Nature

Living in the Moment … As Much As I Can #MondayBlogs #hiking #knitting

Marie A Bailey

I’ve been leading a non-writing life lately … well, if you don’t count writing letters (of the snail mail variety). Although I’ve been writing in my head a lot. Somehow I don’t manage to put those thoughts down on paper. No, what usually gets down on paper is my endless to-do lists for both work and home. Over the last few weeks, aside from writing lists and letters, I’ve done a few other things, things that compelled me to be in the “here and now.”

Knitting

I’ve been knitting up a storm, folks. Not for me, mind you. No, I’ve got plenty of shawls, scarves and hats for this relatively warm climate. I’ve been on a mission knitting for others. My most favorite knitting is serendipitous: I see a pattern and yarn combination and a friend or family member pops into my head. So I knit.

A shawl for a friend.

This shawl requires two different colors of yarn, but in the pattern, the colors are both solid. I had originally intended to knit a different shawl but the pattern and I weren’t getting along so I reverted to this one. It is one of my favorite shawl patterns, but the yarns deviated from what the pattern requires. So I was a bit of a nervous Nellie while knitting, worried that it wouldn’t look very nice at the end.

Ha!

Detail of shawl.

What’s not to love about this detail?! It was a real pleasure to knit and even more fun when I gave it to my friend. Nope, she had no idea.

Next up was a scarf for a family member. He is a relatively new family member, older than me and related by blood, but we’ve only just “discovered” each other recently. Yup, I took a DNA test and got more than I was hoping more. His birthday was recently. Usually I don’t knit for birthdays because, well, I don’t want to set expectations (i.e., no, D, you are not going to get a knitted scarf every birthday). But, again, serendipity. I wanted to do SOMETHING. I had the yarn (alpaca blend) and a favorite scarf pattern. So I went to it.

The long view.

Believe or not (and I know some of you non-knitters won’t believe it), this is a very easy pattern. It knits up quickly and is a real pleasure. I love seeing the pattern unfold.

Cables.
More cables!

Cables are fun to knit! I learned to knit cables decades ago. I used to be so intimidated by them but they are ridiculously easy to knit. The cool thing is knitting cables makes you feel like you’re actually building something 🙂

Hiking

Another living in the moment experience was going on a hike with my husband to Shepherd Spring. It’s a flat hike (no hills to stretch our calves), but lovely. It was quite pleasant until we got to the Cathedral of Palms when we were dive-bombed by mosquitoes. Usually this is a place where we would want to linger, but, since I have a blood type that mosquitoes can’t resist, I picked up my pace and nearly left my husband behind.

It was a lovely afternoon. A much-needed immersion in nature. There are a lot of things I don’t like about living in Florida. I can count on one hand the things I do like. Shepard Spring is one of them. Please enjoy the slideshow.

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Published by Marie A Bailey

I am a writer, knitter, cat mama, introvert, bleeding heart liberal, & Floridian via upstate NY and SF Bay Area. My church is in Nature, not religion. I dabble in iPhone photography, leaning toward "two-fers" such as insects on flowers.

35 thoughts on “Living in the Moment … As Much As I Can #MondayBlogs #hiking #knitting”

  2. I think snail mail writing is wonderful. A letter you send is a gift wrapped in your friend’s mailbox. The shawl and the scarf are beautiful! It’s cooler here in Virginia, but we are starting to see violets, too. So pretty.:-)

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  3. I can’t wrap my brain around how one can make cables, or any designs, with a pair of knitting needles. Cognitive dissonance. Good on you for mastering it!

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  4. Just beautiful, Marie. Both the knitting art and the slideshow. You showed me a part of Florida I did NOT see in the Tampa area hahaha. Your knitting is so beautiful. I well remember loving to knit when I was young. It’s one of those things that went by the wayside (whatever that means). I love yarn stores, too! Don’t beat yourself up about the writing. It will come to you when you retire, if not before.

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    1. Thanks, Luanne. Yeah, there aren’t as many places like Shepherd Spring left in Florida. Your poetry is your art and craft, like knitting is mine. Both result in beautiful images 🙂

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      1. That’s a lovely way to look at it! One of our closest natural habitats around here is Camelback Mountain, but I can’t climb it because of my lousy foot. Sometimes I wonder if that’s a bad thing because almost every night the news reports that somebody had to be rescued off it. I wish we had a nice place to walk that isn’t a mountain!

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          1. Camelback is smack in the middle of the city. Can you believe it? When you go past that area the trail of cars of people parked along the road to go hiking is incredible. Metro Phoenix is such a big city now that it’s something like a bazillion miles to get from one end to the other!

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            1. One of my aunts lived in Tempe and later Prescott. I visited a few times when she was in Tempe. A couple of her sons live around there and one of her daughters recently moved to Tucson. They are all originally from upstate NY 😏 I have to admit, I didn’t much like Tempe much, but it was 30+ years ago.

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              1. Hahaha, Phoenix has changed more than almost any city in the last 30 years. In the last 20. And a lot in the last 10. And right now the changes are drastic. Huge condo buildings going up all over the city. I don’t know what is going to happen since we can’t add more roads. Tempe, Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, etc. They are all part of Phoenix now.

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                1. How do you feel about the changes? The city of Tallahassee has been growing a lot too. New housing developments all the time, but no investment in infrastructure. Driving around town can be a nightmare. Many of the heavily utilized roads are still two lanes with short turning lanes so traffic backs up for blocks during rush hours. And people speed and run red lights all the time. I’m sure most people in most cities complain about that, but there’s no traffic law enforcement here. Almost anarchy on the streets ;(

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                  1. Oh wow. No traffic law enforcement sounds crazy! Phoenix has a lot of accidents. Even 10 years ago there were a lot of accidents on the freeways especially. How I feel about the changes is that 1) I am part of the change since I came here 10 years ago, and 2) I hate it but then I hate the overpopulation on this planet, period. There are too many people and everybody except my kids 😉 (I wanna be a grandma) should stop having kids for awhile. We had our first self-driving car fatality here the other day. UBER put self-driving cars on the road and felons behind the wheel. Isn’t that nice? They say the woman who was killed (on a bike) crossed not in a crosswalk. What if it was a child or an animal? What does it matter if she wasn’t in a crosswalk? The point is that the driver of a car is supposed to be alert and have quick reflexes.

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                    1. I just watched the Uber video. This is why I’m not supportive of self-driving cars. The driver should have been paying attention, not lulled into complacency. It would be one thing if it was a regular car and the driver was alert and at least tried to stop or swerve. But these self-driving are supposed to be safer. But they are not in part because drivers will do other things like texting instead of paying attention … you know, like they already do.

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  5. Gorgeous! Beautiful patterns! What type of yarn did you use for the shawl?
    Love the cables on that scarf! I used to love to do cable knitting. Beautifully done!

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  7. I used to love to knit. Crochet too. I would like to get back to it someday, but it seems the digital world has taken all my time. If I’m not reading in my downtime, I’m getting caught up on social media. That’s time I used to give to other things. But knitting (and hiking!) are good for the soul. I should get back to it.

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  8. I can’t wait to get some hiking in, and I really hope I can evade another surgery, but I won’t know more about that until tomorrow. A great in-the-moment time for me are crafts. My current one is decoupage. It’s a great way to clear one’s thoughts for sure.

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  10. A productive hobby and time out with nature. Both are necessary for balance in this hectic work-a-day world we live in.k I’ve been a lazy writer for lack of clarity. Started Kundalini Yoga so that might help. Love the photos. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. Ooh, yoga is a great idea! I’ve been practicing for several years. I go to yoga classes twice a week. It’s mixed bag of poses and flows, often a good workout as well as relaxing. It helps me transition from work to home. Hope it works for you! It can’t hurt 😁

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  11. Wow! I am impressed with your knitting. A long time ago I took up knitting. My favorite was making sweaters for the babies in the family. I knitted my daughter (then 3) a little red sweater with white kittens on it. Knitting is a lot of fun and relaxing. Along the way though I gave up knitting for some reason that I no longer recall and gave all my knitting paraphernalia away. I sometimes think of knitting again but there’s just so many hours in a day and so much to choose from. Shepard Spring looks very peaceful.

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    2. By the way, thanks for sharing the link on the Penguin House online course for writing crime fiction. I signed up it. I won’t be able to attend live but I look forward to viewing it later.

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