Today I was moved by a blog from Stephanie Pearl-McPhee over at Yarn Harlot. The story she tells explains why we knitters do what we do. I hope that every time someone puts on something I've knitted for them, they feel the way Stephanie's best friend does. Here's her story so you can read what I mean:

March 7, 2013
In Situ


On Friday morning before I got on a plane, I had gathered my knitting, and packed it, and was happy with my choices.  I put my luggage by the door. I called a cab.  Ken's Birthday was Sunday, but in a move I thought protected my sanity, I'd decided to skip the Birthday Socks tradition.  There was no time.  I was okay with it, but at the last minute, as I watched out the window for the taxi, a voice in the back of my head suggested that this was a bad move.  I don't know if that voice is guilt or instinct, but I know what comes from ignoring it, so I grabbed the yarn that I'd considered making his Birthday Socks from, along with some needles, and changed my plan entirely.  I knew that socks by Monday was pretty much impossible, but the voice thought that trying was worth it.

Ignore those needles. I swapped them out for ones that were in my bag after I discovered a gauge problem in the cab.  Now, I know that I can knit pretty quickly when I need to, but there's being able to knit quickly in the time you have, and then there's not really having a lot of time... and I tried to explain this to the voice. I tried to tell it that I was going to be busy the whole weekend. The voice said shut up and knit.  By the time I was waiting for my first flight, I had started.

By the time I'd landed in Montreal, I thought things were going pretty well.

Technically Ken's Birthday was Sunday, but I wasn't going to see him until Monday. That gave me Friday, Saturday, Sunday and half of Monday to finish, and that's a lot of time. If you ignore working, which I decided was best. I changed planes:

I kept knitting.  By the time I arrived in Boston, things swimming.

I knit backstage before I did my talk...

Forgive the bad shot. I was concentrating on the talk.  I knit after the talk, I knit a little with my breakfast, and then not at all through the day during class.  I did knit at the guild dinner that night though.  Everybody was.

That night I had a little talk with myself.  I had 3.5 days to knit a pair of socks, and I was not yet at the end of the first sock at the end of the second day, and anyone with a little intelligence can tell you that's a problem. Still... when I checked in with the voice, it said to keep going.   There wasn't much knitting the next day - but after class on my way to the airport, I hustled on it - and by the time I was waiting for my plane, I had one sock done. 

The voice and I had a chat again.  I pointed out that I was now seriously behind. That it was 7pm on Sunday, that I would see Ken in less than 24 hours, and that it might be time to quit. The voice was having none of it, and while I started the second sock I checked in with the internet - which is sort of the best way to stay on top of what's happening with my family while I'm in an airport. There I read that a member of Ken's family of choice had passed away over the weekend.  The voice resisted the urge to say "I told you it was a bad year to skip the socks."

I knit faster. On the plane, as I walked through the airport,

while I waited for my luggage.

On Monday, I was feeling pretty bummed. The sock wasn't done. There just wasn't enough time, and I decided to set it aside until after we had gathered for a family dinner that night.  Right then I got a text from Ken, and it said this:

  "Apparently I wear hand knits as emotional armour." 

I instantly knew what he meant. He was heading out into the world in the face of a hard day, and he had wrapped himself in his woollies - protection against all kinds of cold.  I do it all the time, choosing to wear something made by a friend as a talisman for luck or protection.  I thought about that, and I picked up the socks and started to knit again. I wasn't going to finish quite on time, but there was still value in it. More value than a clean kitchen, or whatever I was putting them down for.  I texted him back:

"That's what they're for. Portable love."

The socks weren't done in time for the dinner. He opened them unfinished, like a lot of his Birthday Socks in the past. 

It turned out not to matter that they weren't finished. It mattered that they were there.  The voice had known all along. Never skip the Birthday Socks.  Never.

Pattern: Plain Vanilla Socks from Knitting Rules  . Yarn: Hot Socks Nil, colour 25. Thanks to Sam for modelling. 

They're done now, and I won't be doubting my instincts again.  Sure, knitting is fun and entertaining, and it makes things that are warm and cozy, but mostly? 
Knitting is still the best container I know for love - especially when you give it to another knitter.

You are a goddess Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. You rock my socks!

Tonight, knitting group is meeting at my house, which means Sunday's goal of getting all the boxes unpacked and the house in order now has a deadline. By 7pm tonight I will have guests and the house WILL be in order. 

Step 1: Survey the damage:

Step 2: Clean. There's not much to report on this step, except that the house is, with the exception of the bedrooms and office, for the most part clean. There were a few hiccups when I realized the backyard was full of styrofoam from a dog bed my two lovely dogs decided to destroy. That delayed the cleaning of the house interior for a bit, while I got the yard straightened out. Then, of course, there was the Pandora's box I opened when I decided to straighten out my coupons which were spilling onto the kitchen table. That took more than an hour to sort out. After that, it was smooth sailing until I decided to put pictures up, which took a lot of time away from the actual cleaning, but ultimately resulted in a prettier end result.

Step 3: Enjoy!

Much better! 

Update on our new dog: As you can see from the photo above, he is slowly coming out of his shell and becoming more interested in family life. We've renamed him Tulo, which is short for something which means quiet. Even as he comes out of his shell, he is still quiet, though he does like to howl when we let him outside. It's quite cute.

We are having a few behavioral issues: peeing on random items, trying to chew things, digging great big holes in the backyard. The most concerning (and mildly amusing) problem is his penchant for peeing on our other dog featured in the above kitchen photo. She is the perfect size to fit right under him, which is adorable when they're wrestling, but less so when he raises his leg directly over her. We have a call into the PACA animal behavioralist. Hopefully she'll have some useful tips for us.

I never imagined I would wake up at 5am, jump out of bed with energy to spare, find a yard sale listing that included the word "KitchenAid," get dressed and run out the door to be one of those yard sale snipers. There are so many things wrong with that sentence. 

I arrived at the yard sale 45 minutes early and snapped up a KitchenAid K4-B made sometime between the early 1940s and 1960s for $40. It may be old and rather ugly, but it works like a charm. I'm going to purchase a dough attachment for it; this model was made before KitchenAids came with one. Once I do that, I'll be able to make the delicious bread my husband and I love so much without kneading it for 45 minutes!

I also found this book case for $5. It's not exactly the solution I was looking for when I went in search of organization for my craft supplies. But, it was hard to turn down for the price and its good condition. With a few more containers and more organization, I think it will work out quite nicely.

Nothing like a good yard sale bargain to get me excited about unpacking again. Erik and I have reached that place in the unpacking process where all the things we need/use every day are unpacked and what's left is items we use only rarely or not at all. As a result, not much unpacking has been accomplished in the last couple of weeks.

Sense would tell me that the items we use not at all are items we need not have at all, but that's much easier said than done as I'm sure you know. I have managed at least to start a garage sale box of my own, but it's rather pathetic and not worth showing. 

My goal this week, get rid of all the remaining boxes!

It has been a very eventful weekend. The (most likely) newest addition to my family arrived yesterday. He is a beautiful American Eskimo rescue dog currently named Enzo that was sadly mistreated by his former owner. He's been in a foster home for the last month, but I'm afraid he wasn't very well treated. I took him to the groomer yesterday do have his fur thinned out a bit, cleaned, and generally pampered. I was afraid that he hadn't been groomed in quite sometime and this was confirmed when I went back to pick him up and found out they had shaved off ALL his hair. Turns out, when they tried to use a clipper the groomer couldn't get it through his hair because his undercoat was so matted from not being groomed in such a long time. The only way they could get his fur sorted out was to shave him almost to the skin. This is what American Eskimo's are supposed to look like:

Enzo looked something like this when we got him, though his hair was way overgrown, very busy, dirty, and generally out of control. This is what he looks like now:

He's all uneven and tufty, my patchy Eskimo. I can't get a better picture of him because he's a little skittish still. He only stands still long enough for a picture when he's letting me pet him. If I call his name he runs in the opposite direction, he only comes when he wants to or if I'm petting our other dog, Koda.

This is the best picture I can get of her because every time I break out the camera/camera phone she gets up and runs away. I have to take them when she's not looking, so you can't see her adorable face. 

Luckily, the two dogs seem to get along pretty well, though they don't seem to have too much interest in each other. Right now one is laying on the couch and the other is laying behind the love seat. The comfortable pillow bed I bought lays empty in the middle of the living room floor. I should have known better. 

We're giving Enzo a trial run, hoping that he fits with Koda and our lifestyle. Koda has serious separation anxiety issues and can't be left alone in the house without peeing, pooping, or tearing something to bits. The reason we decided to adopt another dog in the first place was to help Koda with her anxiety and hopefully provide her with a playmate too.

I think maybe they had a little too much fun playing in the backyard while we were out today. They were both filthy when I get home and there was a great big hole in the dirt of the backyard. I just hope they didn't damage the sprinkler lines.

Look! He found the dog bed. Woohoo!

Well, there was more this weekend. But it's time to do other things. More tomorrow.

Jason, on the left, and deMarco, on the right. This photo makes them look way more posh than is necessary, though they really are that beautiful. They definitely have faces to match their voices. Keep reading to learn more about them and their Celebrating Families of Diversity tour.

Come see them tonight at the N4th Theatre in Albuquerque, NM at 7pm. Online ticket sales are now closed, but tickets will be sold at the door. Come early before it's sold out!

I went to a concert at a local church last night, Unity Spiritual Center, and saw a beautiful duo called Jason & deMarco perform. I first met these two in Winter Park, Colorado at a retreat they were leading for a youth movement I was involved with at the time. They are kind, warm, open people and we instantly became friends. Jason, the more lively of the two, just about bursts with enthusiasm in everything he does and for everyone he meets. His partner, deMarco, has a more quiet enthusiasm about him, but is just as friendly, inspiring, and talented as Jason. You can read their factual bio on their website, jasonanddemarco.com, or on wikipedia, but the real story is far more interesting.

Jason's family started going to a Pentecostal church when he was 14, right around the time he began to realize he was gay. He went to a Pentecostal college and was an up and coming evangelical Christian music star when he finally came out to the world. He lost everything and we homeless for a short time. At his concert, he tells amusing anecdotes about his teenage years, how is parents thought he was in love with Olivia Newton John, and others about how he got back on his feet. He doesn't tell the stories about all the pain and struggle he must have endured during those years as well. Besides Jason's angelic voice, the most amazing thing about him and his story, are his parents sitting in the back row of every concert, supporting Jason and deMarco and their two beautiful twin boys as they tour the country spreading a message of love, inclusion, and one human family. 

Less is known about deMarco's own Canadian youth, but he enters the scene in his early twenties having moved to LA to pursue acting or music or something theatre related. Dating a woman at the time, he heard Jason's voice play over the speaker at a restaurant where he was working and it seems, fell in love right then and there. Jason walked into that restaurant a few weeks later and it wasn't long before they became partners on and off the stage. 

There is much to their story that I'm leaving out, but the next big thing is their beautiful twin boys Mason and Noah. Through a series of perfectly ordered events and small miracles, they were blessed with an egg donor and a surrogate. The surrogate was implanted with eggs fertilized by both Jason and deMarco and mother nature took care of the rest, bringing one of each into life. The boys are fraternal twins with two different biological fathers. Theirs is a perfect little family full of love, joy, and more talent than one family deserves!

Last nights concert started out with Jason, deMarco, and Jason's mother singing together! Watch this video and you will be as enthralled as the entire audience was last night. These guys are constantly working to help people in need. Their most recent project is called S.A.F.E.: Safe Affirming Family Environment. For eight months they ran a homeless shelter for gay teens in need and served over 400 hundred kids in that time. Now they are working to connect homeless kids who have aged out of the foster system with permanent homes and loving families.