A Fresh Start and a Remembrance

As an American, I can't really write a blog entry on Sept. 11 without an acknowledgement of the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001.  This year is the 10th anniversary of a terrorist act that changed our country forever.  I remember watching it unfold on the TV news as I waited at the car dealership for the service on my minivan.  That year all my kids were in the same school and all I wanted to do was go get them all and hold onto them.  It was a terrible terrible event in our history, but I can also remember how people worked together and helped each other during and after the attacks.

Onward to more mundane happenings.  School FINALLY started last Tuesday, a week late due to Tropical Storm Irene and her aftermath.  We lost power for six days.  The kids were real troopers but we were all so relieved when the lights came back on.  That was another instance where many of us had no power, phone, water, etc., and friends who had not lost power came to the rescue.

The kids are all exhausted after their 4-day week. They are starting new classes, scrambling to get school supplies (our school does not put out supply lists ahead of time - the kids get the info in class) and tweaking schedules.  Aya in particular has been completely exhausted trying to learn a new school, find her way around, and understand what is going on in her classes in English.  Her English and History classes are particularly difficult because of the heavy reading load.  She wants to move down to a lower level of those classes and I think that's probably a good idea.  Her science classes were a little better, and she felt that the math class was too easy, and may try to move up to the Honors level.  We have an appointment with her counselor on Monday to see what we can do.  Jessica thought she had the perfect schedule this year, but once she started, she felt that her Chemistry class was just too easy, and she is looking to move up to the Honors level there.  Always good to hear that things are too easy and that the kids are looking for a challenge rather than staying in an easy class and getting lazy.  Jason is the only one with his original schedule still intact. Jason and Jessica had after-school activities that started up the first week of school and they have had some long days.  Aya has become exhausted just trying to keep up.  Saturday morning she slept in until 11 am (and she was usually the first of the kids to get up in the morning).  That was over 12 hours of sleep!  Given all the energy she burned up this week just getting through school, I'm sure she really needed it!

I have had a busy week as well.  The week that power was out I couldn't really get much work done.  The office I work in also had no power or internet or phone or water.  I usually work 1 or 2 days a week, with a busier week at end-of-month reconciling the checkbook and putting together end-of-month reports.   So this past week was catch-up time.  I put in as much time as I could but really needed to be home for Aya this first week of school.  I'll still be catching up at work next week, but it shouldn't be quite as bad.

I have made some progress on the hat I started knitting for Aya.  It has become my evening relaxation.  I put on a murder mystery (this week it was Inspector Morse) and take out my knitting.

Hat for Aya

close-up of cable

It's coming along nicely and I really like the pattern.  It's called Bloody Stupid Johnson by Sarah Lilly, and I got it from Knitty.com.  Turns out I've been crossing the cable the wrong way, but I've been crossing it wrong consistently, and it looks fine and won't affect anything else in the hat.  The construction is different than the usual toque: the ribbing is done in the round from the bottom up, but rather than continuing bottom up, the stitches for the cable are cast on and knitted sideways, knitting the edge stitch together with a hat stitches 3 out of every 4 rows.  I'm almost 3/4 of the way around the circumference, and the cable will be grafted together when it meets the end where it starts.

The other fresh start I had this week was with my knitting group.  We don't meet during the summer because so many of us have school-aged kids and their summer schedules and summer travel keep many of us from being able to attend a knitting group.  We did try to set up some summer dates a few years back, but just didn't get anyone showing up!  And now it's such a treat to start knitting group every fall.  We often do more talking and eating than we do knitting, but it's a fantastic group of women so it doesn't really matter what we do!

This post is getting really long so I'll sign off.  It's been a heck of a start to the new school year, but we're off and running!

Shelley in CT
  

Post Hurricane Post

I shouldn't really call it a hurricane.  By the time Hurricane Irene made it up to my neck of the woods she had been downgraded to a tropical storm.  But she sure packed a punch.  We heeded all the warnings, stocked up on batteries, collected jugs of clean water, gathered our candles, and stayed inside.  We saw trees really whipping around, and we lost a few trees on our property and saw quite a few down around the neighborhood as well.  

The storm itself did not cause a lot of structural damage in our area, nor much flooding (I believe western CT got most of the flooding) but eastern CT lost a lot of trees, and a lot of those trees fell on utility lines, so we lost power and phone service.  We were prepared, and it wasn't so bad the first day, or 2, or 3... but boy, by day 4, and 5, and 6(!!!) we were really tired of it all and nerves were fraying.  We were very lucky that we did not sustain any damage to the house and we were all safe, and when we needed it, we had friends with power, internet, and SHOWERS who offered us their facilities.  I was even able to take the food from my large freezer in the basement to 2 different friends' houses in order to keep it all frozen.  So we didn't really lose much. This video is the view of the back yard during the storm; that oak tree that's thrashing around is huge!

I boiled water every morning outside on the gas grill for coffee and tea.  I bought bags of ice to keep in the refrigerator and everything stayed cold enough.  We made bacon and eggs on the grill, heated up leftovers, and cooked a couple of frozen pizzas (with only minor charring and small flames in one corner).  I did get tired and take the kids out to lunch one day for fresh hot food (and coffee for me), and another night we got greasy takeout Chinese food and ate it by candlelight on the porch.

Takeout by candlelight

I was taking advantage of my outdoor clothes dryer as well.  While I wasn't actually washing clothes, I used a lot of rags and towels to soak up the mess and the melting ice from the freezer and the fridge, and I needed to dry them out so they didn't grow mildew.

What really kept us sane was the ability to get out every couple days to descend upon another kind friend who had offered her house for showers, charging of electrical devices, and an internet connection.  We also used the public library, which became quite the community center where half the town came to charge electronics and check email using the library's wifi.

One afternoon the girls and I decided we needed pedicures.  So while the natural light was still good we pulled out all the nail polish we had and pampered our toes.

girls painting each other's toenails

pretty pedicures

By day 6 I needed to think about something besides the storm aftermath and how to feed 3 hungry teenagers without electricity.  I decided the answer to that was a new knitting project!  I has told Aya that I would like to knit a hat for her for the winter.  So I pulled out my knitting patterns and asked her to look through them and tell me what appealed to her.  Then we went to a friend's house for showers and I got on knitty and searched through all their hats.  She picked out an interesting pattern called Bloody Stupid Johnson, http://knitty.com/ISSUEwinter07/PATTbsjohnson.html, and I wrote down the yarn requirements, and after we had all showered, the girls and I took a trip to the yarn shop and looked for yarn.  While I was at it, I asked Jessica if she needed a new winter hat, and ended up buying yarn for 2 hat projects.

Yarn and gauge swatch for Aya's hat

Yarn for Jessica's hat

There is nothing like new yarn to brighten up the day.  I didn't really need to start 2 new projects, but I'm going to really enjoy them!

This morning at around 1:30 am the power finally came back on.  For once I didn't mind being woken up in the middle of the night by the hall light!  We are appreciating every little thing that we were missing without power, phone or internet, at least for a short time, and I am doing lots of catch-up laundry.  Kids will start school this Tuesday, a week later than scheduled, and hopefully we will all fall into a normal routine without any major storms to add excitement to our lives.

Shelley in CT