Sometimes Mondays

. . . look like a giveaway!

“No matter how wonderful things used to be, we cannot live in the past. The joy and excitement we feel here and now are more important.”  
                                                                 --- Marie Kondo

I am going through my yarn stash, which is probably not as extensive as many people's yarn stashes, but certainly includes more yarn than I can ever knit up, even if I live a good, long time.  I have some really lovely yarn . . . that I will likely never use.  Nice yarns, pretty yarns . . . that just never seem to be quite what I'm looking for when I want to knit something.

It's time for me to let them go -- out into the knitting world where they may "spark joy" for someone else.

Each month (or maybe more often, we'll have to see), I'm going to offer something from my stash here on a Sometimes Monday. If it "sparks joy" for you (or for someone you know), just let me know in the comments section at some point during the week.  On the following Friday, I'll package it off and ship it to you.  (If more than one commenter wants the yarn, I'll have Tom draw names from a hat.)

Let's begin!

First up, I am offering a Reykjavik mitten kit from Carol Sunday.  (That's a Ravelry link there, if you're not a Ravelry user, you can see the kit here, on Carol's website.)  The kit I have is in the charcoal colorway.

This is a beautiful mitten knit with lovely yarn.  I've had it in my stash for . . . a good, long time.  And every January I take it out and consider it.  And then I put it back and say, "Not this year."  (Clearly, this project is not going to happen in any year.)  

It's just not sparking joy for me.  But I'm hoping it may spark joy for one of you!  Because this yarn is too lovely to just sit there in my stash.  

So.  If this kit (or even just the yarn) sparks joy for you, just let me know sometime this week in the comments.  I'll be happy to send it off to you.

Have a great week.  And stay warm!

 

 

Sometimes Mondays

. . . call out for poetry.

Starlings in Winter
 --- Mary Oliver

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

They are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one strippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can’t imagine

how they do it
with articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, than can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,

even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard.  I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

 

 

Sometimes Mondays

. . . are for sunshine.

Well.  Maybe not THIS Monday.  Because THIS Monday is full of rain.  But we have had a lot of sunshine lately.  Unusual, unseasonable sunshine.  In fact, I took the photo above on Saturday -- when the sunshine was streaming in and making my library bookshelves glow.

So. . . I'm talking figurative sunshine.  Not literal sunshine.

Today, I'm going to bring sunshine into my day.  And maybe even to the day of those people around me.  Even though there won't be any REAL sunshine.

Sunshine . . . on a rainy Monday in dark January . . . is a frame-of-mind thing.
Happy Monday.  I hope your week is off to a fine start!

Sometimes Mondays

. . . feel a little scattered.  (But also festive!)

You know how, sometimes, everything just kind of lands on the calendar . . . on the same day?  Well.  This is one of those days for me.  

It's manageable.  But I feel a bit scattered.   A real Monday kind of Monday, in other words.

How's your Monday looking?

Sometimes Mondays

. . . look pretty black-and-white.

(Heavy on the white!)

I hope your Thanksgiving time was peaceful and restful, with just enough pie.  And I hope you're easing yourself back into "regular time" today.  (Unless you happen to live in Southwest Michigan and thereabouts . . . where you're probably hunkering down for another day off.)

How's YOUR Monday looking?

 

Sometimes Mondays

. . . feel like the start of something new.

This year, I've decided to re-think all the ways I celebrate the holidays.   Kind of a . . .Kon-Mari of my holiday traditions.  I know it's time to let some things go -- and then, perhaps, I can make room for the new and the different.  Or just create some empty space to relax and enjoy.

And I'm kicking things off with a big Thanksgiving . . . shift.  
Because this will be the first year that none of my kids will be around my table.  In fact, this will be the first year that NO ONE (even Tom) will be around my table!  

This Thanksgiving, I'll be driving Tom to the airport  . . . so he can fly off for another fishing adventure at his favorite lodge in Patagonia.  I remember many, many months ago, when Tom was first arranging his trip, and he told me it would mean flying out on Thanksgiving Day.  My first thought was . . . (gasp) Not Thanksgiving!  But that thought only lasted about 15 seconds.  Because . . . why not?  We already knew the kids wouldn't be able to come home for Thanksgiving this year.  It would be just Tom and my dad and I anyway . . . 

So why not celebrate Thanksgiving on a different day???  We'll be celebrating with our turkey dinner tomorrow night! 

(And isn't this the perfect way to start my holiday shake-up?)

Sometimes Mondays

. . . look like you better get your butt in gear.

(Yeah.  This photo has nothing to do with Mondays at all.  But it is pretty.  And it will serve to remind me that I still owe you a post about the SOFA exhibit I went to in Chicago . . . 10 days ago already.  Because this is one of the photos I took at SOFA.)

Last week became one of those "lost weeks" for me.  Between the election and then that dang shingles shot . . . and then feeling like I was entitled to a bit of a break because of that dang shingles shot . . . and some other commitments, I just sort of checked out on Regular Life.

Definitely time to get my butt in gear!
(And how about YOU?  How's your Monday looking so far?)

Sometimes Mondays

. . . are about as Monday as they come.  

Mondays that don't go as planned.  With a power-blip and a printer that won't print and a router that needs a re-start and an unexpected visitor and a slower-than-expected software update.  You know.  A Monday kind of Monday. 

But.  Tomorrow is Tuesday.  And that means . . . 

I know I don't really need to remind any of you . . .   but I will anyway.

VOTE!  

Sometimes Mondays

. . . look pretty bleak.  

Sad and discouraging, even.  
Sometimes Mondays . . . (borrowing the words from The Carpenters) always get me down.  
And especially after a weekend . . . after a week . . . like we've just had.

But, then.

But, then.  I walk into my living room and see this outside my window.

It is my larch tree.  Glowing!  Exuding magic and stunning color.  Right there in my garden.

This incredible tree - a larch - is a conifer.  But it is a deciduous conifer.  Which means it will lose all of its needles once this stunning, golden display of today is finished.  It will look absolutely dead all winter long.  But in the spring?  Lovely, soft green needles will sprout from its branches once again.

This incredible tree is reminding me that the garden . . . is a place for hope.

And I really need that reminder today.

It seems that Sometimes Mondays . . . are really about finding hope.  
Keep looking, my friends.

“If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.”
                   --- Martin Luther King Jr.

 

 

Sometimes Mondays

. . . look like cleaning up.

I spent much of my weekend outside, in my garden, clearing things up and preparing my garden beds for the winter.  It's a bittersweet time, but so very nice to be out.

More to do out there today.

How about you?  What's your Monday looking like?