philosophy | Have Knitting Will Travel

Let me get things straight before you think I’m some horrid house plant, monkey hating horrible person. I have good reasons, at least I think they’re good reasons.

Firstly I blame Jumanji for my monkey thing. Don’t get me wrong, I like big primates, apes, gorillas, chimps (and right now I’m sure someone is going to tell me that apes aren’t a separate animal and I have no idea what I’m talking about and that’s ok, because I don’t want to have to ask Prof Google right now)….. speaking of chimps, what was that movie, I think it might have been a Disney one, made back in the 80’s about chimps that were test piloting nuclear war heads and they were all dying of radiation poisoning? I’m sure it was a real movie and not something I dreamed up…. anyway, that movie made me cry….. ahhhh it was Project X (thank you Prof Google – such a relief that it’s not all in my head), starring a young Matthew Broderick and a young Helen Hunt, I don’t remember them being in the movie but I do remember the chimps (see I’m not heartless towards monkey type animals). But Jumanji, now that movie scared the boogers out of me – not in a give me nightmares kinda way but in a heebie jeebies, those freaky monkeys are going to haunt me for the rest of my life kind of way, I’m still looking over my shoulder. Plus there was that time I was at the zoo for a biology excursion in year 11 or 12. I was eating a Vegemite sandwich (and yes I am humming that song in my head) and we were walking past what I thought was an empty enclosure, it was small, full of vegetation, no sign of an inhabitant. Then next thing there was this tiny monkey pressed up against the wires looking at me maliciously and trying to get it’s little hand (? not sure what else to call it, it’s not a paw) through the wires to get my sandwich. It scared the living daylights out of me. One moment I’m thinking “Hey, that enclosure’s empty. I wonder why?” The next I was like “Holy Vegemite Batman, there’s a sandwich stealing monkey in there!”

So, what do monkeys have to do with anything and why on earth am I telling you this? Because lovely peeps, I belong to the House of Monkey.

Intelligent and with a fun loving side, Monkeys like to be challenged with every project presenting them with something new and interesting.

As much as I don’t want to admit it, that’s me and that’s the house that I chose. I’ll happily refer to and call my kids Monkeys, they act like it most of the time. But me, I don’t want to be a Monkey (unless it’s the funky band the Monkees…… ooohhhhh ok, I’m a Monkee). And yes, I know I should have started this yesterday but I have kids home on holidays that need to be entertained and needed new winter clothes, so we were shopping.

Ok, so now that we’ve sorted that business out. I’ll tell you why I’m a Monkee, well firstly, I don’t have weird hair and no I can’t sing. But I do knit, and I like knits that challenge me, even if I am a scaredy Monkee. Since launching into sock knitting a whole new world has opened up to me and I’m more and more inclined to give something a go simply due to the success I’ve had with my socks, even dabbling in designing my own stuff. I know me and I know I have a tendency to over think things and doubt my own capability but I also know that I can do it and all I have to do is just try. Knitting is no longer just that thing I bring out in Winter and sort of pick at to stop myself from being bored; it’s my best friend, it’s at my side almost constantly, it brings me joy, warmth, frustration, a new way to stretch myself and something that I can always learn from. For a full time Stay at Home mum it stretches my brain and provides an outlet for creativity and thinking that I wouldn’t otherwise have.

Why don’t I like house plants? Because it’s something else that I have to take care of. I love them, don’t get me wrong, I think they’re nice and all, but I don’t want to have to be the one to look after them and then when they die I feel bad….. not just for the plant but for the person that went to the effort of giving it to me. I feel like I’ve let them down. So, if you ever feel inclined to give me a house plant, a skein of yarn will be a perfect substitute 😀

Well, that’s it from me. I’ll leave you with my theme song for the week ;P

I’ve always considered myself an optimistic sort of person, but lately I’ve come to realise that I’m probably more pessimistic than I’d like to admit. I kind of feel like that fish in the cartoon, just when I think I’m over the worst of what ever, something else comes along. Call me a cynic but I’m beginning to believe that nothing will ever go my way. That I am doomed to only ever having my glass half empty.

But I wonder if it’s all in my head. If I’m looking for something that just isn’t there but all the while missing the great stuff that is. For instance, the other day I was thinking that it would be really nice to take the kids to the movies. Logistically I’m not sure how that would work as we have a 2yo that’s unlikely to want to sit still through a whole movie but I’d hate to not have him with us. Not to mention that a family outing like that is outside of our budget. The radio station that we listen to is running a competition this week to win tickets to see The Lorax at the movies. The way the competition is being run is that one of the presenters reads a part of the story and in order to win the tickets you need to guess what story it’s from. This morning it was a passage from The Sneetches. We’ve read that story so many times (we have my husband’s childhood copy) that as soon as the presenter started reading I knew exactly what book it was from and rang in. Unbelievably I won. I can choose to see this as just dumb luck, or I can choose to be excited about the prospect of being able to take my kids to the movies without having to outlay a fortune for all of us.

I don’t win competitions every day, in fact I don’t win them very often at all. But that’s not the point, I can choose to be excited at this little highlight, or I can choose to only focus on the crappy things that happen – the bigger things that don’t go my way. Truth be told I don’t get to map out my life, I can’t stop the bad things that happen or even make allowances for them, I’m not in control of the things that happen in my life (well not all of them). But I am in control of the way I view my life, of the way I deal with the crap that happens and those things that throw me off kilter. What happens next doesn’t matter, how I choose to deal with right now does.

Now I’ve given myself some food for thought :p.

What happens next doesn’t matter, how I choose to deal with right now does.