Spin it, Sister!

I'm really digging this making my own yarn business. I can't stop. I'm obsessed.

I think about it at work. I dream about it at night. I even daydream about it while knitting.

Though I don't knit that much anymore. Mostly when I have time to do something other than work, parent, or wife (can I use wife as a verb? It sure feels like a verb!!), I am spinning yarn. Much to the husband's chagrin. Oh, well... go stare at your fantasy football thingy some more.

It relaxes me. It makes me happy. And a relaxed, happy mama is a good thing. Right!?

Back in October, I went to the NYS Sheep & Wool Festival in Rhinebeck. It is the mecca for fiber fanatics of all sorts. People make pilgrimages from all over. Including Canada!?! It is a little puzzling to me, but I'm lucky that I live so close to this treasure trove of fiber goodness.

I even saw a few knitting celebrities this year. I may have sort of stalked one of them for a short period through the stalls of vendors, but if you try to make me own up to it I won't!

I left the boys at home this year. It was out of kindness to all of us... or at least that is the excuse I used and I'm sticking to it. I got to the fairgrounds around 10:30 (hit a wall of traffic about a mile before I got there) and 4 hours later left with a bag filled with fabulous goodness.

Happy and sated, I drove home listening to my favorite NPR shows and dreaming of the delicious colors and textures waiting to be made into glorious yarns.

I procured a large amount of roving and other fiber goodies this year. I was so excited when I got home I didn't even know where to start. I was exhausted, but I did end up spinning up some of the hand dyed Alpaca and merino bat that I got from a farm about an hour from where we live.

I still have a bunch of fiber I haven't even touched yet, but I did dig out the hand painted Tussah silk and started to spin it. It looks awesome if I do say so myself. My hope to is to ply the singles so I can make a hat and mitt set out of it in time for holiday gifting. I have a specific person in mind, but I'm not going to say in case they read this and also in case I pull my usual procrastination routine and don't get it done in time.

Currently on my needles is a hat from "Designer One-Skein Wonders". I'm using yarn that I spun that is a 50/50 merino and silk blend in a dark heathery purple color. It's the first project I have knitted from yarn I've spun.

It has been a pretty awesome experience to be able to see something go from fiber to yarn to knitted object from start to finish. Well, kind of anyway. I haven't finished the hat yet, but the fabric it is knitting into is so pretty... if I do say so myself.

Back in the saddle... again!?

So, I took another hiatus. I thought I was back in July, but I must have had sunstroke... or something.

Actually, the summer was a whirlwind of excitement and mayhem. Though I can't really remember what sort of excitement or what type of mayhem. But it was definitely the Seamus variety. It flew by so fast and...

Summer quickly became fall.

Seamus started full day preschool at his new school. And as predicted he loves it and they love him. (Or at least that is what they tell us.) All kidding aside, it seems to be a really great fit and all our worrying and sleepless nights were all for naught... thankfully.

I didn't really discuss it in this forum at the time we were deciding on a school, but now looking back on the decision making process, we were really lucky that our struggle was not in trying to find a great school, but it trying to decide which great school to send Sea to.

I also may not have made it clear previously, because this past year has been a real struggle in coming to terms with the diagnosis and dealing with the ramifications of raising our child who has special needs, but Seamus is autistic. It appears to be a mild case, but none the less our child is on the spectrum. Something that, surprisingly, is not all that uncommon these days.

We don't live near a big city, if fact, some would say we live in the country. The closest city, if you want to call it that, is about a half hour away. For country dwelling folk, we are lucky to live in a county that has a lot of programs for children with special needs. And we are lucky that they have been fairly easy to find and readily available at no out of pocket cost to us. Though, if we had to, we would pay for Seamus to get what he needs, but it is nice to be able to take advantage of these programs.

The county and school district we live in have also, luckily, been very forthcoming in making these programs available to us without too much hassle. There was one bad meeting in the beginning, but since then we have had no trouble getting services for Seamus. We were even able to justify, and get, the one-on-one aide at his new school for this school year– which has been a huge help for Seamus.

But I digress, I guess the point of my ramblings is that parenting is hard and stressful and then when you add in a child that needs special services and schools, it makes it so much harder and so much more stressful. (Not surprising that statistically most couples with a special needs child divorce, but that's another conversation all together!) My point is that we have been lucky to have had very little trouble finding programs and services for Seamus.

I have to thank our pediatrician/family doctor for being so awesome and a force in our effort to get help for Seamus. When we first noticed that there was something going on and brought it up at Sea's 2 year wellness check, if our Dr. hadn't taken us seriously and just blown us off I don't know where we would be right now. But he didn't and referred us to early intervention services. The rest is a blur, but if we hadn't been steered in the right direction almost two years ago, I would be telling a much different story, I'm sure!

We have been very lucky. Lucky to have a great child and lucky to be able to give him what he needs!

So, even though I took another unplanned hiatus, I hope that it was just temporary.

I was pretty sure of myself the last time, so I'm not promising anything now!

Always remember that you need to breathe...

A very good friend of mine gave me some really important advice a few weeks ago. I was having a pretty awful day and I felt like the world was crashing down around me. So, I did what I had to do and dropped everything to spend a few hours with one of my best friends to try to get my sanity back.

She is very wise and witty and referenced some airplane logic to aid me in my plight: "Always put your oxygen mask on first before you help others."

We laughed about it, but it is very true and logical. If you can't breathe, you can't help the others around you. You have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others.

My brain knows all this. Yet, the stress of working full time, raising a child under the age of 5, and the extra things that autism brings to the table with raising said child; it gets to be a real balancing act that sometimes tips the scales and I tend to lose my balance. Or fall of the scale all together.

I didn't even mention the stress of trying to maintain a healthy marriage amidst all this, but we do our best and try to remain a team. Though at times I sometimes feel more like the coach than team player.

So, with the new year upon us, I have decided to make a resolution a little early this year. I will try to remember to always put my oxygen mask on first and take time to do the things that make me happy and healthy. Because if I'm not happy and healthy, I won't be able to breathe.