The giving season is here again.

Light Up Dunwoody is tonight (my daughter is marching with the Peachtree Charter Middle School Band), Thanksgiving is this week, and I've filled the pantry and fridge with yummies from Trader Joe's and Publix. The frenzy of activities and preparations will subside and the Knitternall family will have some much-needed quiet time together over the four-day weekend. Since we're spending the holiday here at home, I opted for a combination of somebody-else-made-it and homemade specialties so my time in the kitchen is more fun than chore. 

After many, many hours at the computer working away on my freelance writing assignments, I indulged in a knitting project for a very favorite person. It's finished, and just in time for its newborn recipient. The Upside Down Pansy Hat is definitely an "awwww" - and a very fun project to knit. (I also have a fairly unique assignment: one of the Nature Center volunteers wants an eggplant hat. Yep - eggplant. Seems there's this long tradition of giving a friend all things eggplant through the years. What a hoot.) 

Once Thanksgiving concludes, I'll gear up for the following weekend, which will be a special, first-time event at Dunwoody Nature Center:

Gifts for the Earth                                                    Saturday, December 4, 10 am - Noon at Dunwoody Nature Center

A free family event sponsored by Adrian and Brian Bonser and the Gendell Family Foundation

Turnabout is fair play: make something special for the earth that gives us so much. Make natural feeders and other gifts for the creatures who call Dunwoody home. Share with people you love as gifts from you to them to the earth.

 

Constant Contact Is Giving Me a Constant Headache.

I know just enough about email template programs to know that the background html code can be a pain in the watoosie. My current battle with Peachtree Middle School's enews has me pulling my hair and grinding my teeth. The input, preview, and test email all look PERFECT. Then, when it hits the e-waves to the 950 or so school subscribers, the copy is BLUE.

CAROLINA blue!

Constant Contact is a constant pain. The blue copy is just part of it. CC no longer likes my preferred Firefox browser, so I have to use Internet Explorer, and the page jiggles maniacally every time I enter something in the main copy block.

I thought technology was supposed to make us work faster, smarter, better. Not. Instead of technology serving us, we are serving technology. We have to contort our brains and work patterns to fit the paradigm of whatever technology we're using.

Need to pay the government a quarterly tax? Maybe QuickBooks will be right. Or maybe you'll pay a penalty to the IRS because the report QuickBooks prepared and you sent with your check is a few dollars off, despite faithfully downloading and reviewing every update.

Want to work on an Excel spreadsheet after MicroSoft's latest update? Good luck finding all the drop-downs you had memorized over the past couple of years since the last update.

Trying to copy and paste some text from an email into a web page? Don't forget to use that handy-dandy eraser icon for deleting the formatting because there's a lot of hidden stuff that's going to blow things up as soon as you upload your website.

Prompted to change a password? The security protocol says you have to use a number, symbol, upper and lower case letters, and snap your fingers in quarter time to hit the magic "strong" marker. 

This is why some people get to the point of saying "Stop. I am no longer going to be a hostage to the ever-changing whims and quick-click developments of the technology trend du jour. I am tired of doing tutorials that don't actually tutor. I am frustrated by user forums that are more snark than smart. I am going to stick with what works." Except that, a few Internet Explorer updates later, your computer no longer speaks to the internet.

I'm a writer, not an IT guru. But the virtual workplace forces me to get just enough expertise to navigate clients' websites, eLance's complicated workroom set-up, DreamWeaver and PhotoShop for the Nature Center, as well as the entire MicroSoft Office suite of headaches.

I am not at peace with my technology. I need to dig in the dirt. And do some baking. And sew the aprons I'm making for Christmas gifts. In other words, I need to use the hand skills God gave us to survive and thrive.

Thank you for reading this rant. Now go outside and enjoy this splendid day!

To everything there is a season

To everything there is a season,
a time for every purpose under the sun.
A time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill and a time to heal ...
a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance ...
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to lose and a time to seek;
a time to rend and a time to sew;
a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
a time to love and a time to hate;
a time for war and a time for peace.

ecclesiastes 3:1-8

At Dunwoody Nature Center, we live with the seasons, the ever evolving progression of growth and hibernation, discoveries and losses, miracles and paradoxes. Tomorrow, it will be time to say good-bye to a very dear friend, Bud Burt. He and his wife Donna have given graciously and generously through many, many years to the park, helping to ensure that generations of children discover the wonders of the outdoors and and Dunwoody has a special place to call our own. Bud was a thinker and a doer, bringing the same passion to crunching numbers as he did to the hundreds of roses he nurtured all around his home.

We're fortunate to have been the focus of so much of his energy and dedication. Now we are blessed to share the celebration of his life.

Stick to your knitting.

"Stick to your knitting" - advice to continue doing what you know rather than something you know very little about. This cliche has been a favorite of late with financial newswriters covering the demise of one company after another. The more dire the markets, the closer everyone should cling to the things they know, they say. Start-ups: stop! Outside the box thinkers - get back to square one! The downside of risk-taking is that the flipside of success is abject failure.

Yet, if everyone followed that advice, where would we be?

• This admitted homebody would never have ventured to the Dunwoody Nature Center, opening new experiences in composting, hiking, website management, wielding a nail gun, building makeshift fences, and other cool stuff. (Hey, if a wimpy indoor gal in her middle years can fall in love with the outdoors, anyone can!)
  
• Eleanor Roosevelt would have stayed "in her place," doling out tea in the parlor and nodding her head pleasantly to one and all. Instead of becoming a force in her own right.
• The people of Dunwoody would have agreed with the avuncular DeKalb County professionals that running a city is way too difficult for the average person. Ahem.
• Ray Kroc would have been a mediocre salesman of milkshake machines rather than the guy who thought about branding cheap eats.
  
• The women behind the Twist Collective would have continued designing for other companies rather than create their own innovative forum. Way to go.
• Ravelry. Enough said.
• Kemmons Wilson would have stayed in the homebuilding business instead of coming up with the crazy notion of a national motel chain. You may have stayed in one: Holiday Inn, the first mainstream roadside inn network in America.

I consider myself a fiscal conservative and have a very low threshold for risk-taking. Yet I admire big thinkers and am awed by their passion and energy. It's easy to hunker down and cling to the tried and true when retirement funds are depleted and people are out of work.

We need risk-takers to regain our momentum. America has always thrived on ingenuity, people who can start something in the garage and change the world with a single idea. So I wish you success. We're all the richer for what you achieve.