The Wayfaring Wordhack

 

I haven't been settled, mentally, since coming back to Lebanon.  We are *still* looking for a new apartment, and J is starting to want to look farther afield of our current village.  I am still hanging on to the hope of finding something here.  We haven't heard back from Crazy-Lady-with-Garden, and I guess she probably doesn't want us...or rather our too-little money.  I still want her garden, though.  

Of all the darnedest things, for the past few days, my mind has been returning to a house we had made an offer on while still living in Egypt.  I had drawn architectural-like plans (no, not my job, but I was pretty proud of what had I done) for the real-estate agent to use to get some estimates for us from tradespeople.  We sent him the plans and never heard back.   J likes to joke that the man liked the plans and vision so much, he decided to buy and renovate the place for himself (he told us about his "houses" and how he bought and sold them regularly).  Like I said, of all things, why in the world is my mind turning over this old affair that is so much water under the bridge?  

I must say, I would prefer a more productive mulling over and rehashing.  It is probably goaded by the fact that our future is up in the air about where we will settle after the Lebanon stint.  Still many years in the future, but obviously, there is no explaining my mind. If you have theories, though, I would be happy to entertain them.  Also up for solutions to shut up the useless mental chatter.

That is one of my tags here on my blog, and I really like looking back on the projects I have completed and thus tagged.  Today I browsed through them looking for a photo of the hooded jacket I made for Farmer Boy when he was a wee lad (I had forgotten what an absolute pain that was to make. I complained copiously about the hard-to-follow pattern and see my links to it no longer go to the right page; I was not the only one to remark on its lack of clarity).

Anyhow, I went looking for that project to show a friend a picture of the only garment I have ever crocheted because I am getting ready to make a cardigan for myself, and from the way I was talking it about it, she thought I was an experienced garment maker.  Sadly, not so.

The one I am going to attempt for myself is this one.  I hope it is as easy as the designer says it is.  I really like the colorway that the model is wearing, but unfortunately it was sold out.  I picked "chai latte" instead, and I hope it isn't too pale.

I shall commence soon for the weather, she is a-changing.

We could go with:  "Ti'Loup's Crocheted Baby Blanket, Five Year's Coming,"  OR "Well-Traveled Yarn," OR "Better Late Than Never"  OR "Ça Tombe à Pic"*

For each of my babies, I made at least one blanket, and I wanted them all to have one I crocheted.  I so loved Farmer Boy's blanket, featured here (hello, old Egyptian apartment!): 


that I wanted to reproduce the color-scheme for Ti'Loup.  These two boys were born 26 months apart (and their yarn bought in two different countries), so I was unable to get the exact weights and colors.  I had decided on a ripple pattern for Ti'Loup, but I did not get farther than half of the starting chain while we were in Egypt.   Yes, we did leave that country when Ti'Loup was 14 months old; why do you ask? :P  What, you don't think he was still a baby? ;)

So, international move, settling into a new home, farm life, et al, and the yarn was stuffed away in the craft room after only a few stitches added to the chain.  When, over four years later, we moved again, here to Lebanon, I re-packed all that yarn into our suitcases, justifying its presence because of how nicely it filled the empty spaces, firmly lodging our other belongings, aka necessities.  Oh, and because Ti'Loup was no longer an infant and I knew I needed the blanket to be a bit bigger if it was to be of any use to him, I also added any other yarn that might fit the color scheme and buy me a few extra rows.  Mixed bag of yarn in hand, I set out to find a pattern that would play nice with all the factors I was having to juggle for cohesiveness.  I settled on this rainbow baby blanket sampler.

In true me style, I decided upon arriving here that the Most Pressing Thing To Do was finish the dratted patiently-awaited blanket.  After many hours of crocheting, and a couple more of ripping out over 20 rows and re-doing them because I had inadvertently added stitches, we have a blanket!  It might be missing the pattern's border (yeah, don't have enough yarn to do that), but it is a bona fide usable, cuddle-worthy, cozy-making, memory-building blanket.

Sorry for the fuzziness; I zoomed to take the photo from the landing on the floor above:
  

And one with the not-so-little happy owner:


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* "In the Nick of Time" or "This is Timely" or "It's Opportune", take your translation pick, whichever conveys to you that it is freezing here in Lebanon and a lap blanket is a wonderfully useful thing to have about one's self.  

I am a little weary of starting all my posts feeling like I only come around after things have passed, after I have moved past or through something; but in the thick of it, I don't have the time or the energy. Still, I feel a need to record things for myself, for those who come after.

I have gone through a rough patch physically and emotionally of late. It began with me sleeping poorly. I injured my knee, and that led to many nights of poor sleep. Then of course, I caught a nasty chest thing, meaning more lost sleep. Then at the end of May, my family was finally ready to do a memorial for my mom, who died last March, and asked me to take care of the video, which, while it didn't really cut into my sleep, it did put me in a raw place, feelings-wise.  

Two days after the memorial, my aunt (only 14 years older than I) was found dead in her bed. She hadn't gone to the service, and because my family is often at odds with one another, no one really worried about it. I still don't know why or how she died. If anyone knows more, they have yet to tell me. Death is never nice, but the bitterness, ugliness, and accusations that spewed forth at my aunt's passing were shocking and not at all what I expected when I called to comfort my family.

So my over-tired self was hit with a lot of emotional turmoil, and while on the road, coming home from church (an hour's drive) I ended up having a migraine with scary neurological side-effects that had J calling for help and me getting driven off in an ambulance. Doctor's orders have been take magnesium and rest, so that is what I have been trying to do between the gardening, parenting, and general homesteading. Thankfully J was around during the worst of it. Today, he has taken the kids to spend a week with his mom, giving me a much-needed break. Now if only I didn't have to contend with the allergies that the season has brought me. Have I said that I am one tired chica? Let it be said then: I am one tired chica.

My plan this week is to get lots of downtime, do some reading, do some cleaning (now, don't chide: I really need to take care of some stuff to feel well in head and body), watch a movie or two, potter in the garden, maybe draw (I don't know that I have writing in me right now), and not do any more than I have to.

In other news, one of our May-born pullets disappeared without a trace, but on the same day, we had six new chicks hatch. I have given a momma duck some chick eggs to hatch (last chance for her to be a surrogate mom if it doesn't go well this time) because I felt so rotten at having made her abandon her own clutch last month.  Also, the momma hen that hatched out our first chicks of the season has gone broody again.  Maybe we will have more luck than last year.

Kids and first chicks:


Ti'Loup doesn't quite have the hang of holding chicks yet:



Doesn't Farmer Boy have the perfect farm hands? :P
 


Gardening photos and other news to follow. I hope.

Not a fun morning; an admin morning.

I had to renew my passport and after toting a God-awful passport photo for the past ten years, I was determined to have a better one this time around. So, J and I spent HOURS on it. No, not trying to make me look better or Photoshop me...just to do the shot, select one, make website formatting tools play nice, and get our printer to work. After wasting sheets of photo paper and buckets of ink, I showed up to my appt with several options, size-wise.  Only to be told that they would not accept my background, which was white with a faint bluish cast, even though the "rules" state that off-white is fine. Argh. So I had to go across the street and have another taken, in which I look just as tired as the whole process makes me feel and all washed out to boot, thanks to wearing a white blouse.  

I was asked to bring along "proof" of my citizenship, just in case. And spent more HOURS looking for said proof yesterday, only not to be asked for anything at all. ( I had sorted all these papers into a special pile, and then, in the move-house frenzy, packed them, instead of refiling them.)

Thank goodness I only have to do this every ten years.

And the lesson of the day: Stick to my guns and only take a taxi with a meter. On the way to the consulate, I ended up accepting a ride with no meter, agreeing to pay 40 LE because J told me that was a good rate.  On the way back, we held out for a meter and only paid 20. o.O

Second lesson: If there are no signs saying which line you should be in, ask. Even if there is only one line.  I stood in the "wrong" line for 30 minutes. I actually had a feeling it was the wrong line but did not make a move earlier because I was waiting on J and didn't want to go inside without him since a) I had his passport, b) phones have to be off once inside. When the time for my appt arrived, however, and I was only five steps closer (out of about 30 more) to the door, I did jump the line and got to go directly inside.  I did not appreciate the slight smirk of the man at the barrier which seemed to say that he knew I was in the wrong place and could have done something about it.

I did get to see something unusual on the taxi ride this morning: A motorcycle passenger sitting sidesaddle, his ankle swathed in bandages, carrying his own foldable wheelchair.

Why is it that any time I make a plan, I can be sure something will come along to scuttle it?

Four days ago, I started on my quest to write early mornings. Since then, I've succeeded exactly 1.5 times. The first day I already wrote about. The second morning was a wash because Junebug had a fever* that kept both of us up late, so I was too tired to get out of bed early. The third morning was better, the most successful of them all, and a good indication of how things might go if I can ever get on a roll with this plan.

This morning was a no-go, again due to interrupted sleep: Sprout waking me because she was thirsty and then repeatedly dealing with Junebug's fever.

I have managed to finish chapters one and two and quite like the flow between them. Now I'm starting on chapter three, which is the block I just couldn't get past last time I was writing.  This time around, I'm just going to keep writing until I hit upon something I like. If I write thousands of throw-away words in the meantime, so be it.

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* It doesn't seem to be anything serious, just teething

Some friends of ours went to Wadi el Hitan yesterday and filled us in on their visit.  Apparentlly, now is not the moment to go.  Not because of the weather but because of security measures put into effect following terrorist threats. We already put off another trip to Fayoum at Thanksgiving because of scheduled protests.

While our friends didn't feel targeted or unsafe, they were obliged to have a police* escort everywhere they went.  Not exactly a restful way to spend a couple of days, so we are planning to go to Alexandria instead. Been here two years now and have yet to visit that famed delta city. With two young'uns in tow, now might not be the time either, but carpe diem...

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* Since police and military are usually the targets of terrorists here in Egypt, it seems pretty illogical--and even more dangerous, of course--to have them as an escort.

I did two things this week.

First, I played around with watercolors, using lots of different techniques.

Second, I realized the mistake in my previous thinking. I posted last week that I wanted to "retro-fit a background" onto my sketch. It occurred to me that retro-fitting is a recipe for disaster. I must not think of how to back up, if you will; I must think of a way to go forward if I want to make an organic whole.

So, this is the sketch as is:
Hopefully next week, I'll have mustered the courage to put brush or glue or whatever to it.