Persistence, pertinacious

Okay, so it is December 23rd, two days before Christmas. I finally got some holiday energy over the weekend, undoubtedly from my wonderful fourteen year old, Mia, who never fails to provide a smile when desperately needed.

On this day I was reminded about persistence. As I started this post I was reminded how cold is gets in winter. How cold?? Well, it is so chilly in here the chain on my eyeglasses is too cold for my neck!!!! And from one who suffers from hot flashes that's saying a lot. Usually I love anything that can cool down my too hot neck!! But cold is cold!! LOL

I gave us all a Christmas gift of more heat and turned up the thermostat to 64 while we were home! My lower thermostat is definitely working on saving us lots of money. We had one oil tankful in September, and only needed half a tank this month. i am so very grateful fro the mild weather, as it has helped so many of us cope with this economy a little better.

So persistence was the word on my mind as I sat down to write this. And why, you might ask?

Well, I challenge my family each year to do their gifting without spending much money, or none at all. But really, how can you not have lots of gifts under there??!! Well, when you have to get into more debt to do it, it becomes ridiculous! When you have lots of financially sound years you get used to a certain way of living. Then when the hard times hit, it is very hard to change what has become pretty routine. I did buy some items fro gifts, but also made lots of things for my loved ones. Many things were easy and done early. Others were not. So the week before Christmas found me working on a knitted skirt for Mia and a scarf for JD (my son-in-law).

Well, I finished the knitting of the skirt and set it aside to focus on the scarf. Wouldn't you know that I would forget it!! It just needed some finishing. Luckily I noticed it Christmas Eve. And even more fortunately, Mia is so understanding, that she didn't mind it on Christmas Morn, when she took it out of the gift bag (I made bags years ago when the house was full of foster kids - That one busy winter has saved me so much time on wrapping gifts over the years, not to mention the money saved on gift wrap, tissue paper and scotch tape!! So I just have to tie up the loose ends of the skirt today and it'll be ready to wear.

But the scarf, oh, the scarf, that was another story. Many years ago I mad a beautiful knitted scarf to hubby, using a design of seed stitch and cables which her really loved. I decided to do a similar one for JD. He chose a color (green), from yarn I had on hand. And I started to knit it. I started it in October, after I had finished hats for my five greats nieces and nephews.

I have been knitting again, after many years not being able to, due to arthritis developed in both hands after a bad fall. Now, after reconstructive surgery on both hands I have been able to knit again, slowly at first, but now I can do it almost every day. Knitting takes more hand strength and agility than crocheting. I have been doing both since I was a teen - WOW!!! Okay, it is very hard to get ready to say this, but that is about 47 years that I have been doing both! (I must mention here that I am not LOL !!!, I am in shock at that thought!!! 45 years, wow111, that went by fast!!)

Also, since I had the first hand surgery and was sitting around recuperating for a long time our pets have been behaving very differently. Our dog, Abby, got just a little too comfortable lying next to me on the couch while I became a couch potato, in recovery mode. So once I got through the worst of it I started to get her trained to be off the furniture. She is part beagle and sheds mostly white fur, so anything I was making would be covered with it, which just gets to be a bother when working with a dark color yarn.

And we have 5 cats here, 4 of them litter mates. Because they grew up together they pretty much just play with each other and don't pay us much mind. That is until I was sitting around all the time recuperating. Then one in particular, a large yellow tiger, started getting up on the couch with me. Over the course of the last tow years she found a great perch, my arm rest and staked it out when I was in no position to argue much. Once I was more clear headed, I found it hard to get her to try another spot, anywhere but right under my arm!! But she had staked it out and would not budge. So we have gotten used to each other, a bit. That is, until I started to do hand work again. Doing crochet was not so bad - it is a short needle that is used, so it was easy to work around this cat on my arm rest. Then the cat, Kia, would start laying her head on my elbow as I was working along, then on my shoulder, then half her body joined in!!

Eventually she would become so heavy I would have to oust her off the couch, but she always came back. And the purring. She just snuggles up and gets her motor going!! When I think of it I scratch her real good. That ofter settles her down into a comfy soft purring mode. When I am busy and trying to accomplish something and have my hands both occupied she gets more pesky, wanting my attention.

This is where her persistence becomes more obvious and quickly gets into the annoying stage.

So it is that I was trying to get this scarf done fro JD. It is dark green and while working on a dark color I strive to keep it pet fur free, which is very hard to do in this pet full house!! LOL

Usually I can crochet a scarf in about 1-2 hours. I do a bunch for the holidays for charities. This scarf, for my beloved son-in-law, was not to be completed so fast. I forgot just how long it takes to do a scarf with a complicated pattern. And I had not counted on my hands not bearing up to the process. Had I bit off more than I could chew?? Would I give up on the project?? Maybe in years past, I might have set it aside, to linger in that place of unfinished, best intentioned things, which have taken up so much space in my house in the past.

But this year, when I was working so hard to not buy present, I was determined to get it done. So When I used up the first skein of yarn (8 ounces), which is a lot for a scarf, I measured it and found it to be 5 feet long. Surely that was a great length for a scarf. Well, when I had hubby try it on, I saw that it fell real short on him, and he is shorter than JD!! Did I ever mention that my hubby is 6"1", which is pretty tall. And Did I fail to mention that JD is about 6'4"??!!! Well, the scarf at 5' was just too short, so I had to work on.

Getting down to the wire I worked feverishly to get it done, even taking it to one of Mia's school functions to work on!! And the cat, dear fat Kia, would not leave me alone to work on it. She would jump up on the arm rest, then crawl onto my arm, start chewing the yarn, and playing with the ends of the knitting needles. Try knitting with two needles while maneuvering around a fat cat on your armrest!!!! What would I do!! Well, push her off to the floor, of course!! And what would she do? Well, jump right back up, again and again! I would find myself getting so frustrated that I would be yelling at her to leave me alone. And any of you who have cats know that that does not do a thing! They never heed anything you might say or do. Not like a loyal dog! At least Abby would lay at my feet, not get tangled up in the yarn I was working on!!

So I found myself looking up the word persistent in my trusty thesaurus, and these are the words i found:

persistent: dogged, insistent, patient, persevering, pertinacious, tenacious

I love a good thesaurus!!

Pertinacious, what a great word, never heard it before. It means holding resolutely to an opinion or purpose, or obstinately persistent.

Okay, now I'm having one of those light bulb moments!!! So tell me, do you think a cat can mimic a person's behavior. Because now that I see the meaning of the word, pertinacious is a great word for describing me!!!

SO, what I was getting so annoyed at in my cat, is what my behavior is like to others, on occasion. Okay, so now I have a word for it, still need to get the scarf done!!! At 5 1/2 feet hubby thought it was still not long enough.

Long story short, finally had JD try it on when it got to 6 feet, surely that would be long enough. I had him do it at night in an unlit room, with the scarf on the wrong side, so he couldn't really see it, and it was too short!!!!
Finished length ....... 6 1/2 feet!!!!! Got it done by getting the cat comfortable on my left side, spread eagle on the couch seat, rather than on the arm rest, with a battle each session to get her repositioned!! Then had to spend the time to remove all the cat hairs throughout the long scarf!!

Now on to a patchwork quilt for Mia's new bedroom!!!