Confessions of a Grandma

"Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.” Mark Victor Hansen, of Chicken Soup for the Soul fame The expression, "grow where you are planted," came to mind when I saw this plant clinging to the side of the Circus Bridge.  I looked for that quote on the Internet.  It probably predates a Mary Engelbreit card.  I am not a particularly religious person and I do not call myself a Christian in any case, but I found this information worth contemplating and quite apt.

I have not been knitting too much lately.  I only have patience for small, quickly finished projects like this towel.  It still needs blocking, this is fresh off the needles.  I think I should immediately start another since it took me so long to finally get into the rhythm of the pattern. I knit a lot of hats in the round.  That involves pretty mindless knit stitch and some counting.  I usually start from the top and work down.  That's not how most of the instruction I have say to do it, but I find it easier for some reason.  I have convinced myself I don't have to worry about gauge so much that way.  Also in a hat, the occasional extra stitch doesn't become a big worry.  Knitting along almost becomes a meditative state. Not so with a fussy pattern.  I kept ending a row with an extra stitch or a missing stitch.  Then I would have to  undo and try again.  That kind of knitting h...

Mike gets himself off to the beach early most mornings.  I am not so much of a morning person.  I like to linger in my pj's over a cup of coffee and putter around the house a bit.  When I'm ready, I walk the couple of miles to the beach, walk up the beach a mile or a bit more where I meet up with Mike out on his saunter. I usually walk back with him and get a ride home, although if he is too involved in beach scavenging, I have been know to walk home again. Yesterday was one of those impossibly gorgeous days. I realized after walking along the beach road and down a nearly deserted stretch of beach that I had been in a blissful, zoned out state for some time.  The sun was nicely warm and the air at the beach was so soft on my skin.  The sounds of gentle waves and birds calling had an  almost hypnotic effect.  The light sand, the blue sky, the expanse of aqua water--the colors were soothing to my soul.  The smell of the beach and the nea...

I went to church last Sunday. Worth the price of admission: a choral meditation by the twelve voice choir. It consisted of the word "Imani" (which I believe means "faith") sung slowly over and over again. It doesn't sound like much, but I cannot describe how beautiful it was. I just sat with my eyes closed and could feel those voices reverberating through me. I found myself repeating "Imani" as walked down the beach this morning, experiencing again the meditative benefits.