I made pancakes for my kids and me this morning...snow day...to do this I did the things that I always do...with one difference. Lately, I have been very lonesome for my grandmother.
I'm not going to get sappy and all kittens and flowers...we didn't have that kind of relationship. She had her family and a hard road, she had a child that was a cerbal palsy victim, she cared for him until she died. She also raised me...I came to her after her oldest child, my father, was out and going through his second divorce. Now think, 1972 and his SECOND divorce...
She grew up in the depression, she was use to making due, and did. She really didn't have the time or energy for an infant, but she did what needed done. For that I am greatful...
On Saturday I made pancakes, from scratch like she did, and instead of scrapping the left over batter into the trash, she would have not approved, I put a piece of plastic on the dish and put it in the fridge...I never saw her wash the container that she made pancake batter in...if she was running low on batter, she would just add an egg, some oil, a bit of sugar, a scoop of powdered milk, a small glass of water and self rising flour then mix it up and go on about making pancakes. That is what I did on Monday for S and I.
I pulled out the left over batter, it now had a bit of a sour-dough smell to it, added an egg, some oil, some sugar, vanilla, buttermilk, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt...mixed it up and made pancakes...When I bit into my pancakes, I could have been 5 again and in her kitchen...they were a taste of home and I cried. I miss her.
I miss having someone to call and talk to, though she didn't approve of my lifestyle and made it very known that she didn't. She often accused me of "being ashamed of my raising", which I am not. I always wondered why she didn't think wanting more out of life was a good thing. I wish that I could wake up and smell her house first thing in the morning...coffee, bacon and fried eggs, the tell tale smell of a very old cast iron skillet and just a hint of my granfather's cigarrette smoke...
Regardless of how we got along, which was not good at best, the comfort of knowing I could call her was a comfort...and I miss it. Painfully...
Funny how something as simple as pancakes could dredge up all of these emotions, but they did...She would have been the first person that I called when I got fired, she would have let me cry and then told me it was indeed my fault because I didn't do enough. Because of who my parents were, I could never do enough or do it well enough. I guess maybe she thought that if she could make me do enough, well enough, that her son dropping off his kid at her door would be null and void...I never quite made that point for her, and that always bothered me.
I often wonder what she would have thought about my knitting and quilting. She crocheted and could quilt, but didn't knit. I remember her making a couple of afghans and quilts, I made her a few afghans and quilts...I often wonder what happened to them when she died...
I remember that she didn't buy toys and there was really no reason to ask for "extras" there was not money for them...one thing that has always stuck in my head though...when I was about 12 or 13 I found a pattern for a sweater and told her that I wanted to make it. Never mind that I didn't know how to knit, I wanted to make this sweater...You could have knocked me over with a feather when she looked at the pattern and went to the yarn section of Wal-Mart and asked me what color did I want to make it in.
Without hesitation she bought me a "Learn to Knit" book, knitting needles - aluminum 14" - and the yarn to make the biggest size sweater on the pattern...It took me almost a year, but I wore that sweater until it could not be worn. It was wonderful. Dark reds and burgandys...against my red hair...garish I'm sure...but I made the sweater and have made several since.
Enough with the maudlin side of things, it's a side effect of being out of work, being stress and worried and really needing to be hugged and held for a bit...
There has been knitting! I completed a piece of lace and it turned out really well. I am very happy with it. It's name is "Stor Lysedug" http://ravel.me/Angeliakay/4j6iy and I had a great time with it. I had orginially planned to give it to a girl that is pregnant, but she had the nerve to have a boy.
To date this is the most complicated piece of lace I have made yet, so I am really happy. It took me about 4 months of somewhat dedicated knitting, I had to start over once. I used stitch markers between each repeat so it made fixing any mistakes a lot easier. By looking at the pattern as one repeat at a time and not looking at the whole it made it seem easier to do. Not too over whelming.
I am somewhat at a quandry as to what I want to knit right now...so many things bouncing around in my head and only so much one can get done...I also have a quilt bouncing around in my head that I may start...You can never have enough going on...
I am giving serious thought though to working on Tina http://ravel.me/Angeliakay/2huzw ...I started a pair of "Fetching" fingerless mitts to bridge the gap and have the first one almost done, so we shall see where I go next...
TTFN...gotta tend those damn dragons...
