I spent Friday in a workshop on Domestic Violence. The woman speaker was dynamic and passionate and very good. The subject is devastating to listen to. I don't know if I ever told you all, but I am an abuse surviror. Before my mother and father married (he's really my step father but we didn't use that word in our house. He was/is my father.), she was a single mother working 3 jobs with two small children. She had her cousin babysit and we'll just say he wasn't an appropriate choice for the position. So, listening to the stories on Friday just about broke my heart. The statistics are overwhelming. (1 in 4 individuals will be a victim and 25% of those individuals will be men) It was a tough day but certainly an informative one. I got some good resources to give out should I need them.
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Today is WWSIP day. Pk and I took Saraspunda to the park and I managed to spin a bobbin and a half of singles and then ply both bobbins into lovely, lovely soft corriedale yarn. This time I didn't attract any odd men who wanted to talk about odd things. Just two sisters who said they didn't want to be nosey but wanted to see what I was doing. I said I didn't mind, if I did, I wouldn't bring the wheel to the park. We chatted for a few minutes and they were fascinated. Pk said "every little girl who has walked by with their family has watched you" but I didn't notice. I was paying attention to what I was doing and watching the planes fly in.
We had bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches and homemade chocolate chip cookies. The weather was glorious. That's the view from the chair. The plane is coming into the airport and there were dozens of pleasure craft on the water. Everyone wanted to get out and be in the sunshine.
I'm sitting here now waiting for the last load of clothes to be done in the dryer. I did 5 loads of wash today and folded them all but haven't put them away. I think they can sit in the basket till tomorrow. I'm going to watch season 2 of Sanctuary. Good show. Kind of like Torchwood but less edgy. I think it's easy to become obsessed with a program if you have tons of episodes to watch at one time. If I had to watch one episode each week, I probably wouldn't watch much of anything. Having all of a season available at once is a concentrated way to view something and I think it makes is too easy to get absorbed into a storyline (that's my reasoning for staying up until 2 in the morning to watch the season ending for Sanctuary only to discover that it was continued!) Tonight I'll find out what happened. I hope.
Here's the baby socks I made for Pk to take with him tomorrow. They're so darn cute. I also gave him 2 cotton wash cloths to give to the family so he's not going empty handed.
I asked Susan if she minded Emily auctioned off an Evenstar and she gave it her blessing. I know that technically here in the US, it's not necessary to get permission from the designer, but I felt better asking first. (Em has raised 1650 dollars and only has 650 left to go!) It seemed like good karma.
My new yarn is hanging to dry and tomorrow I'll run it through the yardage meter and see if I have enough to make a Christmas present. I have something in mind and hopefully, I'll have enough yardage.
There goes the dryer.
Finally.
10 comments:
I'm so sad to hear you are an abuse survivor (well, not that you survived, obviously, but about the abuse). That makes me admire you even more, particularly that you have taken up a vocation which must dredge up terrible memories, but which also allows you to help others in such a caring and thoughtful way.
Spinning in the park - what a lovely way to spend the day!
After I was married but before I had kids I volunteered at one of the domestic violence shelters in the state, answering the hotline. We had to go through training, of course, and the counselors made it clear that we could talk to them at any time, because often going through training brings up some unpleasant realizations. (Yes. And that explained quite a bit.) We have a shelter right in town (I don't know where, obviously) and we donate to it. They do great work.
There was an article this week about a domestic abuse case in Hoboken involving a woman being beaten with a cat. Domestic AND animal abuse in one fell swoop. Yikes.
That weather was scary up here. Of course I was driving home from work in it. Ugh.
Thankful for this wonderful weekend weather!
Hooray for you for getting through and dealing with your abuse, growing strong, finding the sweetest guy in the world, and raising three marvelous young women. Talk about a success story!
What a lovely weekend you had. I didn't realize it was spin in public day, but it rained here on and off all day, so I would have had to set up at the mall or somewhere indoors.
At my former employers we had to deal with abuse victims, and some kind of training would have been helpful because otherwise you do what me and my colleague did, which was be in tears as we spoke to them, which might have been sympathetic but not very helpful to them.
What fun to spin in the park.
I don't mind laundry at all, but I really hate putting it away. I'm desperately in need of doing a serious closet/dresser weed. If I get rid of the stuff that doesn't fit and that I don't wear, I'd have plenty of room. But closet-cleaning is no fun!
oh sanctuary. i must try that. good tip :) im a survivor too, and sometimes its easy to talk about and sometimes, well its just too hard. im glad i dont work in the field, im not sure how you cope. by spinning beautiful things i think!
My darling, you are a walking example of good karma--kudos to you, for dealing with the aftermath of horrific things, and then going to the park and spinning, being serene, and productive, and kind.
And we had one of those brief rains too... we don't get a lot of summer storms, so the smell here is very special... I rolled down my windows just to feel that on my face.
You had gentle rain?
We up north had tornado warnings.
And what Rose Red wrote x 100.
Survivors are amazing people. I recognise something of the survivor in you because I have survived stuff too.
A bunch of people were spinning in town here on the weekend and I had no idea it was part of anything international!
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