Coneflower Ranch

Where was I?

Oh! That's right. When last we spoke I was promising to post more. I screwed that up didn't I.

Reintegrating my husband into our lives was a bit more challenging than I thought it would be. "Reintegrating" is what the Army calls it. They hosted "Reintegration Weekends" so we could get to know each other again. Dennis and I took advantage of one of those weekends together. It was somewhat useful. Nothing can really prepare you for the upheaval that is a combat zone deployment and the eventual return from it but the Army tried. I'll give them that. A "Here's What You're In For" weekend before he deployed would have been better.

Things were different when he came home. He was different. I was different. We expected changes but neither of us really knew what changes we were expecting. It has taken six months to wiggle back into the groove we had going before he left. Things are good again. They were never terrible; they were just weird.

On the creative front: I finished those Noro socks I started last summer. They took forever and came out a bit wonky. It's entirely due to the tendonitis. As I recovered my gauge improved.

I've worn them and washed them a few times since this photo was taken and they have evened out a bit. I think I will keep them as they are instead of ripping them out and starting over. They are kind of symbolic of the wonkiness that was my life this past year or so. That has evened out too.

Belated Christmas Present

 

My sister and I have a deal when it comes to Christmas gifts: Even if we don't get each other in the Kris Kringle, we make each other a gift. Sometimes it's fudge sometimes it's jewelry, this year she is getting my version of a Noro Hat.  On Ravelry I posted it as Noro Hat Redux. 

 

It's made from about one and a half skeins of Noro Kureyon color #182 and I knit it on a 16 inch size 7 circular and when it got too hard to work with I switched to double points.

I liked the way the original pattern takes advantage of the color changes in the Noro yarn but I didn't like the crown. So I changed it.

 

It's pretty straightforward for a hat. Saartje de Bruijn, the designer of the original has you cast on with 95 stitches. I upped it to 96 just to make the crown decreases work out easier. You start with 8 rounds of knit, then 4 rounds of purl, then 4 rounds of knit, then 4 rounds of purl. I kept going, alternating 4 rounds of knit and 4 rounds of purl until I had completed six purl sections. I knit one round then on the next round I K10, k2tog around. Then a plain knit round; then K9, k2tog around; then a plain round; then K8, k2tog around, then a plain round... see where this is going? I kept going until there were only 4 stitches on the needles and I pulled the yarn through the stitches snugging them tight and secured it inside the hat weaving it in like mad.

 

I'm way too pleased with how it turned out. I get a little giddy everytime I look at how those colors fade into each other on the crown. That little bit of swirl to the stitches makes me smile. I think I have to make one for me.

My favorite present I got this year also came late. I picked it up at Stewart Airport last Saturday.

Yep, Dennis is home. He's safe, sound and in one piece. Best present ever.

Spreading my wings ... a little

 

For the first time in twenty-one years I spent the night completely alone. Well, except for the cats, I was completely alone. All of my children were sleeping elsewhere and my husband is still off getting his urban warfare merit badge.

It was sort of weird but kind of familiar. I used to live alone after all. Except for the cats I had back then, I was completely alone.

There are changes that come on gradually and it's only in retrospect that you see the beginning. Then there is the night you find yourself alone for the first time in years and it's obviously the beginning of something new.

*the photo is from commons.wikimedia I'd love to give credit to the photographer but I couldn't figure out who it was from the listing.

9/11 Message from My Husband's Unit

I found this through Bouhammer. I'm not even sure how I originally found his blog but I occassionally check in there. Today I found this video. It seemed appropriate to put it up here as well.

There are about 1700 men in Task Force Phoenix VII and my husband is one of them. On September 11, 2001 while we were glued to the TV like everyone else, his National Guard Reserve unit got activated. By noon that day he was gone to patrol the streets around Ground Zero and I didn't see him again for two weeks. There is a sort of strange continuity from his patrolling the streets of lower Manhattan to patrolling the streets of Kabul that I'm not sure how to express. I've given it a lot of thought, way too much actually, and I haven't come up with anything so I'm just going to leave it alone.

Today is our twenty-second wedding anniversary. In all of those twenty-two years I can count on one hand the number of times we've spent our anniversary together. September 12, 2001 we were going to go fishing. I haven't actually seen him in over five months so missing our anniversary doesn't mean much. There have been other videos and photos from Afghanistan posted on the web and though it's sort of ridiculous I look for him in there. Seriously, though, you take a bunch of men who are roughly the same size, shave off all their hair, dress them the same, slap a hat on them and it's hard to tell them apart at a distance. I could have been looking right at a photo of him and not known it.

Total Eclipse of the Mood...I mean Moon

I stepped outside Wednesday night to see the Lunar Eclipse. It looked much redder than this photo shows. I took several photos, but it was only 14°F and I had trouble holding the camera steady. Most of the photos look like this:

I stood outside alone to watch this; the kids weren't interested or they were already asleep. It was amazing. There are no street lights where I live and with the exterior house lights off it is very dark outside. Just my camera and I on my front lawn mesmerized by the earth's shadow passing across the moon. After a few minutes I started to feel how alone I was. I could see lights on in my neighbor's homes. Once there was a passing car but I was the only knucklehead standing out in the cold staring up at the moon. At that moment I missed Dennis and I nearly started to cry. I didn't because it probably would have frozen to my face.

In November, 2004 we all, Dennis, the kids and I, sat in the Totally Rockin' Minivan, that we'd pulled around the back of the house, drinking cocoa from a thermos and watching a total lunar eclipse. We ran the heater now and then and took a bathroom break during the totality phase. It was the dorky kind of fun we always have together. This past summer we got out the telescope, turned off the house lights and tried to see how many of Jupiter's moons we could make out. That was after trying to see how many were visible to the naked eye.

He's been gone for a month now and I was too cranky to blog for the first two weeks. Then I had blog fodder log jam (blogjam?); lots on my mind, stuff on my needles and hook, I even started a watercolor class but I just couldn't compose a coherent sentence let alone a whole post. He came home last weekend. A week ago today I was picking him up at the airport. Five-thirty Monday morning I was driving him back. It was wonderful but much too fast.

This is a very strange experience. Over the years I have adjusted to his going away for two weeks now and then. When he came home last weekend it felt like he had just done one of those two week trips. In the back of my head I knew that wasn't so but I couldn't shake the feeling. Wishful thinking I guess. Truth of it is this hasn't even really begun. He's not home but he's still in the US for training and will be for awhile. I knew this wasn't going to be easy but I didn't think I would have such a hard time. It's kind of like having kids: you think you know what you're in for but you can't really know until you're knee deep in it. You read the books, talk with people who've done it but talking it and walking it are two very different things.

I stood there in the cold and dark on Wednesday night, wearing my pj's and my winter coat, staring at the moon missing my partner in dorkiness. So, I texted him and I was grateful. Grateful that I can text him even though I knew he wouldn't respond until the next morning. Grateful because I get to talk to him every night. Mostly I was grateful that the reason I miss him so much is because we have such a good time when we are together.