This 'n that

I feel badly that I rarely respond to comments. I read them all (it's very exciting to know I'm not just talking to myself), and I'm so touched by each and every word you so kindly choose to send my way. Truly, I am. They make me laugh, cry and everything in between, those words do.

But I always forget that you can't see that, what with you not having spy cameras and recording devices planted inside my house.

So thank you, so much, for the support, advice, smiles, commiseration, sympathy, compliments, hugs and kind words.

You rock. In the very best ways possible.
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The other evening I was outside shoveling snow - a task that I normally loathe - and I found myself enjoying it.

The cold has finally gotten to me. I've lost my mind.

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This morning I started thinking that maybe I'd like to get a kitten instead of a puppy. A kitten would be much easier to work into our little family dynamic. Easier on Lucy and easier on us (never having owned dogs before).

I just wish the Norfolk Terriers weren't so cute, and that I hadn't already started envisioning nightly walks and furry dog kisses...

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On Tuesday I started a Facebook Group in an effort to promote good deed doing on Thomas' birthday, and I was floored to see that as of this morning, there were 190 members.

It has spiraled out from just people I know, to friends of friends of friends.

It's even gone overseas to Scotland, Spain and India.

And every time I think about it - about all the extra little kindnesses that will be done in Thomas' memory on his birthday all over the world - I smile.

I'm so proud. So unbelievably proud.

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This morning I read about a craft co-op in Toronto - a space where locals drop in to, well, craft. The co-op rents out sewing machines, space and tools, and people come in to make handmade treasures and commune with other like-minded artisans. They sell fabric too, but mostly it's a space to create.

I drooled. Enviously.

I'm a lone crafter out here in the suburbs. I crochet on the couch, sometimes with Lucy and Sandy nearby, but usually by myself, because I don't know anyone in my real life who shares my passion for hooks and yarn.

The thought of a cozy, creative, community space right here in my neighbourhood where other knitheads and hookers might congregate is so appealing.

I wonder...
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Sometimes I let myself think about what my life would be like if Thomas was still in it. I mean in the tangible, earthly sense.

With the passage of nearly four years, it's becoming harder and harder to imagine it. I had a sense of what the baby years might have been like. The house was littered with babyness and its accompanying paraphernalia prior to his birth - I could see that life. I know what it would have looked like, if not actually felt like.

But now? There's nothing about the house to suggest an almost four-year old could have lived here.

It's lost to me, that life.

The sadness that fact generates is no longer quite as desperate and agonizing as it used to be when I'd let myself wonder about my once-upon-a-time world. Now it's just sort of wistful. I sometimes even smile when I try to imagine a four-year old Thomas bounding up the stairs.

Maybe it's easier because there is no visible evidence to suggest a four-year old should be here.

Or maybe it's just that time has worn the jagged edges of my sorrow down so that it's smoother and easier to hold now.

I don't know.

The house is still too quiet. But I'm used to it. It's amazing what you can survive, isn't it? It's amazing what you can come to accept as normal.


I miss him.
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And finally,

To the person who wanted a monkey (like the one I posted the other day, who now lives on My Beloved's desk at work), I do manage to sell the odd bit of crochet work every now and then (which helps me to justify the time I spend doing it...mostly). And here's where you can find it ----> Plumpkin Heads