Is he really sixteen?

I get it.

Sandy, our neighbor in the Kirkwood neighborhood in Greensboro, North Carolina was already there. I'm sure she rolled her eyes oh-so-genteelly as I waxed and waned about my amazing, miraculous, never-to-be-paralled baby boy. Her child was in middle school and she'd been there, done that.

When we moved to Dunwoody, my son's first Sunday School teacher smiled kindly as I warned her about his separation anxiety and need to keep a treasured jeep in his hand at all times and to just send someone to me if he cried. Her child was in high school and she'd been there, done that.

Now he is turning sixteen.

There are babies blooming up and down our street here in Dunwoody. Pinks and blue announcements are bouncing from mailbox to yard, with wood storks and mylar balloons crowing the joyous news. Do I long for that cuddly bit of love? Actually, no. My two loves are right here, in my memory as sweet babies, scraped-knee and bruised-forehead toddlers, and "I can do that myself" first-graders. I can still hug them, kiss their foreheads, even get away with a little "baby boy" and "baby girl" at bedtime. They love the snuggles, thank goodness.

So now I smile kindly as the stroller brigade meanders up and down the street to show off the latest bit of love. I adore the babies and enjoy their pinched up faces. When they start crying, I bite my tongue as their mothers fretfully pick them up and worry.

My baby is turning 16. He's just moments away from leaving home and my ever-present care.

How did that happen?

Packing light

When the Knitternall clan travels, we pack lightly. I can get enough clothes, necessities, etc. for me and the kids into one mid-sized rolling suitcase (they carry THEIR necessities - game gear, books, journals, etc. in backpacks). T takes care of his own stuff in a handy-dandy multi-tasking bag he uses for business travel. So that's usually two suitcases and two backpacks.

The hiccup is my knitting and reading bag. This never gets checked in with the luggage. It doesn't reach the back of the van for road trips. It stays with me on buses and subways, in limos and taxis - always within reach. My bag has to be carefully chosen to accommodate several works in progress, 3 to 4 books, some light reading (aka knitting magazines and the latest Real Simple or Southern Living), my camera, chargers for cell phone and camera, emergency meds for A, plus gum, mints, headache remedies, and hand lotion.

I have to confess. My knitting/reading bag is often bigger than our suitcase.

While it takes me less than an hour to pack the clothes, I plan for the knitting bag for DAYS ahead. Which WIPs are best for small quarters? How far along am I and will I have enough yarn to finish? How complicated is the pattern? Will I like the books enough to be fully absorbed during the take-offs and landings that are my own personal Fear Factor? The considerations are never-ending.

When I finally do head out the door, it isn't without a last fretful look back. What did I forget? Do I have enough stitch markers? What if I drop a stitch? What if I hate the WIP and don't have ANYTHING ELSE TO DO? I don't worry about the luggage - there's almost always a Target nearby to fill in the gaps.

'Tis the season to be visiting family and friends. My shopping is finished. I've planned out meals and picked up some nice hostess gifts.

Now the stress really begins. What will go in my knitting bag? Maybe I should take a page from the people knitting in REALLY stressful situations. Like Baghdad.

I really do need to keep things in perspective.

Thankful knitting

I have weird ideas about relaxation. I love cooking and cleaning, preparing for a gathering whether small or large. It's a joy to be at home, with no have-to's on the immediate horizon and nothing more ambitious than a hike tomorrow with my son and his birthday next week.  A toss of the compost pile, a few loads of laundry so everyone sleeps on clean sheets, and life is good.

Joy.

I cooked most of last evening - a cheesecake and brownie pie, sweet potato crumble and frozen fruit salad, plus brining the turkey. This morning was roasting and mashing time. The Knitternall clan sat down for lunch around 1, sharing thanks and enjoying this quiet holiday together.

Dishes cleaned, I pulled out an assortment of oddball yarns in creams, grays, and blacks. Now I'm knitting a prayer shawl, my own Thanksgiving for all the blessings God has given us. 

The Comfort Shawl is aptly named.  Knit one, yarn over, knit across to center marker; yarn over before and after, knit across to end of row, yarn over, knit one. The shawl grows peacefully across the needles, flowing onto my lap, inviting caresses of prayer and reflection. Someday it'll wrap the shoulders of someone who needs a hug, and I'll send one their way even if I'm not with them.

Happy Thanksgiving. 

Afterglow

We had 1,000 luminarias last night for Cocoa & Candles. The energetic and fearless Dunwoody High School Key Club opened white paper bags and popped in a cup or so of sand on Friday, then returned at 5:30 to add a tea light, spread them along trails, wetlands boardwalk, and the lane, around the meadow and fairytale playhouse, and through the treehouse, then light them with our  handy-dandy stick lighters. 

It was lovely. 

This morning dawned gray and raining. One thousand luminarias wilted on the ground. So I started picking them up. An hour or so later, one of my compadres arrived and joined me. Then one of our amazing volunteers showed up. He'd already put in a ton of hours over the weekend stringing lights, decorating the outdoor fireplace, and supervising the roaring fire as marshmallows roasted. 

So we worked.

That's 1,000 squats. Crouch down, pick up wet bag, pull out tealight, dump sand on ground, toss bag and tealight into garbage bag. Continue. 

After awhile, it felt meditative. Just us, a long line of luminarias, rain dripping through the woods, and a woodpecker high up on a lofty limb to provide a working beat. 

The luminarias are gone now. They'll be back next year. And I'll enjoy the beauty of candlelit trails despite the labor that precedes and follows.

Howdy, neighbor

Just a few of the reasons I love being in Dunwoody for the holidays . . .

1.  Light Up Dunwoody and Cocoa & Candles. The Knitternall family can walk the three short blocks between our house and the farmhouse, enjoy the jostling, smiling, familiar crowd, and shiver in the shift from sunset to darkness before hitting the luminaria-lit trails at the Nature Center with warm cocoa in hand.

2. My darling little Preschool Phonics friends starting to wear Christmas dresses and shirts, with bows in mussed up hair, lick-lipped chap marks making perfect circles around their mouths, and hands shooting up into the air to tell me everything and anything going on in their families (I promise I believe only half what I hear).

3.  The rare quiet of very little traffic on Mt. Vernon Road on Thanksgiving and Christmas Days.

4. Red Velvet Cake from Wright Gourmet, Moravian Sugar Cookies from the Fresh Market (a taste from Winston-Salem that we'd otherwise miss), a smoked turkey from Olde Hickory House, and peppermint cocoa from Starbcks.

5.  Redfield's Christmas Eve gala, with hundreds of cars meandering through street after street of magical Christmas lights displayed by neighbors competing for bragging rights in a variety of categories (Knitternall Family Favorite: the Kids' Choice!). Plus, we always have to see the gi-normous display at the estate in the heart of Dunwoody Club Forest.

6.  The huge Great Dane who walks his owner through my neighborhood with genteel dignity, foot-long stuffed bone pillow grasped firmly in his slobbery mouth and a happy gleam in his eye as he ambles along. 

7.  The local Griswold house in Wyntercreek.

8.  The 11:00 Christmas Eve service at St. Luke's,  with its carols, communion, chrismons, and candlelit lullaby.

9. Running into friends and familiar faces in the aisles of Kroger and Publix  as I make yet another run for that one ingredient I thought was on my list but completely forgot and the gingerbread/stuffing/fudge/buckeyes/hard sauce etc. MUST BE MADE.

10. Holiday dinner leftovers. Yummmmm.

I love the holidays!

Finding a pattern in the chaos

I want to knit a simple cardigan, one with a crew neck, raglan sleeves, lightly ribbed waist and understated texture. I want it to fit well, not billow, and hit my waist line with some simple shaping. I want thicker than the paper-thin weights currently jamming the store racks, but not the bulky of over-achiever cables and chunky yarns. I want to trust that the pattern will result in something I can actually wear.  I'm feeling a preppy, 1980's collegiate kind of vibe.  In the cacophany of over-the-top designs currently filling the pages of my favorite design magazines and websites, such a simple design is nowhere to be found. So I'm going to visit Cast-On Cottage in Roswell this weekend to see what I can find. 

I look forward to the search, but even more to the knitting I hope to enjoy.

  

 

Ponderings

Dunwoody's temporary City Hall will be in Sandy Springs. At first, I didn't like the idea very much, no matter how practical and cost effective the decision was. But now it's gelled a bit and I'm glad our first City Council is so frugal.

In the past two weeks, I've heard several instances of parents not taking responsibility for their own inattention/oversight/ignorance and threatening lawsuits against whomever. For Pete's sake. It makes it hard for those of us volunteering and trying to make things happen to even try in the first place.

Light Up Dunwoody has a trolley! It's going to travel from the Shoppes at Dunwoody to the Farmhouse to Dunwoody Nature Center for Cocoa & Candles and back again. Fun!

Fast Nall School Night Dinner: boiled a bag of tortellini, heated up some Hunt's Traditional Spaghetti Sauce and mixed in a dozen frozen meatballs. Mixed together, topped with mozzarella, and tossed in oven. Baking 30 minutes while A's Algebra tutor works with him, and dinner will be ready.

John Heneghen and Pattie Baker are two of my favorite Dunwoody bloggers. One keeps us in the loop with the City of Dunwoody birth pains and the other keeps us looking ahead to a sustainable life in this wonderful town. My favorite website? Dunwoody Nature Center, of course!

Dr. Christopher Price, senior minister of St. Luke's Presbyterian Church for nearly two decades, preached his last sermon this past Sunday. I was fairly dry-eyed until he paid tribute to T for his service as Clerk of Session through two epochal changes to the church. Tears flowed, friends patted me on the back, and the kids stared wide-eyed because I never lose it.

T and I had breakfast Saturday morning at Olde Hickory House. Over plates of not-so-healthy but yummy Southern fare, we discussed holiday plans and caught a few adult moments together. Meanwhile, a young fellow commanded and demanded his parents' undivided attention in the booth behind me. "Wow," T said. "I don't think those parents said one word to each other." Oh, we remember those days!

There's this amazing new wine/beer/liquor place called Total Wine in the Perimeter. They bestowed a much-appreciated $2,000 donation to Dunwoody Nature Center in celebration of their grand opening. I will most definitely be shopping there for the holidays!

As Delta Airlines and Northwest Airlines merge, the hiccups are just beginning. For example, T travels EXTENSIVELY, mostly on Delta. He had a day trip today. The "new" airline is adopting Northwest's policies on priority seating for frequent flyers, which is a horribly inept system. T spent way too much time trying to move out of the middle seat, a process that would have taken five minutes on the computer before the merger. Favorite bit of stupidity in the process: the new system says you can't change a seat until 24 hours before the flight. But in a day trip, the return trip can't be changed until you're in the city of departure. Come on.

I love the Dunwoody Library. I love it in spite of its quirks, due largely to the fact that it's funded and managed by the chronically dysfunctional DeKalb County. I love the staff and their obvious passion for all things library-ish. I love the fact that I can reserve books at home and then pick them up whenever. What I don't love is their disdain for knitting books. Come on . . . when are you going to add Mason-Dixon Knitting's sequel and Nicky Epstein's latest?

I'm on Ravelry! To date, more than 150 people have favorited or queued Sox Shawl, Trimiters, and Knitting Tote.

The Sunday Night Knitting Circle is going strong, though only a handful of us come each week. It's peaceful in the St. Luke's library and we have a marvelous time with our WIPs, chats, and confiding moments. This past Sunday we used my swift and ball winder to turn a mass of donated yarn into center-pull balls. Fun!

One of my favorite breaks is to take a walk with Scooter the Wonder Dog in the late night darkness of Dunwoody Village. The lights are glowing, traffic is light, and the crisp air smells faintly of the hardwood fires wafting from Olde Hickory House throughout the day. Peaceful, comforting, and familiar, it's a marvelous transition from busy day to quiet sleep.