Bit by bit..
I’ve not been knitting much lately. There’ve been other things preoccupying my mind, or rather, things I was trying to avoid taking over my mind, and the usually welcome time to think that knitting allows was too much for awhile. However, things are settling, and it’s getting on into autumn, so I’ve found myself more willing lately to pick up the needles again.
Neither is truly color accurate, though the second is pr’bly closer than the first. This is a completed back of my second ever all-over cable sweater.
And (blurry, sorry) how far I’ve gotten on the front. The pattern goes pretty quickly all things considered, I just have less time to knit so we’ll see how long it takes to finish the front.
What a weekend!
Whew! *grin* Mom and dad were here this weekend. (All photos in this post are clickable thumbnails.)
What used to be the den is now the guest bedroom and a most lovely and delightful shade of blue.
Painting finished, but clean-up still in progress.
Furnished.
I *love* it.. it’s so immediately peaceful to walk into that room now it’s a little astonishing. The closet in that room has been cleaned out and the various and random detritus that was in it now either has homes or will shortly. The air conditioner is out of the window and stashed safely in said closet. This room still needs a chair and some stuff for the walls, but otherwise, it’s “finished”.
What used to be the guest bedroom/craft room is now just a craft room and has been sorted and organized. It still needs work to be functional, but it’s decidedly closer to it than it has been for quite some time.
This is going to be the hardest upstairs room to finish up, mostly because it’s in the worst shape – the walls were never properly primed (in the whole house), so the paint has bubbled and chipped over time; previous owners apparently decided that simply painting over the bubbles and chips were best, so there’s quite a bit of clean up.
It’s hard to see in these pictures, at least on my laptop, but it’s quite a mess.
Additionally, we suspect that at some point the roof leaked and caused a fair amount of water damage to the ceiling in that room (and also to the floor because there’s a piece of the hardwood floor that was cut out and “repaired” with a plain board). When they “repaired” the ceiling, they nailed up plasterboard, but didn’t do a good job of spackling the seams, so it’s a lumpy, ugly mess.
But, on to what we did this weekend instead of dwelling on what still needs to be done!
Last night, the wall running down the stairs looked like this..
Yes, it was a light mauve.
But it’s now a most delicious dark cranberry red. *grin*
(The mauve was the primer, which I’d actually have preferred were darker to begin with because it was far too light to really be *that* much of an improvement over the white.) I could not be happier with how it turned out, though – I’ve wanted a red wall like that in my house for a very long time, but was worried that it would immediately shrink any room, so using it as the accent color down the stairs is perfect, especially as it complements the stair runner we put in some time ago quite well. The red was a pain – going from a white wall to red is notoriously difficult – and it *might* need a third coat, but as the second coat is still drying and I need my (taller, longer armed) father to do the top of the wall above the window, it’s good enough for now (unless, of course, you take a full flash photograph of it).
I also love that standing at the top of the stairs, the room colors flow very well – the sagey green in the bedroom to the lavender in the bathroom to the blue in the guest bedroom.
Similarly, standing at the bathroom door, the sagey green from the bedroom flows very well to the red of the stair way wall.
Hard to see the bedroom color in this picture because the door is in the way.. sorry!
And speaking of the bedroom, in clearing out the used-to-be-den to prep for painting, I put the small dresser that was in there in the bedroom underneath the prints. I’ve decided I like it so much, it’s staying there!
Sorry for the flashback on the semi-gloss paint!
My desk has moved down stairs into the living room (by rights this happened last week sometime) and the Bowflex has been disassembled and is stored in the basement until I can find someone who wants to buy it or a charity to whom it could be donated (preferably after the first of the year if the latter). The hutch that used to sit behind the television is on it’s way north with mom and dad because they have a Goodwill that will still take furniture. My desk is in the far corner where the Bowflex used to be, so that while sitting at it, I can see out the large front window and if I turn, can see out the side window into the neighbor’s backyard. The view from both is blowing snow at the moment, but I’m trying not to dwell on that. *smile*
My fridge and freezer are also now well stocked for winter. Dad brought me Firesides from Pine Tree Apple Orchard (and apple donuts, but we ate all those while they were here). Mom made cream of wild rice soup for lunch yesterday and left me with four healthy(?!) servings individually frozen. We made up the ham that was in the freezer for dinner last night, with a big batch of cheesy potatoes, so I have ham in 1-2 serving packages, some suitable for sandwiches, some thicker that are suitable for frying for breakfast, and some diced/cubed suitable for throwing in soups and stews *and* 6 or 8 individually wrapped servings of cheesy potatoes. Mom also gave me her recipe for ham and bean soup, and we started a batch this morning (well, last night really since we soaked the beans overnight) with the ham bone from dinner and another ham bone I had in the freezer. It smells delicious and once I fry up some bacon to throw into it and season it a bit, I’m sure it will be a very satisfying dinner. The leftovers – of which there will be many – will get frozen for enjoyment on some of the many truly snowy days to come.
Vocabulary, redux: Bravery.
So.. Eilidh asked if she could get the “brave” link privately; the answer is no. And in thinking about how to explain that, it occurred to me that I pr’bly would need to expound a bit on bravery and how I think about it.
Many people think of bravery as it relates to public acts – a firefighter rescuing a child from a burning home, police risking themselves to save a hostage – and further, acts of putting oneself in some form of danger for the sake of saving someone else. Someone is brave if they face danger or fear to accomplish something seen as good. Bravery is usually something bestowed – an attribute awarded to someone by another – or something we steel ourselves to be – “I have to be brave and face this thing I’m afraid of”. It’s a shield, given either in recognition of an act or in preparation for one. It’s something reserved for extraordinary times and extraordinary measures.
I think of bravery on a more daily and personal level. We all have demons and ghosts, “bad” habits, negative internal monologues, things we do every day that we take a deep breath before. On a daily basis, we are all at some point called upon by ourselves to be our own kind of brave. Bravery is rarely extraordinary in my eyes, but rather necessary for our survival. But it seems that to make it so commonplace is to diminish the grandeur and importance, the necessary courage to stand up to ourselves and our fears. These acts of daily bravery, though, take far more courage and sustained strength than most single acts that are more publicly lauded. Like those public acts, they therefore also deserve recognition.
Most of us, for our own sanity, have created pathways through our days that don’t require us to face our really big demons regularly. But sometimes, something happens and the day-to-day, remarkable bravery we all rely on is called on to take on one or more of those really big demons. Sometimes, the something that happens means we need to take on that demon every minute of every day until we vanquish it.. at least for now. This kind of bravery is how we grow as people, it’s how we break through the walls we’ve built to protect us, it’s how we learn to see the amazing beauty and possibility in the world around us.
This last example is the flavor of brave I was thinking of, but because such battles are so often fought behind closed doors, I don’t feel it’s my place to reveal the specific person of whom I was thinking. However, because we so rarely label ourselves brave, I wanted to acknowledge in some way the battles it seems so many of us are undertaking and provide the shield – either of recognition or protection, or both as needed – for my friends.
Blog Action Day – Poverty.
I’m not really sure where to begin. Links are easiest and there are half a million good ones out there – Flowing Data’s map of Poverty in the US, the Girl Effect, the ONE campaign, and more and more and more.
I’m privileged, in lots of senses of that word. I’ve never lived in poverty. I’ve always had health insurance, I’ve always had plenty of food, the heat in my home has never been turned off during the winter, I’ve never had to spend hours on public transportation just to get the day to day things that must be done accomplished, or had to rise in the wee hours of the morning, just scant hours after going to sleep, just to be able to keep doing it again and again.
It’s easy to believe we’re strong and powerful when we wake up every morning in warm bedding, walk down the hall to a shower with clean water, while our electric coffee makers brew, our minds already on the challenges of family and work for the day. We don’t have to take the time to think about any of the millions of people who wake up in a shelter, stand in line for a space in a public bathroom, jostle through a line for what breakfast there might be before walking or, if they’re lucky, taking a bus to work. We don’t have to think about the families who worry not only about getting their kids to school, but also about having to pack everything they own into bundles they can carry because they can’t stay in the shelter during the day and they certainly can’t leave things there.
Abject poverty is somehow easier, both to imagine and feel outraged about and to ignore. The working poor, the two-income families without homes, are harder. The Protestant Work Ethic is strong in this country; we believe as a matter of course that hard work is rewarded. It’s ingrained in our policies – think about the differences between Medicare, available to retirees who have worked to earn those benefits, and Medicaid, often derided as “welfare” and “charity”. It’s inherent in our capitalist economy – work gets you money which gets you power and status and privilege. Our public schools are based in a system that perpetuates the idea that only if can afford to live in neighborhood with other people who earn “good money” do your children deserve the best education.
So, in a country where hard work is supposed to save you, the idea that there are an increasing number of working poor is anathema. From that follows the belief, admitted or not, that if you’re poor, it must be because you aren’t working *hard enough*; that you somehow don’t deserve basic security. You may not believe that. I may not. But enough people in this country do, at least enough to stand mute if not to actively oppose changes that would provide a safety net for the poor.
Maybe, through the attention of thousands of people on one day, we can begin to change that. That’s my hope for today.
Vocabulary.
Hoax. Unfortunately. *smile*
Brave. I’d provide a link, but it would lead to questions that I won’t answer in a public forum. Suffice it to say for now that I have the privilege of friendship from some truly amazing (even if dreadful ;P) women, many of whom are pillars of strength and heroes without knowing it.
Are you a Budget Hero?
Not as good as I wanted, but an interesting exercise, if a bit limited in how much you can actually manipulate things.
Waxing historic..
There’s a bit going around in LiveJournal, and likely other social networking sites, in response to Sarah Palin’s apparent ignorance – though really, that assumption rankles me in a way I can’t quite describe because there are very few people I know who wouldn’t freeze under the kind of scrutiny and pressure Sarah Palin has been and is under, or who may know the doctrines of important cases without knowing their actual parties – of important Supreme Court cases other than Roe v. Wade. As stated, I dislike the reason for the meme, but given that I did have a focus on US Constitutional government in my undergrad, this is a fun little delve into a topic in which I still am actually quite interested. And because most people can get the better known ones (Brown v. Board of Ed, Tinker v. Des Moines, etc.), I’ll try to hit a couple that seem to get lost a bit more easily in the detritus of your average public school education.
Bowers v. Hardwick – often cited as a “right to privacy” case in which a man engaging in consensual oral sex with another man in the privacy of his own home was arrested and prosecuted under Georgia’s sodomy law. For what it’s worth, there is no constitutional “right to privacy”, though it’s a rather fascinating bit of legal and social rhetoric to follow the progression over time that has contributed to the *belief* that there is. I recommend Ellen Alderman & Caroline Kennedy’s book The Right to Privacy to anyone who would like an introduction to the doctrine, though there are likely other more recent publications that include more recent decisions.
Marbury v. Madison – *the* case in which the Court established its right to rule on the constitutionality of legislation. The actual content of the case is more or less immaterial (though still interesting); what makes this a landmark case is that it’s the first time the Court asserted its right to paticipate in the balance of the three branches of the Federal government by striking down laws passed by Congress and signed by the President. To modern Americans, judicial review is unremarkable and we’re taught that it was in fact intended by the Founding Fathers, but it wasn’t until nearly 30 years *after* the Constitution was ratified that the Court established its right.
