Tag Archives: Memorial Day

Spectacular Saturday – Coffee on the Porch

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Saturday, May 25, 2024

What a beautiful morning! We spent the morning on the porch with our coffee and there was just enough of a breeze to keep the mosquitoes away. And a bonus visit from my college roommate who’s in the area to attend Colby College’s graduation. I pulled a few weeds and have spent the last couple of hours or so in my atelier writing a newsletter for the store and getting organized for the week ahead. We have no particular plans for the Memorial Day weeekend but we hope to take our first boat ride in two years this afternoon.

The third time’s a charm. My Hermione’s Everyday Socks in the deeply stashed TOFUtsies yarn are done. Done! I have no idea why I had such a challenge with these socks. I’ve made so many pairs of socks for myself and they always fit. These just didn’t. The first sock I finished was too long. I frogged it back and reknit the toe … too short. Frogged it again and added a bit to the foot and knitted the toe and it (finally) is juuuuust right. The second sock was not a problem and as of yesterday afternoon, I have a pair. Good grief.

I still don’t know what the problem really is. I have my foot measurement that I’ve been using for years as 10 inches. So, I knitted to 8 inches for the foot and added the toe. Should have been perfect. What did end up being right was knitting the foot to 7.5 inches … I KNOW my feet didn’t shrink. Could it possibly be the fiber content of the yarn? TOFUtsies is a blend of 25% soysilk, 22.5% cotton and 2.5% chitin (from shrimp and crab shells and 50% wool. Can you see me shrugging my shoulders? I’m stumped. But they’re done.

I repaired my college roommate’s sweater and hat and have sent them back and I finished the little Zip Up a Baby Sweater. The two former items have been mailed off to Michigan and the sweater just needs a little something for the big brothers to go with it to Colorado. I’m getting there. You can read about these projects in my previous post.

Yesterday I worked on my “Longest Day” Emotional Support Chicken – I’ve promised to send one to one of the people who donate to my Longest Day fundraiser in June. I’ve promised to knit from sunup to sundown in honor of my mother who died in 2008 from Alzheimer’s Disease. My mother was a vibrant, active, involved mother, grandmother and friend to many. She loved animals, children and tennis. When she was still quite young, we started to notice that she would make the dressing for her potato salad twice, or she was buying her morning coffee (because she couldn’t remember how to use the coffee maker) and other little things. She was diagnosed in her mid-60s with Alzheimer’s. It was a devastating blow to all of us as we watched our mom withdraw into herself. In October of 2008, mom passed away. She was 76 years old but she’d been gone for ten years. We were all robbed. So, in her honor, I knit for a day and hope that the funds raised will find a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease once and for all so that no other family has to struggle like we all did.

Emotional Support Chicken (knit)

She is going to be a beauty!!! I’m knitting her with two yarns with purple as the main color. All the details are on my Ravelry project page.

I’ve also been laundering sweaters and need to get the hats and mittens going … it’s that time of year to clean up and store the handknits for the summer season. Moths or their larvae love to feed on the dead skin cells that hang out in our wooly items. I have been really lucky that we have not had an infestation … yet. It takes me several days of lovely weather to get the hats and mittens done and several more for our sweaters but it will get done and I’ll start today.

Next week I’m off to my brother and sister-in-love’s house in Marblehead, MA for a few days. I’m on grand-mothering duty while Sylvie’s mother is working in Boston. She’s performing with the Boston Pops on Wednesday and Thursday in a show called from D-Day to VE Day. I’m sure we will all be ready for our normal lives to begin again post babysitting but we will also have the fullest hearts and lots of new memories. I hope we’ll have some beautiful weather like today so we can play outdoors!

Gone knitting.

Memorial Day (and Every Day) Gratitude

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Boathouse ... Our Flag Flies Every Day

Ned painted the flag on the side of our boathouse several years ago. Some days we go about our business without so much as a glance. Days like today, however, I look at it and feel so grateful to my father and the other Veterans (and soldiers) who have fought and are fighting for our freedom.

My father fought on a battleship in World War II. He was a gunnery soldier and shared stories about living on the ship where they had a pet monkey and the men dressed in drag to perform plays for fun. Dad didn’t like monkeys (they were dirty) and he never ate another hotdog, having had them “up to here” during his service.

The captain of Dad’s ship was a “drunkard” and I have pages and pages in his handwriting of charges that dad would have filed against the man. We may never know if any of those charges of abuse, drunk and disorderly, etc. were officially filed or if my dad just wrote them down for himself. (He did become a lawyer, after all!) Somewhere I have a map of his tour of the South Pacific that he made and I’m sorry to have given away or sold his uniforms and the “treasures” that he brought back with him. Only now do I recognize their value. Family heirlooms today that I would be grateful to hold and preserve for my family.

Many of my Rockwell forebears were also soldiers. Bits and pieces of historical documents  are in my safe-keeping and one day I’ll get them scanned and shared in another blog. One a soldier in the Revolutionary War who was called to duty in the summer of 1776 … check this out! From the State of Connecticut 1907. I believe that Julia L. Rockwell was my grandfather’s sister or his mother making the soldier my great or great-great-grandfather … though I don’t have the genealogy to confirm that here! (I will confirm at a later date.)

What!? You can’t read the old handwriting?! 🙂 I had to work at it, but here is what I think it says:

Oct. 24,1907 

Dear Madam, 

Enclosed find corrected certificate. (a clerical error in former) Records at best are somewhat meagre, Troops were hastily summoned from the floors and the workshops and in this particular case company with, other was raised to serve “until the exigency was over” In summer of 1776. Washington was in need of a large force to meet the enemy’s threatened attack upon New York.

 Very Rightly, (?)

 William EF Landers

Adjutant General

Cool, yes?

Suffice it to say that I am proud to be American today – and every day. I am grateful to my family members who have answered the call. My father, my great- or great-great-grandfather (?), Bud King (who is the Grand Marshal of the Oakland, ME parade today … he’s the oldest living veteran in Oakland) and Bethany, Jordan, and all the rest who have served or are serving  … Thank you for your service!

Gone knitting!