Thanksgiving thoughts….

about everything we have to be thankful for. My thanks? First – my family (including my pets), friends and health. These things I cannot do without. Second – I’m thankful for a creative mind and at least some talent to do something with it. Life would be boring for me if I were not able to create fun & interesting things. Third – I’m thankful that DH & I are, at least for now, able to provide a home for my SIL. As a developmentally disabled person she doesn’t have many options. It can be frustrating and a struggle at times, but she can also be very funny and absolutely adores the dogs. The dogs are thankful they don’t have to spend everyday in their crates while DH & I are at work. And I am really, really, really thankful that my broken foot is finally mended and I can work on getting normal use & movement back now.

Speaking of my foot…..here’s a photo of the “aftermath”…..and no, the photo won’t spoil your holiday meal…and yes, it explains my newest nickname – Scarfoot. The incision on the right was the first one to insert the pins, the little tiny one just above & to the right of the incision in the middle of my foot was the planned one to remove the crosswise pins. However, with one pin absolutely refusing to come out, I ended up with the bigger incision in the middle of my foot. That one little pin turned a 15 minute procedure into 1 1/2 hr surgery. There are three more scars due to this whole episode – one on the bottom of my foot where the stubborn pin finally came out and two on the side of my foot – one to insert the pins in my 5th metatarsal and one to remove them. I couldn’t take photos of those by myself though. Now my task is exercising and working my foot to regain normal use. And I’m working hard on that!

Now that life is returning to normal around here, or at least pretty normal, I can get on with my knitting projects. Finally finished is a pattern that I started before breaking my foot. So without further ado……introducing the Pamper Yourself Spa Collection…now exclusively available at sandrasingh.com. The pattern includes instructions for all three pieces – Hand towel, Face cloth and Soap sack. Each piece features a unique eyelet border that is easy to work. (Border stitch pattern devised by me, not to be found in any stitch dictionaries or anywhere else.) The Face cloth and Soap Sack are creatively worked from the center out. Knit in Schaefer Susan, a wonderful 100% mercerized pima cotton, this set is quick to knit (perfect if you still need holiday gifts), feels and looks lovely and is sure to be appreciated by any recipient.

So that’s it for today – I want to share some thoughts with you on some of the yarns I’ve been working with but that will be another post. For now – I wish you all a very happy, healthy and safe Thanksgiving holiday! Enjoy good food, friends and companionship. I’m off to figure out what I need to start first for our holiday meal.

Cheers! Jean

 

Moving on with life…..

and focusing on other things is making my soul happy. Of course, I do have to get past the lastest ‘issue’ with my broken foot. I had wanted to post this wonderfully happy report of getting the last four pins out this past Monday….but….as it turned out….one of the pins did not want to come out. Three came out beautifully as planned. The fourth one simply refused. So now I’ve got another incision on the top and BOTTOM of my foot just to get one little pin out….uggh. My foot looks like it’s been through a war. Post-op instructions are – only use my foot as much as I can tolerate the discomfort & pain, no driving for 10 days, keep elevated as much as possible to help reduce swelling, and when trying to use it keep either my walking boot or post-op shoe on it. Humm. There was so much bandaging that neither fit! My solution to that was to ask my doctor if I could remove some of the bandaging, to which he said just a small bit – don’t remove too much. It sort of helps. Anyhow, the next time I post about my foot will hopefully be one to say all is finally well.

So what are some of the happier things going on in my life? Well, here’s a cute picture for you – a couple of weeks ago Little Miss Darby decided that she’d get more sun if she stood in the window sill of the window in our front room…..all the others were laying in the sunshine on the floor in a ‘puppy pile’.

Now, this is really not a dangerous thing for Darby to do. First, the window sill is only 2 ft off the floor and all their crates are sitting under it, which is how she got up there. Jumped on top of a crate and then stepped onto the sill. They all love looking out the front window but Darby is the only one who’s decided that standing on the sill was fun.

And knitting wise I have two of my projects for DRG done & turned in. The third one is coming along very nicely. I can’t give you any details on these yet. I also have a pattern nearly done that will be initially released as an exclusive with Sandrasingh.com. This one was actually started before I broke my foot and was really impacted by that, especially getting the photos done. I’m looking at completing this pattern this weekend – cross your fingers for me!

Another exciting thing for me – my Darling Darby Sweater Pattern has been steadily moving up in the popular ranking for pet patterns on Ravelry! Thank you to everyone who has been knitting this pattern and posting good reviews – you’ve made my day. :0)

With everything I’ve got happening I haven’t done any personal knitting, perhaps around the holidays – we’ll see.

So that’s pretty much how my life has been going lately……..hope all is well with all of you

Cheers! Jean

 

Goodbye RMTA….

at least as Webmaster/Club Officer. While it’s been a fun ride and I will miss it – there are just some times in this world when we need to draw a line. For me, that was at the last RMTA event. Let me tell you in my own words why I would chose to leave something I enjoy……..

When my family first joined RMTA I really thought this club was one of the best in the US. And for the most part it is. There is just this one thing that I can’t abide….that is when there is a group within the group that feel the rules don’t apply to them. Yep, the good old boy group. And unfortunately it’s some of the club officers who are ‘promoting’ this behavior.

Over the last few years there have been more & more incidents that have shown me RMTA is not wholly the club I thought, or wanted it to be. Each time the rules were ‘adapted’ to allow one or a small group of persons to benefit from actions outside the rules I’ve lost a little more faith that fairness, not favoritism, was the driving value for the club.

At the last event several people witnessed an incident between our club president and myself. Prior to attending this event (a two dayer) I had made the decision I would no longer sit by, keeping my mouth shut, when our rules were not being followed. So I didn’t. On the first day, a trials master changed a section after several riders had ridden it – wrong – so I brought that up, as did my DH. Then on Sunday there was a support level rider both riding the event and as a trials master for the event. Our rules say that only our Pro class riders can be a trials master for the support classes and ride the upper class sections at the same event – no other class rider can both ride and be a trials master at the same event, which had been defined as the whole day. When I tried to ask our president about this – i.e. had I misinterpreted the rule – he totally blew up and began yelling at me – in public – because I asked a question about our rules.

In the end, it turns out – not only was the club member I originally asked about both riding & being a trials master…so was dear president!  So how is this fair to every other club member who is not given special dispensation from our rules and able to gain series points from an event they shouldn’t have been riding anyway? What is the point of having rules if they aren’t followed, especially by club officers? (edit here – dear president did scratch his name off the scoreboards, more in a fit an anger than anything else – but effectively he did not take points for the event. I don’t know what happened with the other support rider’s score.) Another edit Oct 30th – I had intended to be done with this issue and move on, however today I discovered that Dear President and the above mentioned support rider are listed on the results for this event – in the places they would have been if they had not been trials masters. Now, there is no listing of trials masters on the results sheets (which there usually is) and I may be making an assumption here – but I’m guessing that both DP and SR are wanting to receive series points by saying they were not trials masters for this event – unreal!  (There was also an indication of this in a comment made by another RMTA officer to my DH at another recent event – a comment that now makes more sense to me.) Both Dear President and Support Rider were trials masters, everyone at the event knows they were trials masters, so how do they think they can say they were not?  This just confirms that I made the right decision to cease any involvement with people who think they don’t have to follow the same rules as the rest of the group.

Well, this whole thing was as they say..the straw that broke the camel’s back. I could clearly see what I had been ignoring for so long….in RMTA the rules don’t matter for certain people. If you are part of the ‘group’ – anything goes. At that moment I made my decision to resign as webmaster & a club officer.

Did our president apologize for his outburst? Yes, he did – at the awards ceremony – although he failed to also say that he was in the wrong & my interpretation of our rules was right. He only said he was sorry for yelling. What does that tell you? It told me that resigning was the right thing to do. I need to hold on and keep to my values. Fairness, not favoritism, should be the value held higher in any organization like RMTA.

Riding trials is a sport both my husband and son (who is a really good rider) enjoy. So if they want to continue riding that’s fine with me. I’ll even go as a spectator. But I will not allow myself to get involved again with the club administration, it’s not worth it.

So goodbye RMTA….and best wishes to the new webmaster.

Jean