What I need to do is accept the fact that I am not a stay-at-home wife but a working wife, and my few hours at home need to be spent in giving my Lord and Master what he really needs: less of the sweet smell of Simple Green and more of my undivided attention.

That said, I have been boldfacedly lying all week when I tell my customers that I hope it won't ice as badly as the forecast says. I hope it ices fully that badly, and more. The more time I have at home, the more time I have to fulfill my cleaning bug needs and still have many hours in the day for cuddling and talking. And this makes everyone happy.

Why it's been forever

...because Google doesn't let you just switch settings over to a new gmail account. You have to do it manually. And who wants to do that when there are Australian Shepherd puppies to chase around?

But I'm back, posting under the same old blog name (though I'm sure at some point I'll want to find a more appropriate title for a blog which is more about everyday life than about knitting projects), with a new email address. The old one still works so don't worry about it, but my new email address is my new name, formatted firstmiddlelast at gmail.com just like the old one.

As most of my readers know, I got married this summer to my best friend (man, I love these puns!) and I hope the excuse of settling into married life is a good enough one for my blogging hiatus. Except for the one we lost to miscarriage we have no babies yet, but we have had four Australian shepherds so far, one of whom stalked bugs until he got hit by a car, another of whom stalks deer at the in-laws' house now, and two who just tackle each other in our living room floor.

I'm happy to be able to blog again and brag about how beautiful every day is in my life. Hurrah for internet connections at home!

Thank you, everyone, for your prayers. I have been overwhelmed with grace this week, and have recieved so much peace and guidance. I know it's because of all the prayers (and good thoughts, since I have some friends who don't pray) that have been coming my way.

I have much reason for sorrow in my life right now, but I also have much reason for joy. I have a wonderful man who loves me and is going to marry me just about as soon as I can finish making my dress. I have God's faithful promise that He wants me to marry my man, and to be happy with him. I have amazing friends who rally and prove their love for me, even when they don't know what's going on. The love of my friends is worth more than gold. Thank you. I've had a week-long retreat to get my spiritual life back in order and to pray about God's plan for me. And I sang at the wedding of two wonderful people whose love is an inspiration, and whose Tridentine Nuptial Mass filled me with a certain amount of Nerdy Catholic Pride for knowing the responses. Chelsea and Martin, congratulations, and may God bless your life together abundantly.

So thank you all for your prayers and good wishes, and please keep them coming, especially in the next couple of weeks while I wait for the inevitable-and-painfully-final. But don't worry about me. My life is still awesome.