Just What I needed

I've been away... Not physically, but spirit-wise I suppose you could say. Not very much knitting going on, but lots of other stuff. Among which is that I've been thinking about life and where I am right now in my life journey (hopefully the journey isn't ending any time real soon). And, I've found some inspiration and direction - along with a whole bunch of other neat things - through the internet.


Nearly every day I try to check on all my favorite blogs (most of which are knitting blogs), and the list grows as my 'usual' blogs refer to other blogs and when I check them out I find that they are inspirational or funny or interesting or whatever. So, I add them to my favorites list (which remains un-organized and apparently un-organizable) ... You can see the semi-viscous circle of semi-exponential proportions can't you? But I digress.


A little history: I learned to knit when I was about 14. My best friend and I wanted to learn to knit to fulfill some sort of badge thing through the youth group at our church. There was a lady in our congregation who agreed to teach us to knit. Under her tutelage we went to the LYS and bought yarn and needles and then she had us knit a sweater - everything from casting on to ribbing to stockinette, decreasing, button bands, the whole nine yards. After that I knit quite a bit through the rest of high school and college, but my creative and crafty energies drifted off to other endeavors about the time I got married. I did knit a couple of sweaters and vests for the Curmudgeon, but I never did knit anything for the kids. And then, I didn't knit at all. For many years.

About three or four years ago my health deteriorated to the point that just going to work each day became pretty much the limit of my energy and ability. I had to give up being the choir director at church, I quit going to my weekly group with a few wonderful friends, I quit shopping, I hardly socialized. And depression set in. I'm not talking about the "I-feel-'blue'-today" variety. (There are few good things that came of this change in life style, but mostly it was and remains a time of loss.)

I no longer had the energy to sew and my eyes had gotten so old that counted X-stitch was out. I needed something to do that I could do sitting in my favorite chair, and also something that would provide some calm in my life. Knitting was a logical and welcome choice. (I was totally unaware that there was a knitting revival going on across the land, and specifically a sock-knitting revival.) The Curmudgeon took me to the LYS and I told the lady that I wanted to knit socks. I had chosen socks because knitting two socks would take much less time than knitting a sweater, and I knew I would need some sooner-than-later gratification, and I had never knit socks before and wanted to learn to do something new with my rusty knitting skills.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Except for the internet. As I was knitting one of those first pairs of socks, I googled on 'hand knit socks' and found Wendyknits and was introduced to the whole world of blogging. I had never even heard of blogs before. Every day I would look forward to reading Wendy's blog and then one day I noticed that she had a list of other blogs on her side bar. Other blogs!!?!

Now, as I said earlier, I have literally dozens of blogs I try to check every day, and since being fired from my job last December (just two weeks before Christmas!), I usually have the blog-reading time I want. (But, I sure wish my computer would tell me when there's a new post on one of "my" blogs so I wouldn't have to go to each one every time to see if there are posts I haven't read...)

I've found the most amazing group of "friends" through blog-land. Not that any of them (or, hardly any of them) know me or reciprocate the friendship. After all, I haven't been blogging myself for very long, and I've been way too shy to leave comments until quite recently. But I've met guys who knit, grannies who knit, young mothers who knit, famous authors who knit, knitting gurus who knit (that's redundant, isn't it?), re-born knitters like me, irreverent knitters, speedy knitters, slower-than-molasses knitters (I especially like them) and totally un-characterizable knitters. They have all become important to me - they're my circle of friends. I follow their knitting adventures and mis-adventures, their domestic situations and life styles...I have met their children, parents, friends, spouses, partners and even their pets. And, each one of them enriches my life in his or her unique way. Recently I found another 'new to me' blog and this post. And, it was just what I needed to read.