LIFE
Yup.
But life also demands the cathartic nature of writing if you're a writer, even if you can't yet articulate everything you need to write about. Life changes so fast and furiously sometimes and you don't even know how to do the basic things anymore, let alone put a bunch of words in any logical order.
So I guess I'll break it down. I still have kids and stitches. As a matter of fact, my 10th little bean will arrive in the next few weeks. This time around it was a bit of a shock which probably makes most people laugh, but it's true. There was some active prevdention happening, but I suppose fate had other ideas.
Since my last blog I've started a charity Matthew's Gift which donates boxes of infant memorial items to loss parents. We made our first official donation on Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day and are slowly reaching out to the community more and more to give parents the gift of dignity for their stillborn babies. I'm still trucking along with my Jamberry business and loving that (for the most part!!) I've traveled to Austrailia and back home again and have started a few new projects that are still in development but super exciting.
On the yarn front, my most loved project right now is my "Opus" recycled sweater blanket. I spent over a year collecting merino and cashmere blend sweaters from thrift stores and they have been carefully processed and wound into balls of watercolor beauty. It's the warmest blanket I've ever touched and I absolutely adore each minute I work on it. I chose the Attic 24 Neat Ripple because it's simple and easy!
So very warm and cozy!! Of course I'm working on a couple things for the "new one baby" (that is SO cute and not sure where it came from, but all the kids are calling him that. Yes, it's a boy!!)
Farm life has been absolutely devastating. Our three Nigerian Dwarfs had their first babies from the new buck. All three delivered triplets. The first birthing only saw one survivor out of 6. The last to give birth had one stillborn, with the second dying within the week and the next being fatally wounded by our male Pygora during a nursing visit with Mom. It has been absolutely crushing and I haven't fared well emotionally during all this. Having babies on a farm is the best part and seeing such loss has really been a blow on my heart. We've decided to ixnay on the goats for now. We simply have too much going on to keep up with it and we are all very tired of the, well, bullshit, associated with having them. We plan to sell them soon. I guess part of being a grown up is knowing your limits!!
Yarn. OMG. I have bought SO MUCH YARN in the past couple months. Knit Picks Black Friday deal brought over 300 skeins into my house, then Little Knits about 100 and Goodwill, eh, we won't talk about that. But no, I haven't gone yarn hoarder. Getting yarn into the hands of volunteers for Matthew's Gift has been a something important to me and the price point of $1 or less per skein makes it really cost effective, so when the sales hit, I jumped. I have a handful of steady volunteers that enjoy the work and I am so blessed to have them. Unfortunately I have also had a few people take large boxes of yarn and just disappear, ignoring all messages asking for progress. Live and learn and then create a system that still allows me to give yarn to volunteers on a trial basis until they prove they will actually return it in the form of finished items. I still have a hard time with the injustice of anyone taking from a charity, especially in light of what we are doing, but I have to let those people live with that choice.
For now, life really is in a HUGE flux and I have no clue where it's going anymore. So much has changed, so much is happening, so many choices and decisions laid before me and the idea of taking each day one at a time has never been more poignant. The balance between happiness and sacrifice is a hard one to strike and lately I look at it all and just sigh. There's only so much compromise a person can make before they are no longer the person they actually are, you know what I mean?
Since writing is the place I can actually find that person, that I am, it's pretty important to start it up again, even into the wild blue yonder of blogging to the unknown world out there. Just the act of spitting words out is healing, so hopefully in that, there will be a small measure of peace and comfort.
How is everyone out there?? What are YOU up to??
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