Knitting as therapy

I taught myself to knit during the wet rainy days of a northwestern fall. It started as a way to keep busy while watching TV with my girls, it became the knots that held my life together.

That fall I waited for the custody hearing that would ultimately break 24 years of active parenting. Not knowing what was coming I sat and knit scarf, after scarf, after scarf. Every chance I had to sit down, I picked up my knitting and knitted. Knitting at a leisurely pace, enjoying the rhythm of the needles and the feel of the yarn sliding across my fingers.

A month later, the day after Christmas, on the way back from the airport with my two youngest daughters on their way to live with their father, I started knitting furiously. I knit sweaters for my granddaughters. I knit hats to felt. I knit in the house, in the car, at line in the drive thru, anytime I could knit I did. I knit to stay sane. I knit to heal my heart.

Need to create

I feel a drive to create and for the most part it competes with my drive for an orderly house.  That is the recipe for a losing battle.  Creating time for myself, to create for others has more up on my priority list ;-)  Now where to start.....

Good bye 2011

Thankfully, I can say goodbye to 2011 a year of blessings and a year of tragic loss.

My youngest has come back to the roost, after living with her dad for a little over a year.  She came back with all the gusto she musters up for her day to day life.  She immediately enrolled herself in school and took her placement tests, got a cello to borrow for the summer and started playing in the Columbia River Symphony.  All this determination at just 13 years old, world watch out, my advise is just stay out of her way, or better yet join her and support her!

The tragic loss came in August with the death of my 24 year old daughter.  Grief has become a constant companion and something that I will share on my new blog 19thofalways as I struggle to make my peace. Miss you Jo.