Actual Knitting Content

I have suffered from years of "hey, grandma, watcha making?" and "My grandma did that too, but she used a hook" and "I have no time/patience/talent for that"

Ugh.

1. Grandmas don't all line up for knitting lessons.  Most people, men and women, learn way before that.  I learned because plain black sweaters were widely unavailable in the 80s and I was a plain black kind of girl.

2. There is knitting that uses hooks, but usually they mean grandma crocheted and they don't know the difference. They are not talking enough with their grandmas to know...remind them to call.

3. Time and patience are up to you.  And talent means nothing anyway.

Knitting is a great, productive, hobby.  There is a huge social media community surrounding knitting.  I am happy to be a part of it.  I know knitters around the world and they have been there for me during some happy times and some difficult times.  Sure we met through knitting, but we have stayed together through personal experience.

More people should be making things.  I know there has been a huge surge in pinterest and diy activities.  I also know that doesn't always translate into actual making.  It often translates into the buying of materials.  Just like all the people with gyms in their basement gathering dust. And the owners of gourmet kitchens who only use the microwave.  We are not always honest with ourselves about what we want.  

Making things makes you.

Talent is a fool's game.  I work among artists and while many of them have innate skill, that is not what makes them successful.  What makes them successful is the constant work.  This is far and away the hardest lesson for students.  Those who have always been told "you have so much talent" fail as fast as those that weren't.  The thing that art students need more than anything is drive.

When I learned to knit I couldn't see my stitches.  But man, I had drive.  I remember being given some double pointed needles and sitting down with a magazine and some yarn and those needles and teaching myself to knit in the round. No youtube.  No yarnshops.

I have subsequently tried to teach all my knitting students to see the stitches early on.  Many have, some have not.  It's not talent. It's education.  I recommend seeking out Ira Glass's discussion on Taste.   Talent doesn't get you far if you won't work.

Work. 

Fighting the darkness

I have a friend who says my joy receptors are clogged.  That is the only explanation.

I have been low for months...really for the past year.  Maybe a little more.

I have been doing things I typically enjoy.  Things I have loved in the past. I get satisfaction from a job well done, but I haven't felt that joy that I am accustomed to as someone who has never struggled with depression.

I have lived with depression, just not mine.   In my brother's blog post about Mark he talks about the family fight with Black Shuck.  I have seen it in my siblings and Mark, of course.  I have just always, somehow, not had that fight.  And now I do.  Life is gray and there is not much joy.

I get up and move and do all the things that have brought me joy before.  I feel like maybe I put enough of them in my path, it will work.  My joy receptors will unclog and I will be free.  Or maybe not.  Maybe I will continue this stupid struggle.  Maybe it is part of menopause, which I have otherwise been experiencing symptom free.

I know so many people with bone-deep depression.  I worry that what I am fighting is ridiculous in comparison.  I don't want to say that what I am experience is anyway like that.  Remember, I lived for decades with Mark.  I remember what it looked like.  There were times that getting out of bed couldn't happen for him.  I have never been so stricken.  At the same time, my feelings are legitimate and I need to pay attention.

Maybe I need new joys.  The old things are not working.   I have added more exercise and new experiences for me and the kids.  I talk to my friends, who are beyond wonderful.  I try to throw myself into work.  I feel like I might have a tidal wave building and I don't know what direction it will send me. My dance card is filled with things to do. Taking kids to see Shakespeare.  Planning our meal for Bourdain Day.  I just want to wake up one morning and go running and feel what I used to feel, that rush of the joy of just being outside in the morning air.  The joy of seeing the kids after work and listening to their thoughts.  The joy of watching a bonfire in the evening air.

Thank you for sticking with me through this.  Let me know how I can help with your struggles.

Church dinners

I have spent a bit of time in church.  As I have mentioned before, I spent many Sundays and many Wednesdays at church as a young girl.  The kids could run a little wild, waiting for their parents to finsh the eternal talking (or the talking of eternity). We watched the silliest of movies (Pigs is pigs)
We sang songs. We ate.

Midweek dinners were memorable.  It seems like my church arranges for food nowadays, but back then it was all potluck.  We were exposed to the most midwestern of casseroles on a weekly basis.  When I still had Mark's grandmother's personal cookbook, it was full of those recipes.  Often given classy names "a la roi."

There was little spice and no adventure.  My mom might have tried, longing as she was for the food she could get in in Southern California that she could not get in the suburbs of Chicago.  

I don't remember what I liked to eat.  I do remember the time several of us kids reached into what we thought was a bowl of potato chips and instead was potato chip casserole.   In the spirit of the church dinner I attended a few weeks back.  And in the spirit of trying to bring some humor to the world, I leave you with a recipe for potato chip casserole.  It is best when piled high with chips and deception.

Potato Chip Casserole

• 2 Tbl. butter
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1 can cream of celery soup
• 1/2 cup mayo
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 tsp. coarse ground black pepper
• 1 small can of mushrooms
• 1 (12 oz.) can tuna, well drained
• 1 cup shredded swiss cheese, divided
• 4 cups uncooked egg noodles, cooked al dente and drained well
• Potato Chips

Instructions

In small sauté pan, melt butter and add onion. Sauté until tender. (about 6-8 minutes on medium-low to low). Don't brown. Set aside.

Cook the noodles

In a large bowl, stir together the soup, mayo, milk, and pepper until creamy and smooth.

Fold in mushrooms, tuna, sautéed onion mixture, shredded swiss cheese.

Fold noodles into tuna mixture.

Bake uncovered in a 13x9 casserole at 350º oven for 25 minutes. Top with potato chips and bake 5 minutes longer.