Charlotte

In December of 2013, I had a posterior vitreous detachment.  A floater joined my right eye and I named her Iris.

Last week I had a PVD in my left eye and a new floater has joined my field of vision and I have named her Charlotte.  It was the name that came to me as my eyes were numbing and dilating and I think it is a beautiful name.

Once again the Doc said that everything looks good I just have a new floater which is bigger than Iris and I say, that is great!  Praise the Goddess!

I happily welcome in a new floater friend.  They teach me how to slow down when I have worked too many hours on bright screens.

So I have been knitting more and taking more breaks.  When my eyes were super dilated I started working with this rainbow yarn and thankfully I can knit feather and fan (old shale) practically in my sleep.

My friend gave me this beautiful homeless yarn that a friend gave her.  I love rainbows and color and working a few repeats of this simple pattern has given me such great joy.

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One of the things that I got back to during the pandemic was making herbal blends.  It has been hard to find blends that don't add one of the foods that I am allergic or sensitive to.  This led me to a trial and error with the family and I am happy to say that I worked up a new spice blend which I want to share with you all.

Herbal Steak Seasoning (though it works for chicken, hamburger, venison...)

3 tsp black pepper

2 tsp salt

1 tbsp garlic powder

2 tbsp onion powder (or grind up dried minced onions)

2 tbsps of each: oregano, rosemary, and thyme (Can you tell I'm Italian?)

1 tbsp smoked paprika (my secret ingredient)

1 tbsp smoked chipotle

I grind the whole kit and caboodle until it is really fine using a mortar and pestle.

I have tried it with a bunch of meats (including venison) and it really lends itself to waken up the flavors.  

When our CSA has herbs I get them and then dry them so that I can use fresh spices as much as possible.  Sometimes our grocery store has fresh herbs too and we will buy those so I can dry them.  I love when the house smells like rosemary or thyme (my favorites) when they are drying.

Let me know if you try it and what you think.

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Safe socially-distanced hugs  🤗

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Sending love and light to everyone being affected by this virus.  

May you be safe.  

May your loved ones be safe.  

🙏

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Sending love and light to everyone facing discrimination, hate, prejudice, inequality, or racism.

🙏🙏💖💖🙏🙏

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Vixenpath is a safe space.

If you are:

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Anything.

I am a safe person and I will always hold space for you in love and light.

Ever Feel Like This?

Do you ever feel like my poor Minecraft character who was shot by skeletons?  Sometimes it just seems that there are more challenges then I can handle...but I pick myself up and go forward anyway.  I lived through that Minecraft experience and for quite a bit of time I had those arrows sticking out of me.  But did that stop my character?  No!  She hoed and farmed and did all the stuff she had to do. She is very inspiring to me.

Because some days with the eye sensitivity and the food intolerances and all these aches and pains that I've had lately it seems like I just changed the difficulty on my life setting to "hard" or something. But I haven't stopped and I don't plan to either.  Yes, I'm taking it easy and I'm eating what I'm supposed to and blinking every 10 minutes and such; but it just feels more challenging lately.

I have been keeping to my 5 squares a week on Hue Shift.  Now you can start to see why I fell in love with this beautiful melding of colors.  My sisters is equally lovely just more jeweled toned and rich while mine is happy giddy rainbows of color.

Since I am only knitting 5 squares since this is a KAL with my sister, I have been making these as well. Zoom Looming is quite easy and addictive and I can make a few squares here and there and soon I will have a whole bunch of them.  I do the weaving more on feel than sight, but that is how I've been doing a lot of my crafting lately.  I can close my eyes and knit a row and my fingers can feel when the tension is wrong because I split a stitch or missed a stitch or whatever might be "off" in the row.

My friend who can't knit right now asked me to help with finishing her projects and this has been an ongoing thing I have been doing for her.  I have another one but it will take me a long time and I will only do a little at a time.  My friend knows this and she is totally okay with that because a row here and there actually makes progress, even if it is slow.  If it sits in her knit basket it will remain undone forever.  There is a lesson there...slow progress is better than no progress.

My MIL wants another Nana Cowl which, is just wonderful.  She wanted a warmer version this time so I chose this.  It is a blend of silk and merino and sounds just yummy.  I can't wait to work with it.  :)

I'm not rushing things.  I'm taking my time.  When I need to stop I rest a bit but I'm not giving up and arrows or not...I'm just going to keep going forward one step at a time.

Happy crafting and many hugs,
Ruinwen
:)

Iris

So this week I had something really scary happen.  I had a Posterior Vitreous Detachment in my eye. Suddenly there is a little gal that looks like a black iridescent worm dancing around my vision. The above picture was the closest I could come to what she looks like.  Mine looks more like a circle that has a bulbous head (probably where it was attached to my retina before it came loose) that is an opaque black color.

Mom had all kinds of eye troubles so I headed into the ophthalmologist right away.  After a long look into my eye with bright lights, the Doc determined that it is just a floater and no harm to the retina was done.

Praise the Goddess!  I can deal with this little gal floating around my vision if nothing else is wrong. Sure if I focus on the little worm then I can get quite agitated and having my vision blur out is a learning curve but they are both things I can deal with.

I told the Doctor that as long as I just have the floaters and flashers then I will give her a name and make her my best friend because we will be together for a long time.  I decided to call her Iris.  Yes, there is a bit of a pun in that name; but laughter is good for the soul.  Iris is also the Goddess of rainbows and I love rainbows and colors and such; so I think it is a fitting name.

I've read a lot about people getting quite anxious about having floaters as they are always in your face.  I was worried about it being worse then it was, but I don't feel anxious anymore.  I keep brushing away bugs that aren't there out of reflex and I find that when I write a curly little a seems to pop up and that is a little weird but my brain will adapt.

Bifocals were hard in the beginning but now I don't notice that line where it seemed like the world was bubbling up at all.  This too will become a part of me and then I won't notice it so much either.

Of course, the minute I got back from the eye doctor with my eyes all dilated I tried knitting a row. When I look at my knitting the floater hangs out on the right side of my eye and I barely notice it at all.  What a blessing!

This week in the US we count our blessings.  We take a moment to look deeply into our lives and see those things that we are so thankful for that maybe we take for granted the rest of the year.

The simple truth of the matter is that I am blessed.  I have an awesome family, wonderful friends, a job that I love and a career that brings me joy.

This is the first Thanksgiving without Mom and Dad and though we will always miss them; they will always be a part of us.  I am so thankful for the time with them, for the memories that will always be mine to treasure and proud that the Universe chose me to be one of their daughters.

As we spend our first year without our little Widdershins the same feelings lie in my heart.  I miss her but I have such wonderful memories of how she took care of my hubby and our family.  I know she asked the Universe to bring us Frost and he has brought mirth into our home.  He is truly a treasure. And my love-muffin Shadow has become his best friend.

So many blessings...I choose to focus on them instead of some of the little things that are out of place at the moment.  Every day you make a choice how to live, how to face the world...and I choose happiness over any worry or stress.  I choose to embrace my family and friends.  If I need help I will ask and not take the entire world on my shoulders.  I have unpacked my metaphorical knapsack that I carry that was filled with worry and strife and I have worked really hard to let each negative idea go that serves no purpose in my life.  For the things that remain that I still need to work on, I am thankful that I am learning and growing and striving to become closer to my soul's ideal.

Bright Blessings to all,
Ruinwen
:)