I was going to skip a Friday post. Since I started blogging more regularly, Fridays were about knitting. But I forgot to take a picture of the (very little progress) on the blanket before we left and I thought I didn’t have anything on the needles here. Turns out I did. I forgot about that…
When I cast on, I thought the grandson sweater was almost done (BTW: it fits perfectly!) and I figured I had enough time and knitting mojo to finish this cowl before we left, so I could wear it this December. Ha!
Well, let’s be gentle to myself. This is going to be my cowl for next winter. That will give me plenty of time to finish it.
I was going to write a list of crafting goals for the new year to inspire me to actually do something, but I haven’t had time to think things through. Maybe next week…
That’s my word for 2025. Authentic. As in “being my authentic self”.
As usual, I wasn’t too keen on accepting my word. It usually turns out to be just the thing that I struggle with most in that year. Last year it was “healing” and the year before “heal” (there is a difference between the two, though only in nuance and feel). Well… let’s just say those weren’t years of good health, neither mental nor physical.
So this year, it’s authentic. And yes, I do struggle with that. I’ve been adjusting to other people’s expectations all my life. Failed at it, mostly, but I tried. I don’t want to do that anymore.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to change drastically. Maybe I’ll stop avoiding some topics (see below), but I don’t think I need to turn my life upside down to be authentic. I do believe I am who I am and I’m not going off on a goose chase to find a new me.
For me, being authentic is about the way I’ve been processing things and most of that is in my mind.
The worry I feel when I try to tell my truth, the fear of rejection when I’ve let things slip and have been fully me for a little while, the uneasiness of embracing my interests and talents (I really want to put quotes around that last word, to mock the idea of me having talents – and that’s a very good example of what I mean). And eventually the doubt about who I really am.
I’m ready to change that.
A little explanation before the last part of this post: this is one of those topics I never really talk about out of fear of rejection. I don’t want to offend anyone (I know a lot of my readers are Christans), but my interest in things like this is part of who I really am and I would love to be able to talk about it more freely, both on the blog and in real life. You know… being authentic. So here it goes.
Yesterday I decided to pull a tarot card to signify the theme of the year and I got the Empress. I don’t know if you can read it on the photo, it says: “Be happy with the results of your actions.”” Keywords are fertilty, beauty, happiness, nature, pleasure, development and succes. I’m still very much a beginner (hence the cards with explanations) and also still exploring if and how I really want to use tarot, but it seems fitting. Being happy with the results of ones actions is being authentic, I think.
Well… I’m going to hit publish before I decide to not be authentic and delete this post.
We’re home. So happy about that. Being with the children and the grandson was great, but my goodness, we’ve both been so sick most of our time there. Of course the jetlag isn’t helping, but we are feeling better now that we’re out of the cold.
I’ve been thinking about the past year and although I feel it leans a bit to being a hard, sad year, I can still list quite a few happy moments. So I guess it was just a normal year, with normal ups and downs. That’s life, after all. It’s just a matter of remembering the good things.
I want to remember seeing my youngest daughter getting married, admiring this beautiful grown up woman and realizing that’s my baby girl.
I want to remember how great it was to have my daughter, our son-in-law and our grandson here for two weeks.
I want to remember our grandson starting to recognize us and the way he says oma and opa.
I want to remember how powerful and capable I felt after cutting down several trees in our garden. All by myself. With a handsaw.
I want to remember Thursday phonecalls with my father. Every single Thursday since my mom died in 2020, until September 1st this year, when he left us too. And we usually talked for at least an hour.
I want to remember that my body was capable to restore itself back to health after being sick quite a lot. It can do that.
I want to remember that I stood up for myself when it was really important.
I want to remember how much I loved getting back to blogging (a few times 😉 ) and seeing people are still reading and commenting.
I want to remember all the things I did, tried, learned.
I want to remember the song of the birds, the fresh breeze, the vibrant blue skies, the soft rain, the twinkling stars.
I want to remember all the kind, friendly and caring people I encountered this year.
I want to remember how good it felt to come home to the island every single time (4 times this year! we’ve been away a lot). I still struggle with living so far away from our family, but this truly is home.
I also want to remember the shift I felt, deep down in my heart, while writing this post. Focusing on the good really helps.
Wishing you all a great new year’s eve and an very happy New Year
Two and a half years ago, I thought it would be fun to start a scrap blanket to work on whenever we would be in our cabin in The Netherlands.
Well, as you can see, I didn’t work on it much, it’s still just a narrow strip. I actually don’t think I even picked it up after I started it, even though we’ve been back there a few times since then. But I knew it was there, waiting for me when I wanted to knit. And somehow, that was comforting. I have been making a few stitches here and there the past few days. Not really committing to it. I’m still too feverish to commit to anything. But it does give me something to do. And who knows… Someday it may actually turn into a real blanket.
I had it all planned out in my head. Leave on Wednesday, arrive on Thursday, shop and rest on Friday, birthday on Saturday, another birthday on Sunday, rest on Monday, but take some time on Monday to write a little blogpost about how great our weekend had been.
Well, it was. I loved seeing our family. My brother and his wife were at the Saturday birthday, so that was an added bonus. And of course seeing and interacting with our grandson on both days was so great. Sunday was his birthday. He didn’t really understand that he had a lot of gifts to unwrap, especially since the first package had a fire truck and he was very excited about that. But he was very happy that we had french fries for diner and quietly kept eating until he was stuffed.
A very good weekend indeed. But my throat started to feel a bit raspy on Saturday and it got worse on Sunday. On Monday I woke up with very sore throat, and everything else that goes with a severe cold. Slight fever, coughing, sneezing, the lot. I’m trying to be back on my feet by Christmas, but right now, I’m mostly on the couch, resting. I tried to do a little bit of grocery shopping yesterday morning (we were out of everything), but I was almost crying from exhaustion when I got home.
Anyway. The perfect time to try and move my blog back to wordpress, no? Ahem… I hope everything is back to normal now.
Oh, and that picture? That’s how things look around here in the middle of the day. Yes, dark and cloudy. Very cloudy. They say we’re in the longest stretch of sunless (as in extremely cloudy – the sun does rise around here) days since 1993 and it’s not over yet.
We’re only here for 18 days, but we do get the full Dutch winter experience 😉
After finishing the sleeves, I decided the body was too short (again!), so I frogged the ribbing and made it a bit longer. I was actually still knitting three hours before we left for the airport. But I managed and it does look the right size to me now, so it was worth the rush. In case you’re wondering why the rush: we travel with carry-on luggage only and knitting needles are not allowed. I don’t have the right ones in the cabin and though buying some would be possible, it might have been hard to find the sizes I needed.
I’ll have to wait till Christmas to see if it really fits though. My grandson’s birthday is this Sunday, but the sweater is meant as a Christmas gift. It’s killing me to wait, but that does give me time to wash it. I hope that will even out the stitches a bit more. It’s cotton, so technically it doesn’t need blocking. I have noticed though that cotton and acryllic yarn do look better after the first washing, so I tend to do that.
We arrived yesterday morning. On our way from the airport to the cabin, we stopped at our daughter’s to pick up a package they received for us. Added bonus was that we could see our grandson too.
When we decided to move so far way from our family, I told myself to accept that our (future) grandchildren would not really know us. I figured occasional visits and monthly videocalls would not be enough for a small child to recognize his grandparents. But you know what? It is! He knows we’re his oma and opa and he is not shy at all. That makes me so, so happy!
(p.s. I’m considering moving the blog back to wordpress.com because some of you have issues, but I’m too jetlagged right now to make a decision about that)
(Actually, when you’re reading this, we have left Curaçao and even arrived in The Netherlands already. I’m writing this on Tuesday, because I wanted to prepare a post for jetlag day (Thursday).)
You’d think I’ve got this all figured out by now. We’ve been living here for almost six years and we’ve been travelling back and forth even longer. Well, I have figured it out, mostly.
But I still get caught by the growing to-do list syndrom. Ever heard of that? Me neither, I just made it up. But it is what happens every time we leave.
I have this very relaxed list of little things to do before we leave. Clean the toilet, empty trashcans, water the plants, things like that. Perfectly doable.
But the closer we get to actually leaving, the more I want to do. Deepclean the kitchen, treat the wooden furniture with oil, trim trees, mow the grass, finish paths, get rid of all plants and trees I don’t want to have in my garden, harvest and dry medicinal plants, clean the windows, organize the books, etc., etc.
Not good.
I’ve been here many, many times before. I know when to stop, breathe and toss the lists. So I just did that.
But only after I mowed the grass**. That is kind of necessary. It’s growing season. If I don’t mow it, it will be kneehigh when we return.
The rest of the things that are not on my initial list though… Nope. Not going to do it. Even going to stop thinking about it. Right now (wish me luck).
** no, it’s not a lawn, it’s just grass (partly) covering our sloping driveway. Keeps the soil from washing away during heavy rain.
Yes, that’s right. I did knit in public. On a terrace, right in the middle of the town center, where lots and lots of tourists pass by. And it wasn’t scary at all. Why did I think it would be?
I know, for most of you this is not a big deal. But for me it was.
It was actually fun. Nobody really asked about it or anything (well, one waitress joked she was going to stand there and watch me, because she wanted to learn to knit), but it actually felt good to sit there and knit. It added something to the experience, that I can’t quite put into words. Who knows… I might turn into “that woman who is always knitting”.
I actually finished the body while I was sitting there and I’m almost done with the sleeves. Which is cutting it close, but I will manage. We fly to the Netherlands tomorrow afternoon and will land early in the morning on Thursday. Then we have one day for resting and grocery shopping before we have a weekend full of family visits and birthday parties. Exhausting, but fun!
I have moved my blog from wordpress.com to bluehost and have been trying to redirect both notastation.blog and notastation.wordpress.com to my new site. That kind of technical stuff is a bit above my paygrade, but I think I figured it out.
If you see this post (and the rest of this blog with a new layout) after clicking on the link in your usual list or reader: that’s great! That means it worked.
Things may look a bit weird, especially in my archives. I’m slowly working through my posts to add featured images and things like that, but it will take time. 18 years of blogging and over 1600 posts is a whole lot of work.
Edited to add: oh no! it looks like I lost all pictures in my older posts! I think I have most of them somewhere in backup, but this will take way longer than I hoped it would. I still have that sweater to finish too. Priorities…
Edited to add 10 days later: I went back to wordpress.com. Things should be back to normal…
NOT A STATION 