Life's a Stitch

According to recent stats, in Canada on the average, you get eight of these. If you reside south of the 49th parallel, you'll average seven. I'm about to have my sixth. I'm talking about the big birthdays that end in zero. They occur every ten years, but over time seem to come faster and more furiously.

The impending event has given me pause to think. I don't feel markedly different than I did on the fifth occasion, but I've pinpointed the occasional feeling of sadness that overcomes me. On my 50th, most of life was behind me, as it is on my 60th. The difference, however, is that this time I'm doing it without a number of significant others. My mother, mother-in-law, two good friends, a dear cousin-in-law, my dog…I guess that's the challenge of getting on, surviving and growing from life's losses and looking forward to better times. 

There are different schools of thought on aging. Some say you die how you've lived, so to back up a step that probably means you age in the same style as you've lived to date. So if you tend toward the miserable and mean you'll probably stay that way right to the very end. I work with seniors and we see all kinds. Anna Quindlen, in her memoir Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, cites  a poll of 340,000 respondents that shows, after the age of 50, we get happier with age and that stress, anger and sadness all decline the older we get. I'm in on that theory.

So, on the Ides of March I'll be celebrating my 6th BIG Birthday that ends in a zero. I got a present from Scotiabank. You know, I've never been big on presents at birthday gatherings, but this year I'm going to acccept some to ease the pain. The bank reminded me that I am turning 60 (not that I needed reminding and oh, to see it in writing) and I can now enjoy my new senior life and the benefits of their seniors' discount. I'm hoping to enjoy much more than that $1 per month. And we started last night by taking a trip to the airport to pick up a surprise birthday "package:"

 

I know I've written this before, but all you people who have the opportunity to cross borders  from one country to another, should make sure you are covered by health insurance. Tripping one foot over the line, travelling from Canada into the US for example, could cost you big bucks. 

Our family is the voice of experience: my hiking/geocaching accident in Hawaii $289, C's heart attack in Washington $116,000, and now Mr. Bryant's "trip" in California $848 for 12 stitches. There were a couple more, but I was taught written lists get tedious after three items. Plus who needs to know the gory details?

The seventy plus dollar cost of one year of travel insurance for B was earned back after one stitch. You know the punchline: Emergency medical travel insurance – priceless.

A successful geocaching trip yesterday produced my 300th find:

Mr. Frog flashed his lights and croaked his congratulations. Really 300 is nothing. Many cachers rack up thousands, even tens of thousands.

There were amazing views above the temperature inversion produced fog:

 

 

Now that the holiday gifts are given I can post about the knitting. It's tough to keep a secret in blogland.  It must have looked like I had abandoned knitdom, but truth be told, most everything knit was a gift. This one was for my niece, a college freshman. All dorm kids need the huggy comfort of a soft scarf. Especially those way up in the Northeast.

Pattern: Wavy,  by Sarah Smith, available free on Knitty

Yarn: Heirloom Alpaca 8-ply

Needles: Who knows? I've got to start writing down the needle size prior to putting them back in the needle holder. My best guess is a US 6.

Thoughts: Great pattern, I give it my highest compliment: I would knit it again. It needed the growth from blocking, but I also liked the more bunched up unblocked version.

 

Despite having the flu shot in October, the flu bug bit me, hence my blogging absence. As my doctor said "You can imagine how bad it would have been if you hadn't have had the shot." I can't imagine.

Thankfully it didn't hit until the 30th making our Christmas in the desert one with some positive memories. Two condos and two hotel rooms brought together our family including the kids, partners, and grandbaby, my sister's family, my SIL and husband, cousin from Denmark, and a high school friend of my daughter's along with her family. For a few nights the table was set for 17.

Far away from our traditional nativity and ceramic Christmas tree, we were surprised by friends, who had a tree waiting and decorated. By the time we arrived, there had been a craft session to add traditional Danish paper ornaments. On the non-traditional side, daughter Mari found the "Rock Star" for the treetop. The stocking was on the unconventional side as well. Make that the creepy side.

 

Christmas day, the baton was passed. Mari took charge of the turkeys and I didn't lift a finger.

We had our Danish frokost (a table full of cold fish, meat and cheese plus shots of akvavit), Polish Oplatek and a kazoo orchestra.

Not without  mishaps, besides my flu, Bryant tripped and ended up with 12 stitches. And, as I'm not one to throw away good food, but packs my bag to the weight limit, I had to make a choice. The five pound of brown rice or the liter of Canadian maple syrup? I went for the syrup. We taped every obvious area twice and sealed it in a zippered plastic bag. I'm still washing maple syrup out of the brand new luggage.

 

After nine years, this is another installment of interesting google searches that have ultimately reached Life's a Stitch. Nine years, has it really been nine years? I've tried to give this up as have many of the finest, but my daughter won't let me.  I'm OK with that so here we go:

The five recent interesting searches:

5. Eulogy for a mom. A lot of people, especially from Australia, according to the search records are apparently at a similar stage of life. 

4.  A unique, albeit potentially sad search that landed a person on Life's a Stitch: "Eulogy for me." I'm hoping that was for a school assignment.

3. Rigid Heddle loom reviews. It fits as it comes up frequently around the holidays and requires fiber.

2. Slow cooker curry. Interesting search for what is purported to be a knitting blog.

1. At 1:49a.m.: Does London Drugs sell yarn? They sell everything else, why not yarn? Maybe it was someone who needed a last minute gift.

I hope they don't attempt my current project, the oxymoronically named High Speed Knitting. I'm on the last rows that take over a half hour each. High Speed Knitting, are you kidding? 275 yards of 2×2 ribbing is taking forever.  I do like the way it's turning out, though, and it will be done for Christmas.

No matter how you arrived at Life's a Stitch, here you are. Wishing you all the best for a Merry Christmastime.

This year our lovingly mismatched nativity acquired the tiny elephant, a gift from Nepal, and the appropriate-for-British Columbia black bear came off the end of a pencil. 

Jingle Off! is anther name for my organization's new annual Christmas fundraiser. Fundraising can be the bain of an Executive Director's worklife, but a necessary evil it is, many involving a tangle of committees, caterers, entertainment and charitable receipts. This one was relatively painless, enjoyable even.

The Jingle Off Christmas Caroling Competition has been a dream of mine for many years, but work got in the way. This year we were fortunate to have the sponsorship of the mall where our offices are located. Hoping for 12-15 teams, we ended up with 16.

Such spirit! Although we had the judges, these weren't Idol wannabes, they were kids and adults who wanted to have fun while supporting a good cause:

The "Christmas Belles":

 

The judges:

 In addition to overall performance,  there were prizes for best costume, most gleeful and best holiday spirit. Here are the first place winners in the Business/Community category, and they, of course won best costumes:

The first annual Jingle Off was a success. A great time was had by all, even the Executive Director. Bring on year two!