Letting Go

Hooray it's Thursday! Thursday is a good day of the week. Thursday is the Saturday of the work week. You get Saturday-Sunday then the weekend is done, but we also get Thursday-Friday and the work week is done! So in a way, Thursday is even better than Saturday. I put this theory to a co-worker, who asked me if I couldn't do something about Tuesday. Nope, Tuesday is beyond hope, I told him.

Luke and his friend seemed to have mended their fences, on the playground at least. We haven't seen the friend over this week. I'm not getting any further involved unless Luke asks me too.

I'm very proud of our little family. In spite of our difficulties, we have somehow managed to establish a relationship that includes negotiations. There were two incidents just this week. The boys were supposed to be doing chores, and Luke didn't want to sweep because he'd just done it yesterday. I suggested he vacuum instead and he readily agreed. The other incident was that he wanted to take a shower right away and I wanted him to do his chores first. But he calmly explained his reasons to me and so I agreed. And he did the chores later. I am hoping this bodes well for the upcoming teenage years.

After writing this, I see that a big part of it is me willing to let Luke decide how to do things for himself. I've given up some of my control in exchange for his willingness and pleasant attitude. A fair bargain in my eyes.

And this is where the knitting ties in. In my latest project, the marvelous mittens, Pattern 22 from Charlene Schurch's book, I didn't try to match up the grey self-striping yarn.

I didn't match up the stripes, nor the direction of the color gradients. I'll confess, one cuff is even longer than the other. That was sheer accident. And I like it.

I've sometimes been told that my knitting looks like it was done by a machine. A compliment to be sure, but not the effect I'm after. By not matching the colors, I hope I've increased the likely hood that someone will notice that these mittens were worked by hand. And part of this bargain of giving up on matching, is the mesmerizing way the colors lead the eye around. Letting go is really working for me these days....



By the way, I will be participating in the Heart and Stroke's Big Bike Ride. If you'd like to sponsor me there is a link in the side bar that will take you to my personal donation page. I'm not going to offer a prize or anything. I just think that if you want to, and can, then I will greatly appreciate your donation. Big thanks!