Independence

For those of us who live in the United States, today is the day that commemorates the nation becoming independent from it's parent.  Making their own rules, building their own government.

In many ways, as with so many holidays and traditions it has become commercialized and is all about food, fireworks and sales at furniture stores...

But here, we are all about food and knitting...I say food today because when I think it through all of our family traditions revolve around specific foods.  For us, Independence Day means doughnuts!

Although time consuming, except for the frying and glazing or sugaring, doughnuts are not labor intensive, so I might have made some progress on a new cast on....



 








And woven in the last of the ends on an older one.








Those of you who have been around the blog a while will know that I don't do New Years Resolutions (but certainly do Full Year Goal Planning) and I work on a single "habit" that will get me towards my goals each month.  I review my goals each quarter and adjust them as needed.

The end of June marked the half way point through my goals for the year.  I took a long hard look at them, a couple got changed, one got taken completely off the table as I came to realize that although it was something I cared about, it didn't fit with my overall "mission" for the year.  I also took a hard look at the habits I had planned for the rest of the year and tweaked them.

Funny, it all actually ties in with that title up there.  Independence.

My goals were all around being able to be independent from ...well it doesn't matter what it was from really and everyone has their own story, so maybe without the details it can tie into yours? 

One of my friends asked me what yarn fumes I was inhaling, when I said that to her..."You are a self supporting, single mom.  No family within 3,000 miles to pick up the slack.  You never, ever, ask for help, you always give it...where is it you think you are not independent? You have a "Wanna Be Knight in Shining Armor*" trying to save you, and you won't let them, you own your own home...it doesn't get much more independent than that..."

Which is where she is wrong.  It does get more independent than that.  Everything I have ever done, has all been about one of two things...either proving someone right (seldom) or proving them wrong (all the time!  You tell me I can't do something and I am right there doing it in spades!)

One of my goals for this year was to only design things that make my heart sing, and although I have stuck to it, I have so very nearly fallen down the "this is popular, it will boost sales that pay for college" rabbit hole a couple of times.  Which is actually where this (mostly) ties in..I nearly forgot to be intentional about what I designed.  I nearly jumped on the asymmetry multi color band wagon and ...yeah...I am more Audrey Hepburn than ...I don't even know who in the movie world to tag for that, it is so not my style.....Stephen West in the knitting world. (Don't get me wrong, Stephen West is brilliant.  He makes me wish I could do the splits, wear multi-color brioche with confidence or dye my hair blue!.  I buy his patterns without any intention of knitting them because he is just so much fun...but he isn't my style.)

I don't usually make my monthly habits public, but July is all about Intention.  I will be Intentional about what I do, what I design, what I knit and the intention will not be to prove someone right or prove someone wrong...just to prove I can make my heart sing all the time!

So what will you be intentional about this month?
~M

*And Wanna Be Knight, just in case you read this - we're fun, it's great...but you cannot save me from myself and I don't want you to.  Be there with the bandages and antibiotic cream when I fall, the tissues when I need to cry, and  laugh with me when it is all so funny.  I fly without a net because all too often in my life, the net has been pulled out from under me with no warning, or the rules of the game have changed from one moment to the next.