Knitting with butterflies

We just wrapped up the 15th (or is it 16th? 17th? I've lost count) annual Butterfly Festival at Dunwoody Nature Center and I'm tired. I just worked a week's worth in two days and am feeling every minute of it.

More than 1,400 visitors strolled through the butterfly tent, made crafts, learned about insects, munched hotdogs and drank lemonade, had their faces painted, shopped in the Butterfly Boutique, and took tons of photos.

Thanks to the most magnificent queen of volunteers I've ever worked with, every single volunteer station was staffed, from setting up concessions and grilling hot dogs to helping with our extremely limited parking options. It was hot, busy, exhausting work, and those wonderful people pulled everything off with grace and diligence.

I'm always awed by the capacity of people to step out of their everyday lives and make memories for strangers. While the press focuses on the charming delight of our youngest visitors, I have to say that the "behind the scenes" work of scores of volunteers is the real magic of our Butterfly Festival.

Today we take a breather before tackling all the cleaning up and putting away that follows any special event. I'm reconnecting with my family (remember me?), picking up the Baby Surprise Jacket, and putting the house back in order.

It feels good to be home.

Self-determination

When we were first married, T and I volunteered with many political campaigns in his hometown, Greensboro, North Carolina. We had several friends running for City Council and Mayor and, at any given time, were working on behalf of bond referendums, reelections, new candidates, and more. It was fun, exhausting, and illuminating work.

One of my least favorite jobs was placing political yard signs in voters' yards and businesses. We'd have a scribbled list of addresses and a trunk full of signs, stakes, and a mallet. Off we'd go, to plant upwards of 50 signs at a time.

All would go well, until, inevitably, we'd get to one particular yard. The address was different each campaign, but it ALWAYS HAPPENED. The residents did not agree on the candidate. We'd plant a sign, and the spouse opposing the election would run out, yell at us, and demand that we pull it up. Very unpleasant. We'd apologize "for the confusion" as gracefully as possible, but drove away with our ears ringing.

The campaign's response to complaints about yard signs was, inevitably, to blame it on "overzealous volunteer workers."

Yesterday, our DUNWOODY YES! yard sign appeared in the front yard. I was thinking about the volunteer who showed up just two days after I emailed a request. Volunteering after work, putting in the kind of sweat equity that can't be compensated, showing a commitment to self-determination that's fundamentally American: you are wonderful!

Thank you, "overzealous volunteer." Your zeal for volunteering on behalf of cityhood is much appreciated. You can count on my vote for Dunwoody!

The Giving Knitter

One of the hardest things for me is to let go of something conceived, knitted, and presented to the world. The Knitternall Felted Tote is leaving home. It's going to the Silent Auction benefiting the Dunwoody Nature Center, and I am donating it with considerable angst. I want to support our mission (environmental education) and I love sharing my knitting, but . . . this is SPECIAL. It's the first design I created, patterned, and shared on my blog. Gosh.

One thing makes me feel a little better. A Master Gardener, on site to work on some of our special gardens, saw it and asked if I could change the flower to a Trillium. Of course! I love special orders, and it's always fun to create something special.

Goodby, purple Felted Tote. May you find a special place in someone's heart and win some much-needed funds for our little park and Nature Center.

Guess I'd better started working on a Trillium-inspired rendition.

Enough already.

When news writers raise alarms about biological warfare, viruses let loose accidentally by the CDC, bird flu, patches of black ice on the road, deadly strains of influenza, et al, my mom-sense goes into hyper-drive. Crohn's Disease and Remicade are a double handicap in the resistance game. While we're fighting to keep A's colon intact, Remicade is suppressing his immune system so it won't attack the colon . . . or any other disease, infection, etc. that happens to come along.

I want to stay home with my kids. Of course that's not realistic. I well understand the importance of preparing them for living with and in the world. I also understand that alarmist writing increases readership and ratings. But it doesn't stop me from enjoying snow days and stormy weather when we have no choice but to stay home.

There's an inordinate glee underlining doom-and-gloom news "reporting." Now that we're afraid of everything, narcissism rules the day. Don't tell us what to do. But SOMEONE should take care of all the bad stuff so we don't have to deal with it.

Enough already. There are enough real-life challenges. The stomach flu is waiting for the kids to get back to school so it can roar through families all over again. Life-changing illnesses are going to turn future plans upside down. The roof will leak and car break down when we can least afford the repairs.

And people will surprise you with kindness. 300 friends and neighbors will line the streets to welcome home a young mom recovering from months of physical rehabilitation. They'll let you in a long line of rush hour traffic and NOT bang the horn because your attention drifted for a moment when the light turned green. They'll see some broken glass in a picnic area and pick it up. They'll bring you an heirloom tomato plant just because they have extra and share the first crop of green beans from the backyard garden. They'll show up for volunteer workdays at church and the Nature Center and school and will value the results of their labors rather than the accolades.

Those kinds of stories don't sell newspapers or ad space for newscasts.

But they make living in Dunwoody all the nicer.

Knitting wisdom.

My son had oral surgery Monday to remove four wisdom teeth. It seems to be a rite of passage for the teen years. On the surface, it's "oh, yeah - I had that done. Not fun." On the other hand, when a kid has Crohn's disease, no surgery is "oh, yeah." We scheduled the surgery two weeks after Remicade so his immune system had a little bounce back from complete supression. And we didn't wait until too close to the next infusion so he wasn't also suffering the usual flare-up stuff.

Nonetheless, he's running a temp and we're watching him carefully for signs of infection. He's wide open for anything, so it's always a worry.

For surgery that isn't supposed to be "a big deal," it sure does hurt. The swelling, the pain, the drooling, the sheer misery is appreciable. I remember it well. I'm sure A will remember it, too.

Why are they called "wisdom" teeth? Because they generally emerge after all the other teeth, usually in adolescence when - supposedly - there's more wisdom. They have to come out when they crowd the other teeth, ruining all that expensive orthodontia.

"Wisdom?" As if.

I realize that the Latin origins of "wisdom teeth" came at a time when people married and had children long before kids today finish high school. They grew up earlier because life expectancy wasn't as long.

So we're stuck with a term that's hardly apropos for the age of kids when they undergo this surgery. As for the rare adult who has them removed later in life, maybe so.

Through hours in the waiting room and bedside at home, I managed to knit from the yoke to completion of the Cropped Cardigan Sweater.

Hence, knitting wisdom.

Cropping and cropped knitting.

When I was 14, we lived in rural North Carolina, near Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. My dad had just retired from the service and he and my mom chose Goldsboro for a permanent home. (Not so permanent - we ended up moving multiple times after that, but moving gets in your blood when you do it every two years or so.)

Money was very tight, so I took a job stringing, cropping, and barning tobacco on a Wayne County farm. The pay was amazing, and amazingly helpful for the family. Boiling sun, sandy soil, sticky tobacco worms, and loooonnnng hours made each week an endurance test. There were a few compensations. The farmer's wife made delicious, hearty lunches for the summer workers, most of whom were teenagers and college kids looking for big bucks over the summer. And we were able to pick cantelopes and watermelons to take home once they ripened.

Tobacco on the stalk is a dense, variegated green. I never smoked cigarettes, despite constant exposure during my youth. Having to take cured tobacco out of the smokehouses put the kibosh on any interest I may have ever had in the habit. That smell gets EVERYWHERE.

When I was choosing the yarn for the Lion Brand Cropped Raglan Cardigan, the olive green just struck a chord. I won't say cropping tobacco was my happiest memory of childhood. But it's there.

I've had a lifetime of making do and doing what's necessary to get by. Somehow, I learned to appreciate the effort

Father's Day knitting

Happy Father's Day, T.

You've grown into quite a father to our kids. We spent our pre-kids years with travel and fine food, then decided fairly late that it was time to start a family. God blessed us with two amazing kids, each singular in personality and outlook, each beloved.

While you were deeply distrustful of diaper and potty-training experiences, you gave both a really good try. You discovered an interest in scribbles and stuffed animals as well as a gift for resurrecting lost files in Pokemon Blue. As the kids' passions and needs have evolved, you've stayed right there with them, sitting through hours of animated movies, waiting patiently in video stores and the zoo, closing your eyes and guessing ad infinitum what your daughter has to show you, coaxing your anxious son into new experiences, and looking the other way for the occasional bed time well past midnight.

Well done. And keep up the good work.

Love, D.