- Be it resolved ...

I have an on-again off-again thing about New Year's resolutions. In the past, I made predictable resolutions to eat better, lose weight, exercise, etc. etc. which resulted in failure more often than success ... the resolutions abandoned, most forgotten mere weeks into the new year.

And once upon a time, I also made New Year's predictions ... at the annual party hosted by Barb and Ray Laroche, where we would all read our predictions from the previous New Year's Eve, then write new ones for the upcoming year. The one I  love to recall was from 1992, when we were all prompted to write down who we thought would be elected in November. My prediction that it would be Bill Clinton was met the following New Year's Eve with exclamations of "Who even knew who he was this time last year?" I was a rock star. Unfortunately, every prediction I made after that one was an absolute, totally forgettable let down.

Still, there's something about the new year that begs for my attention, a yearning to find my better self. So a couple of years ago I decided to try one-word resolutions ... clear, simple, memorable, accountable.

In 2013 I resolved to Create which resulted in ...

A return to stitching ...

A first attempt at cloth book-making

Re-imagined placemats

Plus lots ...

and lots of bibs and burp cloths ...

There were also a number of wood and metalworking collaborations with Don ...

Flying fish ...

A funky whale ...

 

Birth flags ...

A Chesapeake skipjack for a dear friend

And a reimagined construction site 2x4 honoring a new home

There was more, but much of it went undocumented, leaving a gaping hole in the 2013 blog archive.

In 2014 I resolved to Blog ... which got off to a slow start, quite honestly. After a lone post in early January, I dropped the blog-ball big time. Then it happened. On March 9, 2014 I discovered that my blog had been accruing thousands of hits on the Rain Chain post from 2012, mostly from Pinterest links. Who knew?!?!

It was just the motivation I needed to get blogging again. And blog I did, as you can see from the chronological BLOG ARCHIVE to the right. However, after the initial rush of enthusiasm and a mini-spate of posts, I once again lost heart ... most of the hits on the blog continued to be rain chain views. What was the point of blogging if no one was reading?

Fortunately, the story has a happy ending thanks to Jude Hill's Spirit Cloth. After discovering the concept of slow cloth (via Pinterest) I read Jude's entire blog from 2006 to present, then signed up for two of her online classes. Spirit Cloth 101 gave me to a new way of looking at cloth-making, but the solstice-to-equinox journey through Considering Weave gave me a new community within which to make it.

When Considering Weave ended in September, I was determined to maintain connections to my newfound cloth-mates. More and more my posts were directed to them as an audience and as I visited their blogs, I belatedly realized that some of them had links from their blogs to mine. Inspired, I created my own  KINDRED SPIRITS links, with which I now follow the latest missives from the blogosphere.

The conversations that have resulted from these interconnections are sometimes hard to follow (where did I post that comment?) and some revelations have sidetracked into private emails. But there's no question that I am now a part of a very real community. There have been shared experiences, such as the post about it's only RAIN that led Saskia to a Mystiqueros concert in the Netherlands.

And our home is now enriched with pieces of work from Jude ...

 
and Grace ...

and Mo ...

                         

More to the point, the friendships that have been forged encircle the globe, enriching our spirits ... because the truth is that Don has become a steady, if stealthy, reader.

Thus it was clear, as I updated my profile yet again, that my focus has shifted over the life of the blog from cooking to crafting to stitching (a term I now prefer to "needleworking" which sounds a bit too much like ... well, work). I have come full-circle to where my creative life began.

For 2015 I hereby resolve to Stitch ... and to share the journey by creating and blogging (almost) every step of the way. I hope you'll join me.

- The way we were

Christmas decorations always bring to mind the church where we were wed, which was redolent with pine ...

An old kerosene lamp from my mom's summer house in the Catskills
and a hallway mirror found by my folks at an antique show
bedecked each year with boughs and bells

37 years ago Don and I said a midwinter "I do" ... and this time around we'll mark the occasion by grandparenting for the next ten days (which may cut into my blogging time a bit). I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

- These are a few of my favorite things: The (creative) year in review

It's been a fun year ... easier to review because I've actually kept track for the most part. So here in chronological order (because I can't possible rank them) are a few of my favorite things ...

The continuation of ...

 the family sampler ...

My first (and probably only) attempt at mixed media collage ...

New paths around the house ...

Don's folk art fish and whale ...

The Homestead kitchen towel before the trees were added ...

A torn and tattered heart from Considering Weave ...

Plus a most unorthodox "loom" from the same ...

 Don's Beach or Mountains? assemblage ...

Crafting for a new grandchild ...

Weaving inserts for a pair of pants ...

Adding poetry to a kantha stitched top ...

Sewing/Sowing a peace flag for the Solace Project ...

Trying dyeing ...

Don's impressions of  New Mexico, going once ...

Twice ...

Three times ...

Exploring the utility of boro/kantha ...

and the joy of hand-lettering ...

Finally becoming the hippie I always wanted to be ...

and coining my own phrase for a change ...

Last, but not least, stitching a lullaby (not yet complete, so there will be something left to show in the new year) ...

- Mondegreens deliver us from eagles ...

I woke up with Kevin Welch singing ... too old to die young ... in my head. It's a cold, grey day, rain falling (a good thing), but I'm already pondering how I might stretch the food in the meagerly-stocked fridge until tomorrow. I'd rather stitch than drive ...

So this old world must still be spinning 'round ...

But what I really want to say is I'm still on a thought-train about hearing (see yesterday's post on My own personal soundtrack, which links to the previous day's post about peace-full music). Because even though I usually have the musical part of my personal soundtrack down pretty well, I'm pretty shaky when it comes to the lyrics. Which leads me to mondegreens ... the auditory equivalent of DYAC (which I like, strangely enough ... because I'm usually not big on four-letter words, but somehow find their unintentional use hilarious ... I'm sure therapy is in order here).

Side note: I have been asked repeatedly not to read Damn You Auto Correct in Don's presence since he finds my spontaneous bursts of laughter a tad bit disconcerting ... so of course, now I'm reading the DYAC link and Don is saying, "What are you reading?" to which I reply, tears in my eyes, "Damn You Auto Cucumber."

Ah well, you had to be there ...

Anyway, back to mondegreens, which are misheard or misinterpreted words and phrases ... that is to say, a large part of my life. The classic example (in addition to the many good ones in the Wikipedia article link above) is my memory of saying the Lord's Prayer in Sunday School at St. Andrew's in Williston Park, earnestly praying to "deliver us from eagles." The more mundane examples pertain to my misunderstanding normal everyday speech, substituting what I expect to hear for the speaker's intention ... which can make for some very puzzled looks. Add to that my all-too-frequent question to Don, "What did you say?" to which he usually responds, "I was singing."

Yes, well ... as I said, that's my life.

Are you smiling to yourself? Do you have one better? Please comment and share your favorite mondegreen(s) below, because I love to laugh.

... da da da dum ... da da da dum ... the opening bar of Beethoven's Fifth ... time to change my hearing aid batteries.

- My own personal soundtrack

When I referred to hearing music in my head yesterday, I was speaking literally, not metaphorically. And wanting to explain to you how that could be, I googled "NPR musical hallucinations." After picking through a few of the entries, I found the radio broadcast entitled Pop Music that I first heard a couple of years ago.

I remember the broadcast vividly ... I was driving through the Hill Country, my radio tuned to NPR, the car winding down Ranch Road 170 in Driftwood, listening to the story of a man who heard music in his head and thought he was going crazy.

I hear music in my head all the time ... not always the words, since lyrics usually escape me unless I make a concerted effort to learn them by rote ... but music, always, almost every minute of every day ... music.

So I listened to the story of the man and of others who have "musical hallucinations" and the talking heads on the radio said, "They're not crazy ... there's nothing wrong with them ... there is a pathway between the ears and the brain that can run both ways ... [and someone theorized] if the sound from the outside stopped, there would be a backflow ... most of the people who have musical hallucinations have one thing in common ... "

And as I drove past La Ventana (the window) I shouted out loud, "They're deaf!"

"They're deaf," echoed the radio.

As am I ... at least virtually so, since I now wear hearing aids that go a long way toward remedying my genetically-inherited deafness.

It makes for an interesting life ... all we are saying, is give peace a chance ...

- On the second day of Christmas: The sounds of war and peace

This is my stitching nest ...

where I get to look out the window at the sun and moon rises (although the clouds will obscure that today) ... where Jude's September Window rests by my elbow ... where my latest projects and flosses and bits of cloth overflow the ottoman ... where my coffee cup with its Grace diamond slowly cools. 

And through it all, my ever-patient spouse is uncomplaining, though he is a most orderly lover of order. Lucky me ...

This year I did not finish all the Christmas presents on time ...

And that's okay ... the little grandpeople are still too young to be slaves to the world's calendar. Their books will be done in good time, the right time for them.

Right now I am stitching the words to James Taylor's You Can Close Your Eyes. I've decided that I most enjoy using a simple backstitch with a single strand of floss worked over two layers of cloth ... for now. The song, the lullaby that I sang to my girls, has been running through my head as I stitch each letter.

But this morning it was replaced with the bittersweet Soldiers, with the words not quite right, but as I remembered them ... 

Just nine lucky soldiers had come through the night

Half of them wounded and barely alive

Just 9 out of twenty were headed for home

With 11 sad stories to tell

I remember quite clearly when I got out of bed

I said "Oh good morning what a beautiful day"

Perhaps it was because of the recent news reports about the 1914 Christmas cease fire ... more likely because my mind has been chewing on The Interview ... comparing it unfavorably with the two anti-Vietnam war movies that made their point far more subtly than satirizing the assassination of a real person, however ridiculous that person might be.

I am speaking, of course, about M*A*S*H which made its point from the vantage of the Korean War (how ironic I realize as I write this) and The King of Hearts, from the even more remote World War I (really, I didn't realize how interconnected all these ponderings were).

And that made me think of September 11 ... how for the briefest time there was a unity of understanding about civility and the inappropriateness of coarse, insensitive humor at the expense of others. There were no jokes about the towers ... movie openings were cancelled for so-called action films ... people were kinder, gentler to each other.

Until they/we weren't ... how easily we slipped back into the swaggering jingoism ... the self-justification ... the self-righteousness that refuses to see how actions affect others ... that lead so insidiously to war.

So now I'm thinking of Mark Twain's War Prayer ... and the song that is playing in my head is Blowin' in the Wind.

I bid you peace and hope for Solace ...

- Together in spirit: All roads lead to the beach

I'm thinking it's safe to post this now that Christmas presents have probably been opened in Virginia. Heather has long given me kitchen towels, which I love because I think of her every time I use them. So I decided it was high time to return the favor. 

My latest in the Kitchen Towel Series traces the roads-as-the-crow-flies from St Louis (note the arch), Austin (lone star), and Williamsburg (Virginia is for lovers) to the Outer Banks of North Carolina ...

                        

It was worked on the same green tablecloth linen that I have used before, 

backed with two layers of harem cloth, stitched and quilted with floss ...

And the lines are actual latitudes and longitudes (2 degrees per line), 

the state lines drawn in by hand (with wonderful inaccuracy) ...

- 'Twas the night before Christmas

For many years we read John Denver's Alfie the Christmas Tree with our girls on Christmas Eve, which ends with ...

So in your Christmas prayers this year
Alfie asked me if I'd ask you:
Say a prayer for the wind and the water and the wood
And those who live there, too

after which we would all go outside and scatter seeds for the critters.

Last year the tradition extended to the next generation with an adaptation entitled Alfie the Texas Christmas Tree. I hope the grands are reading it tonight ...

Meliss, Jackson, Griffin, and Meg

But this year, Don and I are spending Christmas Eve on the homestead, so earlier today I put food out at the critter feeding station (aka the compost heap). Then I walked the property, looking at the amazing transformation wrought by two days of work by trained arborists. This is one example of the results ...

compared to all the deadwood before ...

The crew from Bartlett filled three trucks with wood chips, which they left behind so we can create more paths. This is the view looking toward the house of what I was able to do today ...

and here's the same section with a view out to the floodplain ...

There's also a large pile out by the west trail that we had abandoned after the Halloween flood last year ... 

Now we'll be able to fill in the deep gaps between the rocks and make the trail passable again ...

Not our usual Christmas Eve, but with a cool breeze and crystalline blue skies, it was a gift from the universe, gratefully received.

With best wishes to all for a peaceful holy-day ...