My Line in the Sand

No parent should EVER have to ask:

"Is my child sick enough to go to the doctor?"

EVER.

What is the deal with people?

Here's your scenario:

Your child has been caught throwing rocks at other children. One of those children has been injured and is bleeding rather profusely. You:

1) claim it's okay because "they were all throwing rocks" (they weren't);

2) try to get away before the parents of the injured child or her friends can confront you;

3) verbally assault said parents using profanity in a tirade of "how dare you speak to my child that way!"

4) apologize profusely to injured child and her parents in the (sincere) hope that they do not SUE YOUR ASS OFF.

One parent did #1 and #2. One parent did #3. One parent, luckily the parent of the actual thrower of said rock, chose #4.

Meanwhile, I'm icing the child's head and hoping for no stitches or CAT scans and my friend is being assaulted by the parent of a child who has already been bullying HER child for months at school with no consequences.

Oh, so unpleasant and unnecessary.

If your child has done wrong by another child, make them say they are sorry. Give them some consequences. You do your child no favors by not holding them accountable for their actions. This situation could have been TRAGIC, not only for my child, who escaped with a cut and a lot of tears, but for the perpetrator of the violence as well. Lawsuits and juvenile detention are not what you want for your child, either, I am sure.

Unfortunately, in my experience, the parents of bullies are bullies themselves and see no reason not to continue the behavior and teach it to their children. So sad, so wrong.

We are thanking God tonight that this situation did not end tragically. I wish I thought the other family was as well.

Peace.

Clearly this needs to go on my to-do list

Everything (not really) on there gets done, eventually!

All is well here at Chez Chaos, though.

Kids are finishing things up, camping is over, DS gets promoted to Bear tonight, spring dance recital was a great success. I will put up a video of DS's play as soon as I have the show edited (one reason I haven't been over here).

DD is doing VERY well in school, yay! Student of the Month for April! It's been a bit of a slog being in the GATE cluster this year but she has really risen to the occasion. Congratulations, DD!

I think I blogged about being eliminated from Sock Madness right at the beginning. Yes! The other patterns so far have been put aside in favor of continuing on with October Frost, of which I don't have any new pictures. I have however knit a front and about 8 inches of the back, so progress is being made. I really do want to finish this sweater in time to send it to the Fair (deadline: July 7). We shall see.

I'm also cheating on that (what's new?) and knitting Kai-Mei socks out of the incredibly beautiful yarn sent to me as a congratulations gift by CelticMemory: The socks are turning out gorgeous, but no pictures yet. Maybe I'll have time today, but I doubt it as I'm cleaning house.

Finished spinning some BFL from Spunky Eclectic (not Club) and I love it! Now to find the perfect sock pattern and the time to knit it...but after Kai-Mei and the sweater most likely. Although another pair of Marigolds is pretty mindless...

Other news: Job is GREAT! Spent half of last weekend on Women's Retreat and for me the whole thing turned out to be about gratitude vs. fear. For a LONG time I've been very familiar with fear, comfortable with its familiarity, functioning within it most of the time well enough, sometimes not well at all (sorry, J!). Gratitude was fleeting and unfamiliar territory.

Now I find myself grateful all the time, happy a lot of the time, and hardly ever fearful. A huge sea-change. And I can look back and see how this result came to be from things that have happened, choices made, prayers answered long, long ago.

My biggest insight about it, I think, is that being open is more important than being conscious of and trying to control everything. Maybe that doesn't make sense, but willingness to listen matters more than knowing what you're listening for.

Anyway, I'm listening!

And knitting and spinning and having people over for dinner (OMG!) and looking forward to summer and looking forward to next year and the next and the next. How cool is that?

Peace.

Well, you can kick me when I'm down...

But you can't take this away from me.

Last Sunday's Offertory music was a duet featuring Donald Caldwell, Baritone as Adam and me as Eve from Haydn's "The Creation."



Having some personal conflict issues (understatement) and a lot of worry. Stupid.

I need to focus on the good things, but first I just need to get some sleep. Or knit more. Or both!

Peace.

Lots and Lots and Lots of News!

Some of which must remain a mystery...but it's all good!

Even though I was sick and really, really busy with work of many varieties this week, THE YARN FOR THE SWEATER IS FINISHED!! Yes, 1560 yards of beautiful (to me, anyway), fluffy, squishy 3-ply goodness!!! My very first completely handspun sweater is on the way: Started with a sleeve, figuring if the gauge was really off, I wouldn't be so devastated to start over. Yes, I swatched. But as the Yarn Harlot says, swatches lie.

I'm so happy with this yarn, though. It's denser than it should be but I did my best and the cables really pop. It's soft and sturdy and I stop and pet it every few minutes.

Lessons learned:

Sampling is actually fun.
Did not go mad spinning undyed fiber for 7 weeks, amazing.
2 ounces a day is not out of the realm of possibility. Nor 3 ounces.
A Spinner's Control card is not perfect, but it is helpful.

Surely my spinning will improve enormously in the years ahead and someday I will see flaws in this project that I don't see now. But it will be a lovely sweater and fits in perfectly with the International Year of Natural Fiber, who knew!

Since finishing that (I still can't believe it!), I've started some spinning for Sock Madness III. Please understand that, although this is my third year, this year I have NO ambitions to get further than last year and in fact am not in a good place to be super competitive this time out. See super mystery news above. But I will try to stay in for a couple of rounds and try very hard to knit most of the rounds along with the people who are still in it. Hey, who couldn't use more socks? Or gifts? One of the hardest things lately has been NOT knitting any socks after finishing DD's blue socks on Thinking Day (still unphotographed).

Anyway, finishing up this Navajo plied superwash merino that won a Blue Ribbon at the L.A. County Fair in 2007: I have one more ounce of singles to go, hopefully today/tonight:

Then some quick and dirty 2-ply sock yarn from this month's Spunky Eclectic Fiber Club, Corriedale in New Day: Nothing fancy, just random 2-ply hoping to mix the colors.

Wish I could divulge the other news, really! But soon enough...

Peace.

My Cunning Plan

I really only have 2 major things coming up and they both have to be finished this weekend. Which leaves me a little brain for looking forward to doing my own thing next week, finally.

Valentine's Day. Taking care of that this afternoon. Unless I have to stay at school till 3. We will hope not...

6 black vests for 4th Grade Musical. Finished the aprons yesterday. It was actually fun to be out in the garage all afternoon with the sewing machine and my long dormant but apparently unforgettable skills. They turned out too big, so I modified. They are going to school today with the DD.

Then...then...

Day off work on Monday, but get paid for the holiday, woo-hoo!

I want to do a big push on:

Block pieces of Scoop du Jour, knit on the button bands and finish.
Finish 2nd DD sock. This will be helped by field trip this week (bus knitting). The toe of #2 is done.
I would say work on Tempest, but I just haven't had the brain power to work out all this top down changing of pattern. But I don't want to give up, I think it's working. If I can get the sleeve caps in, then it will be easy peasy the rest of the way. Maybe I will, maybe I won't this week.
Since the spinning for October Frost is taking longer than I wanted, I'm now aiming for the Fair and wearing it in the fall, which is okay with me. BUT opens up the possibility of knitting my Must Have Cardigan for the spring camping trip. Mmm...

So my creative juices, as you can see, are flowing. They just seem to stop right around 8:30 pm when I sit down and almost immediately fall asleep. Hopefully I will have some daylight time this week/weekend to get some stuff done in that realm.

Now for your viewing pleasure (?), a short video of me and some other friends singing and playing at a fundraiser last weekend. It was a lovely event and everyone had a great time!

Post-Partisan? That's not it!

I keep encountering or hearing about people encountering those who are cynical. Those who still have no hope, no faith, no optimism. I've been one of you. I've been ranting and raving, sure that the election would never take place, sure that the cheating would overwhelm the numbers, sure that it would never, ever end.

But on Tuesday I took off my tinfoil hat and cried.

And I gave up my cynicism.

Now, mind you, I'm going to hold their feet to the fire when I think it's necessary. And I'm determined to stay active, stay informed, stay vocal.

But I'm no longer going to be afraid. I'm not going to fear that the NSA is tapping my phone and computer (they were). I'm not going to fear that my children won't be able to get a decent education (this will change in time for them). I'm not even going to fear that I won't be able to take them to the orthodontist.

Most of all, I'm not going to be afraid to not be cynical. I'm not afraid to look stupid in my optimism. I don't think it looks stupid.

I think a lot of people out there are afraid that if they aren't cynical, they look like idiots. Well, you're wrong. Cynicism is a defense mechanism for powerlessness. We're not powerless any more, can't you see that? We are the ones we've been waiting for.

And if we stay involved, stay active, stay vocal, let the Administration know what's important to us and why and how we think they should solve problems, we are powerful. We are the change, not Obama. President Obama gives us, is giving us right this minute--go over to the website and see it--the chance to be the change. Sure, it takes people in power to ask us to participate. If they don't let us, we can't do much. But the President is asking us, is encouraging us, to take the reins of power in our own hands and make America what we want her to be.

Let's roll.

Peace.