Why Blog? Why Knit? Why Mensch?

I've been reading a lot of blogs by knitters and spinners over the last week, being sick at home and needing something to occupy the half of my brain that's not working the needles as I knit. I just read an entry in Yarn Spinner that got me thinking again about blogging. She posed the question to her readers, why do you blog?

My husband Tim has had a blog for a while. Sometimes I read it, sometimes not. He blogs about political stuff and other semi-random thoughts about the world. Sometimes I think he blogs about stuff that I don't have the patience to talk about with him very much. I think I wrote an entry or two back a ways under Menschkin's Mama or some such, but I've lost track.

But me, I haven't had much impulse to blog, journal, or whatever since I kept a regular journal for a year when I was 13. Boy, it's kinda painful to go back and read that now. But I keep it around, partly so I'll have a point of reference when I have adolescent kids of my own. And one of the comments in Yarn Spinner's blog got me thinking about that. The commenter wrote that she blogs partly as a record of her all-too-short life, for her kids, etc. as well as herself.

As a mom of one, with one on the way, I can identify with that motivation. I may wait for my kids to discover my blogs on their own rather than pointing them toward them -- just to give myself more time without the feeling that someone will be looking over my shoulder immediately -- but I can make sure they find out about them, assuming I continue long enough for the record to be worth reading for them.

So, here's a little bit about me at this point in my life. My real name is Deborah Mensch. I live in Boulder, Colorado, where I recently transplanted from the San Francisco Bay Area, California. I was in the Bay Area for 15 years, ever since I graduated from college. This move has been a tough transition. Our last address in California was in a cohousing community, which was a real godsend for me as an at-home mom of a 10-month-old, at the time we moved there. Even compared to our previous neighborhood, which was pretty kid-friendly and rich in other parents, living in cohousing was cool. It was like the best parts of living in a dorm for my somewhat-introverted self: I could walk out the door at most times of day and find someone for me and/or my kid to talk or play with. Impromptu playdates were easy. Child care exchanges were fairly easy. Back in the old neighborhood, I could make playdates, but it always seemed like a bit of an ordeal. Schedule around everyone's life. Then hope the date doesn't get cancelled due to someone being sick or whatever else. If it sticks, get in the stroller or car and get to the playdate. Wonder when a gracious guest would think it's time to leave. And so on.

In cohousing, instead of making a date in advance (though this is still an option, especially among families that have more crowded schedules), I could wander around and figure out who was available to play *now* or in the near future. We could play outside in the common areas of the community, or in one of our houses, or in the kids' room at the common house, or go to a nearby park, etc. Both parents could know that the comforts of home were mere steps away -- this made saying goodbye when we got tired, or needed to do something else, or saw our kids turning into screeching pumpkins, much easier. Sometimes we'd drop in and just play for the 10 minutes or half hour someone had free before a prior commitment. Sometimes I'd invite other kids over to amuse my kid while I fixed dinner. Everything was so casual, there was very little feeling of needing to be a "good host" or "good guest," cleaning up beforehand or providing food or whatever. Sometimes the little friend and/or parent would stay for dinner or a snack, but it was all very free-flowing and easy.

So you can imagine that the decision to move away from a situation like this was a tough one. I had some good friends, my daughter had some good friends, even my less-involved-in-the-community husband had some good connections there. What it took to get me thinking about moving away, besides the prospect of raising a second child in a 2-bedroom townhouse where Tim already didn't have the office-ish space he needed, was the prospect of setting up a new cohousing community that might meet our somewhat different needs better. Coastal California was kind of saturated in the places we were interested in living, so we started looking farther afield, and Boulder County looked good. There was even an available 3+ bedroom townhouse in an existing cohousing community in Boulder, so we could have the comforts of close community while we tried to build the community of our dreams.

Turns out the situation for real estate development in most of the U.S. right now is really bleak. If we build it... we probably won't be able to sell it for the cost of development. Ick. So now we're here for a while, not really planning on moving before Menschling #2 is due in April, and probably not for a year or two after that. We'll see if the real estate situation calms down a bit in the meantime. We have a cohousing community here, but the connections grow slowly. I had a lot of my life energy invested in the last community. We'll see if I can get there, here.

Whoa. That was more than I meant to say about... well, most of that. I tend to leave such subjects to Tim. Well, there you go. It's what's on my mind now.

So why KnitMensch? Well, the Mensch part is easy. I lucked into a pretty cool married name. In our case it's German (human being) rather than Yiddish (really *good* human being), but hey, I'll take it. Knitting came along for me when DD#1* was 3 months old and I needed to rest during her naps but couldn't always sleep. So I'd wear myself out trying to do housework. I needed a hobby that was portable (unlike my former love, quilting), child-safe (also unlike quilting, with all its pins, needles, and appendage-piercing machines!), and could be picked up or put down at a moment's notice (unlike... well, you get the picture). I'd done some crocheting as a child and more recently, but was beginning to get the feeling that knitting held broader horizons for me, or at least the prospect of learning something new, which is what keeps me young. So knitting it was. I remembered the garter stitch I'd learned from my grandma, put DD#1 in the stroller and got myself to the local craft store for needles, yarn, and a how-to book. I haven't looked back since.

I'm sorry to say that I've given away most of what I've knitted so far without even taking a picture of it. My first sweater for myself was such a travesty that it went straight to Goodwill. Never again will I knit a garment from 100% acrylic! It looked great and felt like sitting inside a plastic garbage bag. Now I have behind me something like:

• One adult sweater (to Goodwill)
• About 6 scarves (relatives, friends, did a couple on commission)
• One novelty-yarn shawl
  
• One linen hand towel (Hello, Mason-Dixon Knitting)
  
• About 5 baby sweaters (mostly to DD#1, though one came out too small and went to a younger cousin of hers)
• About 4 baby hats (all for DD#1, saving the little ones for DS/D#2 now)
• One pashmina cowl (from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, for a relative last Christmas)
• Two hat-scarf improvisations, for wee second cousins
  
• One baby blanket for a beloved friend in my last cohousing community whose son was finally born just a few days ago
  
• Myriad impromptu doll blankets and other simple doll garments -- sometimes swatches in disguise, one a consolation prize for DD#1 for not getting the abovementioned baby blanket
• Three pairs of socks, two for me, one for Tim
• One unfinished alpaca/silk lace shawl for whoever is in my life when it's done and can wear the right colors, and one unfinished short-sleeve cotton sweater for me (needs revision; problems with it are gumption-suckers that may leave this a permanent UFO*)
  
• Probably several things I've forgotten, in case this doesn't sound like much for about 3 years of knitting-while-mothering

Now I have a baby blanket in progress for DS/D#2. I bought several colors of Knitpicks' Swish Superwash and improvised a pattern. Yes, the colors are pretty dark. I never got into the whole pastels-for-baby thing as a knitter. I'll post better pictures when it's liberated from the circular needle that's currently transforming it into a very bulky pouch.

I have a couple of recently-finished things I can actually show you pictures of (agh, I *will* get the hang of formatting pictures here someday soon):
Mittens and legwarmers for DD#1, knitted these past weeks in a renewed frenzy of knitting activity post-move (post home-canning season, really), especially while sick the last several days. The mittens are much-beloved, but the legwarmers have been pronounced "tickly." Maybe they'll work better over tights. Both are ArtYarns supermerino. The mitten pattern is from Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns (I LOVE multiple-gauge patterns, especially for a first try at a new kind of garment), and the legwarmers are improvised after a little swatching to figure out what might work. (The flared, not-in-pattern bind-off works nicely to help DD put them on the same way each time and not stretch out the ankle ends too much. See, you can pass off almost any bug as a feature! Elizabeth Zimmerman said something like that -- I think her only exception was for split stitches.)

Oh, yeah, one more reason to blog -- to get my sorry butt into the habit of documenting my knitting!! :)

Okay -- I've probably traded on being sick for long enough -- now I seem to be on the mend, and it's time to go muck out the kitchen (actually Tim has kept it from going completely to heck over the last several days) and get dinner together.

* For readers who haven't read dozens of blogs, let alone knitting blogs:
DD = dear daughter
DS = dear son
UFO = unfinished object

If I've missed any, try Google for definitions: just type define:word into the search box, replacing "word" with the term you don't know. Over the past several days I've learned a lot about knitting and spinning from Google definitions!