Finding Joy

I'm massively into self-imposed goals and imaginary points (hence Stash Dash every summer), and this year I've embarked on two different projects as a way to challenge myself and earn real and imaginary points. I'm doing a gnome a month for the Imagined Landscapes Year of Gnomes; here was January's entry:

I'm also participating in Eat.Sleep.Knit's yarnathone. I've had fun looking for creative ways to earn badges and finding a way to connect a bit on some of their forums. Earning store credit and goodies for knitting and ordering yarn? Sign me up! I just wish I lived in Georgia so I could actually hang out at the store, as they seem like awesome people. Their customer service is outstanding, and I'm blown away by the amount of work they go to running the Yarnathon. I'm well into the first quarter's KAL--brioche, which has been a fun way to try a few different things. Brioche decreases have not historically been my friend, so here's hoping I can master them this time!

I hope to

The other day a dear family friend who is a lifelong missionary asked me if I missed my service country. "No," I said, "No I don't. But I hope to one day."

It's hard to know how much to push myself and how much to give myself grace for this transition back. Trying to find a job is not my favorite pastime, and feeling unemployable and unwanted are daily mental tracks that I have to keep stopping when I find they are playing...again. Wondering if I blew it and all chances for happiness have passed me by, wondering if I can ever build a meaningful life and community. Waiting is hard.

Despite all the emotions and challenges, I do have hope, and I'm striving to choose joy each day. As a wise friend pointed out to me, anything is possible for me right now. So, I'm knocking on every door I can think of, and trying to be very open to what and where God might be sending me. I have a car--huge praise! And I have people here in town who care about me and are trying to help me find where God has called me to be.

So, I hope to. I hope to
Find a job
Find a church
Find community and ways to serve
Find a new life rhythm
Find new joys
Find new faithfulness of God
Find healing

And I hope to one day be able to miss what I left behind, not to go back, but as a place and a time where God was good.

Pathetic, but something

It was a crazy week, and while I got lots of great things done over the weekend, many of them were NOT knitting. I did finish the main part of the ski mask, and after trying it on will begin to knit tentacles for it, but other than that I basically

1) Knit three more stars, seen here first as the first two (the third one has a Halloween color scheme and is still blocking) stars,

and here is the whole handful minus the latest one. Why yes, I'm milking this for all it's worth!

I also finished a dishcloth that has been my 'reading' knitting for the last bit. It's weirdly textured fingering weight cotton I found somewhere out here and have decided to knit up. It also smells really dusty, so I'm debating giving it a bath before gifting it to someone here in parting.

I made bagels, ginerbread cake, and pizza this weekend, cleaned my floors, did my laundry, got rid of three boxes out of my house, took some good naps, talked for a few hours with Ruthie, got to watch a little of Once Upon a Time Season 3 (not a huge fan) and welcomed fall with a hoarded pumpkin spice latte Via and pumpkin spice candle. Last week was...rough...and I'm hoping that this one is better. Especially as I'm in for another crazy weekend on next week!

Coming back into the light and big progress on a sweater

I didn't update last week, because I had been fighting low mood and a threatening depressive episode all week, and I didn't do much in the evening except mark and go to bed a bit early to try and combat what I realized was happening. Thankfully I'm feeling better now--still super stressed, but not like I'm about to slip under the black waters any minute. On the one hand I'm glad I'm getting better at assessing my mental state, but on the other hand, I'm having more of these black times than I used to. I know it can't be helped much until next year, so I'm trying to take care of myself when I can. I want to be in a position to heal and move on in December!

I did a lot of work on my Hitofude which has been hibernating most of the last year. I have decided I want to finish it for Stash Dash 2018, and the love came back after all those hats, so I'm going with it! I finished the arm section and the neckband this weekend, and am on my first repeat of the body. Such clever construction!

The sweater sucked up most of my knitting time, but I did manage to do a little shamrock in honor of St. Paddie's day--so cute!

I also tried out and then did this fun Celtic knot craft with my handwork group--actually easier than it looks, and gives pretty good results even with a very mixed skill group. With different papers there are all kinds of fun variations one could do on this...

I'm also using up some KP Filici on another brioche baby hat. It feels really different right now, but I think that's mostly because of the wool vs. totally synthetic yarns. Should be interesting once I take out the provisional cast-on though!

Parting shot: We are washing away again with all the rain, so to see this sky on Saturday down at the river was a real gift: