The stuff of days

Keith, aka the landlord spent a whole week of holdiays sorting out weird fix it chores in the hoouse and getting his one big job done.  He fixed his shower drain issue downstairs.  He Fixed the one kitchen sink drain and put in a new faucet while he was under there.  And he cleaned out the garage of much of the old crap from when I moved here and when he was doing his own renovating downstairs before he moved here. 

Cleaning the garage was really cathartic for him.  He found all kinds of interesting stuff and suddenly he is looking at a garage that he will be able to park in this winter.  He asked me if I could go through a couple boxes that were mine so I did.  One of them was my camping box.  I want to keep the stove.  you never know when the power goes out and you need a cup of coffee.  That is emergency stuff.  But I did free up utensils to go back to the kitchen and that freed up this nifty little bag.

It's a great little bag perfect for a small shawl project or socks.  Kids sweaters or indeed even a sweater knit in parts.  It's really nice to have it back in my knitting things.

The other thing I revived last week was my little old laptop.  I have charged it occasionally to check that it worked but a couple weeks ago it fell from it's storage space and landed hard on the floor.  I hate to lose it.  It's all backed up but still, it was my first computer all my own.  There are memories.

The kids first question was does it have games.  Not really.  It was before all the little appy games they know.  But they found my two veersions of solitaire and they are discovering those games.  They do have limited time on devices, but honestly, this laptop is so old, I am not sure you could call it an electronic device.  Plus, the game they are playing requires math of a sort so surely it is allowable after they used their time for the day?

And there is pretty good progress on the sweater.  You can see the effect of y less than perfect colour choice, the teal against the seafoam Sport but you can also see the glory of the teal and seafoam in combination with the gold.  I love this sweater and am going to try to push it and get it done by the end of the month.  

I am doing the Stash Dash with the Knit Girllls again.  I needed the extra motivation to make me finish the shawl.  However, I did declare in the in the three thousand meter category and the shawl alone ended up with 3200 metres, plus I already had a thousand metres from the green Cotton Jeans sweater, so I am well past target.  If I finish this sweater by the end of the month, I will be over the five thousand mark so that is my new goal.  With such success so far, maybe I can manage a wee bit more.

And it is also that day again.  My heart is utterly broken and yet, I am alive and feel good and content with the life I have.  

My greatest sorrow is that he did not get to know all our little people.  He would have loved them so.  To see their faces light up when you walk in the room.  He would have loved that.  But life goes on no matter how much I miss him and slowly, ever so slowly I am making my peace with that reality.

  “I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

What to do with the time that is given to us. That is the thing. I am glad some of my kiddies are with me today.