My World With Words

Today’s bloganuary prompt is, “Where can you reduce clutter in your life?” Well, I’ve written about that a couple of times in this blog, so I’m not going to bore you with more. Except for this one point that I’m proud of. I’m going through all of my yarn, most of it leftover from projects in years past, and making two giant blankets from the scraps.

Now, by scraps, I don’t mean one-yard pieces. Some of these scraps are almost equal to a full skein. Others are much smaller. So far I’ve knit about 46″ of a 55″ wide blanket. I’m almost out of yarn for that one, but I won’t finish it quite yet. The other one is wider. I thought I had a lot more yarn for the second one than I actually do, so I’m not sure how that’s going to work out.

I’m kind of embarrassed at how old some of this yarn is. I’ve been able to date some of it, and it goes back 22 years. The yarn isn’t moth eaten or anything–I’ve taken care to keep that from happening–and it’s nice yarn. If I spend the time knitting something, I use quality yarn.

My mom has laid claim to the first blanket, although I never actually promised it to her. We’ll see what happens. I have a few more projects I’d like to start. Then I’ll use up the leftover yarn from those to finish the blankets. Or not! This is a project that may take me a long, long time to finish.

Image Credit: © kostikovanata–stock.adobe.com

Today’s Bloganuary prompt is easy–it’s what’s your favorite animal? My cats, of course! Here are Walter and Mimi in some pictures you’ve already seen, but I don’t have any new ones.

Image Credit: Paws in Heart © Bigstock; Cesar Cat © Belinda O

My second go-round with college was in Portland, Oregon, while my dad still lived in San Jose, California. That meant that holidays required a road trip down I-5, over the mountains and through the woods.

Tragically, this was the age of the I-5 killer, a serial killer who found his victims along that interstate. The school, naturally, was concerned with the number of students who took that route home, and did what they could to require we travel in groups of both men and women, preferably larger groups, but at least two.

I was extremely shy those days around men, but I had a car, so I never had a problem finding someone to drive with me. One spring break it turned out to be a fellow student named Jack, one of the most popular boys on campus who I, remarkably, had a light flirtatious relationship with. We planned to leave right after lunch and drive straight through to San Jose, which was about a twelve hour drive.

He drove most of the way, even though it was my car, which was fine with me, I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of driving in the dark.

To break the ice, I asked him, “what’s the most embarrassing moment of your life?” He proceeded to tell me a story I’ve all but forgotten now, but it took place in junior high, which was one long embarrassing moment for me, so I totally related to what he was saying. In fact, it was a bit of a relief–and revelation–to hear that this popular kid had had bad moments in eighth grade, just like I did. I didn’t realize until much later that we all had bad moments at that point in our life. It came with the territory.

Then it was my turn, and for the life of me, I couldn’t think of a story to tell. Believe me, I’d had my share of embarrassments along the way, but I totally blanked on a story. Perhaps it was because I was afraid it would get repeated, or perhaps I was just too insecure to let myself be that vulnerable. I came up with a story, a true story, but it didn’t come close to matching his.

When friends later asked how the trip went, I said, “fine,” but I wasn’t convincing, and they knew something had happened to make me uncomfortable. I wouldn’t tell them what, and I never repeated Jack’s story, believing it had been told in confidence. More importantly, I never told my friends that I couldn’t come up with a story about my own most embarrassing incident.

In retrospect, I see that trip as part of a trend in my life, a fear of making myself vulnerable to others, particularly to men. I didn’t recognize it at the time, although I don’t think I would have denied it.

I wish I’d had the courage to tell my own story.

Image Credits: Mountain Driving © Denniro–stock.adobe.com Embarrassed Kitten © Dixi_–stock.adobe.com

I’m a stress eater–I’ll admit it. I also can snack endlessly on favorite foods if there’s an endless supply of them. It’s remarkable I haven’t put on a ton of weight, but somehow, I’ve been able to maintain my slightly less than ideal size.

I’d like to lose a few pounds, but gave up on trying during the holiday season, Unfortunately, that season lasted at work until today when the last of the fudge was consumed, Not by me, but I did my share. Co-workers brought in not only fudge, but peanut brittle, chocolate covered cherries and the like. That’s in addition to all the goodies our favorite vendors sent. Any stress I felt found an outlet.

I even feel stress during my bi-weekly Scrabble games. Will she use the one letter I need? I reach for the cookies one of us supplied while waiting to find out.

Last week, tired of all the sugary snacks I’d had in the last few weeks, I found myself impulse buying a bag of tortilla chips. They tasted so good! Now, I didn’t down the whole bag in one sitting, but I made a pretty good effort at that accomplishment. Was I stressed? Well, I was when I finished.

So today, instead of fudge, instead of tortilla chips, I’ve decided to go a whole different route and eat an apple. Except there’s a winter storm going on, and I can’t safely make it to the store (which may not even be open). That stresses me out, but there’s no snack food in my apartment, so I’m safe.