Blog a la Cart

Bubble Hat

Yesterday, I took a time out from my daily life, drove down to Lenox, and sat in the corner of a coffee shop knitting for three solid hours. While that may sound hellish to some of you, it was more therapeutic than any amount of time under my sunlamp, or with a shrink, or on Prozac. I needed a day, all to myself. A day with no email. No dependents. No plans. No nothing. And it was exactly as healing and relaxing as I’d hoped. It’s been a hellish fall. People in my life have been coping with so much loss and hurt and struggle. And I’ve had my own hiccups here and there. And I’ve been left feeling exhausted. Burned out. Stretched too thin. And failing on all fronts. I needed a day to make peace with that. So I basked in that stream of sunlight falling on my knitting needles and steaming cup of coffee, and thought, about nothing and everything. I recharged.

Three hours later, I was nearly done with this hat and had a renewed sense of energy and excitement for the season ahead, for what I hope to accomplish in 2013, and how to better manage and support my friends and family that need it most.

More details about the Bubble Hat and how I adapted it for this chunkier knit in my Ravelry projects here. And may you all take time for yourself when you need it most. What wonderful things can come from loving and putting ourselves first every once and awhile.

I am beautiful.

This morning, Kaki’s FGM and fellow mama emailed me the link to this post. And I found myself tearing up while reading its words.

I don’t want my girls to be children who are perfect and then, when they start to feel like women, they remember how I thought of myself as ugly and so they will be ugly too. They will get older and their breasts will lose their shape and they will hate their bodies, because that’s what women do. That’s what mommy did. I want them to become women who remember me modeling impossible beauty. Modeling beauty in the face of a mean world, a scary world, a world where we don’t know what to make of ourselves.

James tells me I’m beautiful all the time in front of the girls. And I need to stop saying, “Well, I’m glad you think so” and start saying, “Thank you. I think so, too.” Because I want my girls to grow into women who believe that about themselves, always.