Jung At Heart

Last day of the old year and time to look back at what has been and forward to what will be.

In knitting:

I completed the following projects:

✦ Eunny Jang's Print o' the Wave stole

✦ Scheherazade stole from Pink Lemon Twist

✦ Leda's Dream Stole -- Pink Lemon Twist

✦ Honey Bee Stole from Anne Hanson

✦ Mystic Waters Shawl

✦ Krista Tee from White Lies Designs

I also knitted several pairs of socks, but they seem kind of matter of course to me.

Started, to be finished in a month or so:

✦ Secret of Chrysopolis Stole from the KAL of the same name

✦ Guinevere 

✦ Feathers stole based on Swan Lake Mystery Stole

✦ And I got this blog going!

Not too shabby, I think.

 Looking ahead to 2008:

✦ I already have 4 lace projects lined up, continuing in my Lace KAL obsession.

✦ I want to knit one of Sharon Miller's patterns from Heirloom Knitting

✦ Contemplating possibly designing something myself.

✦ My daily photo From My Window, starts tomorrow. I'll create a Flickr set and put a link in the sidebar.

I don't do New Year's resolutions, so what the year ahead holds and where it will take me in knitting, reading, my work is open and waiting to be discovered in the living.

It is snowing this morning. We have about 4 or 5 inches of new snow. This storm is supposed to wind down this afternoon then midday tomorrow another moves in. By the time it is over, we may have as much as another 18" of fresh snow.

Happy New Year!

When I woke up this morning, it finally dawned on me that I have some serious prep work to do for several things I will be teaching in the next few months. At the end of January, I am teaching a one day seminar at the Senior College on blogs and blogging -- got to get that material organized. About Senior College -- I love this whole concept! Classes in short 6 week semesters on all kinds of subjects, many of them quite intellectually demanding, for folks who are 50 and older. It is a great group to teach plus no grades, tests or papers!

Then March 15, I will be doing a one day workshop at the C. G. Jung Center in Brunswick on Medea and Betrayal. I have done this workshop/seminar twice before here in Belfast so I have a good idea of how much territory I can cover in a day, but I want to work on it some more. 

And in the spring I will be teaching about psychological type at the Senior College.

Yikes!

Then yesterday when I called Helen at Heavenly Socks Yarn -- because Spike made off with my teeny crochet hook that I use to apply beads when I knit -- she asked if I would be interested in teaching a course on beads and lace. Which I am but that's another preparation and I have to get a description in soon.

Fun, eh? From blogging to Medea to knitting with beads! 

We bought a new recliner and Moe has decided it is a wonderful thing. This is the face of a happy cat

There are cookies to be baked and presents to be wrapped today and tomorrow. And Tuesday we are off to my daughter's home for Christmas dinner. I'll be back to post here on Wednesday. 

I am halfway through the last clue for Mystic Waters. It's possible I will finish it today though tomorrow is more likely.

In the meantime, a cookie recipe to keep you busy -- I have had this recipe for around 15 years and no longer remember where it came from.

I saw this on several blogs, so I stole it.

Christmas Meme

I have finished Clue 5 of Mystic Waters, meaning I am now just 2 clues behind. The rows have become pretty long but the pattern is fun to knit so it goes easily. 

They promised snow and it has arrived!

We're expecting 12-14". One of the things I love about living here is that a snowstorm is  cause for excitement. not panic. Yesterday when we went to buy cat litter, the supermarket was not filled with panicked people buying bread and milk -- because we know snow is not the end of civilization as we know it. Pretty soon there will be kids sledding down the hill outside our house -- one of the best things about our house is that we live right on one of the premiere sledding hills in town so we get to watch and hear kids reveling in the delights of snow.

Well, it's December 1 and it is clear that I did not make a post a day in November. But I did manage to make 20 of them, altogether, and that is quite a bit for me. So it served the purpose of showing me I can post more often and I shall endeavor to try to continue. And next year, maybe I will achieve the target.

I have been reflecting a lot on holidays and the discrepancy between fantasy and reality as I consider how I would like to have Thanksgiving in the future. I should say at the outset that Thanksgiving has never been my favorite holiday despite my connection to its origins. For me it seems like a mountain of work to make a meal which is soon gone. And I am not the world's biggest fan of turkey -- though I must say our organic free range bird was the very best tasting one I have ever had.

When I was growing up, my father was in the Army and we were usually living too far away to have holidays with extended family. My brothers are much older than I and were off on their own from the time I was 7. One year, when I was 8 and we were stationed at Ft. Knox, I got the measles. What I remember most about that year is that we didn't get to eat in the mess hall with all the soldiers -- well, that and the fact that I threw up at dinner. So I grew up with wonderful fantasies of the Norman Rockwell kind of holidays with family and friends gathered together around the table -- the whole works. I thought that when I married and had children that was what we would develop.

But I failed to reckon with reality -- like divorce. The fantasy persisted but the mechanics of making it real became even more difficult. When I moved back to Maine a couple of years ago, having been in Michigan for 4 years, I guess I believed my kids and whatever significant others they had would come here for Thanksgiving and that we would figure out a way to juggle all the obligations they had at Christmas so that everyone could be satisfied.

This year, with just my husband and son here, I had a chance to really look at what I wanted. And I discovered that my fantasy holiday is not really it. We had a lovely day last Thursday and a terrific meal. My son brought a friend of his, a last minute addition and it was delightful to be able to include him without any effort. After they left and the leftovers were put away, I began to realize that my childhood fantasy was just that, a part of my childhood, an outgrowth of wishes for connections I never was able to develop. But that it doesn't have have a whole lot to do with my adult life.

I remember early in my first marriage wanting to be able to stay home for the holidays, to have a chance to develop our own traditions. My in-laws and my parents were welcome to come, but I wanted it to be our time with our children in our home. I know now that my mother and mother-in-law probably had their own fantasies about gathering their children around the table for holidays, fantasies that they did not see fulfilled. I want my daughter and her husband to find their traditions and for my son and whoever he eventually marries likewise to find their own. Their fantasies won't be the same as mine. 

So for a few years, it will all be in flux as they and my husband and I shift into new variations on the holidays. This growing up thing just never ends.

I finished Leda's Dream -- I will post pictures later today.

It is very cold here today and we have a snow storm on the way for Monday.

It's cold today -- just 36F at noon. So thoughts of coffee cake entered my head when I got up. I searched my trove of recipes and came upon a cranberry nut upside down coffee cake that I got from somewhere a few years ago. We buy lots of fresh cranberries in season. I love the tart taste and use them in all kinds of things. And best of all, we can get organic berries grown right next door in Lincolnville.

It's yummy!

So I sat and drank my tea and looked out my window.