Moving from a big city to rural Montana has given me the opportunity to learn a few new tricks:
1. I learned to knit, but it didn't really "take." I enjoy making quick and easy projects and have no desire to advance my skills. This hat is something I enjoy making over and over again. The pile of unfinished projects in my knitting bag is actually pretty stunning. Most of them have been noted under the "Needles" category at one stage or another. Let's just say I had to drop out of my knitting group for lots of different reasons.
2. I learned to sew. I love to make soft toys. I don't have children of my own or anything. I just make them to relax and then give them away. It's weird, but there is something comforting about making something completely and utterly useless. The only thing about a soft toy that matters is whether or not it is cute. There is something about that, after a long day of trying to solve unsolve-able problems, that really helps me chill out.
3. I learned to can. I think this upsets my mother the most. She spent her entire life trying not to sew, knit, can preserves, or serve a man. But, as I've said before, the year 10,000 pounds of our cherries went unsold was the year I learned to can. No regrets.
4. I can hem my own jeans (see #2). I was never satisfied with the tailoring I was paying for in town, so I just decided that if my pants were going to be ruined - I'd be the one to do it. I'm getting better. Tonight I did a really expensive pair of jeans and they look pretty good.
5. I am doing some very low-key landscape work. I've learned that sun plants don't grow in the shade just because you want them to. My strategy is to buy it, throw it in the ground and hope for the best. So far, that's working pretty well. I also help clear brush once in awhile, since I need the exercise.
6. I have learned to put a dryer sheet under each seat in my car so the squirrels don't build nests in the air conditioning system. (They don't like the smell.) I learned that AFTER I had the nest pulled out, stick by stick, at the dealership. Twice.
Laura and Mary Ingalls have NOTHIN' on you. Oh, can you play the organ yet?
Posted by: juliejulie | June 10, 2009 at 10:51 PM