Creating Memories

A friend's Mom gave me a whole pile of yarn some time ago, and I've been using it to keep myself busy this year at home. This piece has been sitting at my TV chair for months, only picked up in the evenings before bed. It was a way to use up a series of single skeins that weren't enough to complete a project individually, and hence the uneven width of the stripes. It's become a warm, heavy throw, probably good for keeping feet warm at the bottom of the bed (for those whose extremities reach that far). Or a TV or fireside blanket.

I thought I'd finish the border whilst watching figure skating performances on YouTube ... hah! That was impossible. I found myself stopping, with my needle and yarn in mid air, mesmerized and glued to the screen, my heart in my mouth, as the Ice Dancers performed incredible lifts, spectacular spins and graceful glides. That memory is now woven into this blanket.

 

Wild Imaginings (Kudos to Dr. Seuss)

 

I love having fun with weird, off-the-wall ideas - it's stimulating to play with imaginings that are offbeat or initially nonsensical. Dr. Seuss opened his children's book 'Wacky Wednesday' with the idea of a shoe on the wall - something odd, indeed, but it hooks and fascinates the reader from the get-go, simply by being unexpected, and 'out there.'

I recall how much my kids and I loved reading Dr. Seuss' "On Beyond Zebra," where he created an extended alphabet beyond the letter Z. It inspired them to continue creating more of their own alphabet in the same vein, simply because they found it thrilling to imagine new letters that hadn't been discovered. Not dismissing that quirkiness as an adult opens me up to play with new ideas, and gets my creative juices flowing. The wackier, the better - it frees me from habitual, stereotypical thinking ... to where there is no set path or limit.

And sometimes these unusual ponderings can be quite amusing. So here are some of my recent oddball musings:

• When will they start making flour less powdery? (The pic below shows the reason for this contemplation)

• How is it that we have less snow on the days it was forecast, than on the day for which it wasn't predicted?
• How do things only turn up when we find them?
• Coming up with new words: my own new word this week was opaquens: the act of making something go opaque. I can only find opaque, opaquely, opaquer and opaquest in an online dictionary. Thinking creatively challenged me to discover a new sense of the word that I think works, poetically.
• Hmm, I wonder if "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak is really about the thoughts in our heads?

Do you have any outlandish thoughts or wild imaginings to share that will make others smile? I'm sure I'm not alone! Don't be shy!

Gold Morning

I never tire of this gorgeous, gold glow on November mornings, but unfortunately I often get up too late to catch it.

 

Crystal skin

A skin of crystals

Opaquens the lake surface

As ice-in begins.