When Knitting Was a Manly Art

I’ve only written two posts since Mom died and I really need to start becoming more evolved in the real world and I’ve begun to get out and start doing things again.

The past two weekends have always been the highlight of the summer for me over the past 8-10 years. These are the weekends of the Great Oregon Steam-Up. First as a participant/exhibitor with Eileen’s small tractor collection and for the past three years as a volunteer in the steam powered sawmill. (That’s me in the yellow t-shirt).

Work is still taking up a huge chunk of my time, but I think that’s going to change. I’ll be 62 in March of 2009 and I can start drawing social security at that point. While it certainly won’t be enough to live on and I’ll have to continue to work some, I’ve decided that I’m going ask that my hours be cut back and I want Friday-Sunday off. That will bring me down to about 30 hours/week, but combined with what I expect from Social Security, my income will nearly double and maybe I can start enjoying my retirement.

Family. Dad took Mom’s death very hard. They would have been married 62 years in July and her death hit him emotionally and physically. He’s been moved from an independent living facility to assisted living and then back to independent living. He’s been in and out of the hospital with pneumonia and congestive heart failure. His eyesight is failing and he’s lonely. But with all that he’s actually doing better than any of us expected. With his return to independent living, he’s among his friends again, he’s at a point where he can accept the condolences of those friends and he’s the happiest I’ve seen him since the first of May.

Knitting. Not much. And don’t expect a lot of knitting content for a while. I’m not motivated enough yet. I do have a little toe-up sock that I’ve been adding stitches to over the past two months, but it’s only gained an inch of so. The little sweater is still around, but the baby it was intended for has pretty much outgrown it. Maybe a teddy bear sweater when it’s finally done.

Live in general. Much better and much happier the last month or so. Getting out regularly into Portland to my favorite brew pub, Lucky Labrador Beer Hall. I’ve got a new laptop computer with all the whizzies you’d expect, including WiFi and after years of ssllooww dialup, it’s so much fun to connect to a fast wifi connection and be able to sip beer and browse the web.

Continuing content. I’ve made a commitment to myself to post *something* at least twice a week. Probably not a lot of interest to regular readers, but still it’s something

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