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I can barely bring myself to type this blog post. This has been a terribly hard weekend for me. But it has been impossibly hard for others.

Thursday night I got home from final dress rehearsal for the Christmas show Emma and I are in at the Albright Theater and Sarah practically met me at the door to tell me to go onto my Facebook account immediately. While we were gone she had gone on my computer to do some homework and she read on my Facebook page a bunch of entries from my online friends that something had happened to a friend of ours. I logged on to find to my horror that our friend Traci had been killed that day. It got more horrific from there. (Story is here.) A typical commute home from work ended in tragedy and lives are forever changed.

Friday was filled with friends coming together, trying to find others that had not been in touch for a while and generally sharing in our shock, grief and disbelief. We also gathered in our virtual world to share memories, laughs, and support in a way not understood by others who don’t have this kind of community and don’t get how a group of women from all over the country and world could ever be this close. Some of us have met in person but the majority of us only know each other through our keyboards and modems. That doesn’t change the depth of our friendship and may even be the reason why we are so close. The anonymity of the internet gets blamed for crappy mean behaviour all the time but sometimes it also takes away the barriers people put up and enables us to be more open and honest with each other. This group of friends have shared the joys of new relationships, births, new jobs, new homes and the pain of divorce, accidents, lost jobs, deaths and other family tragedies.

Traci was a catalyst for our group staying together through some really bad times. She was always there for us even when things were pretty crappy for her. She shared her joys and pain with us and helped us understand our own difficulties better and get through them. She never hesitated to open herself up to us. She could find the joy in the simplest things and make us smile in spite of ourselves. Another friend described her as “a heart with legs”. One time early on in our friendship on one of the early message boards where we all “met” for the first time a silly online personality test, “What’s Your Rockstar Name” was circulated. She was given the moniker of “Shimmy Diamond” and it stuck. It personified her perfectly, she was a rare jewel that shimmered and shined her light on every one and everything around her.

The last time I saw Shimmy in person was at our last pool party of the summer. She and her fiance Jase drove down here from Grayslake after I put out a general invitation to everyone on my Facebook page. My friends and neighbors were immediately charmed by her. A few of them couldn’t believe that we had met online and had only gotten together face to face once before. We knew so much about each other and it was like she must have lived next door to me for years. She spent a great deal of time loving on the dogs, especially Heidi. When Emma mentioned that she had a snake Traci insisted that she bring Bindi downstairs so she could see her. She cuddled and admired that snake for almost an hour! There was no limit to her love and wasn’t shy in sharing it.

She and Jase had been together about 3 years. Over that time they had had their troubles but had finally worked through them and she was so happy and in love. They were planning to get married in January. Jase has three young children from his first marriage that Traci took into her heart like they were her own. She was loving having little kids to share the joy and fun of Christmas with again. Her son is 18 and just graduated from high school last spring. He has been her life and bedrock through it all. I can’t even imagine the lose he is suffering right now. I do know that he was the light of her life and she did a fabulous job of raising an amazing young man and that love and foundation will serve him as he grows into a man in spite of this tragedy.

If Traci’s life could be summed up in one simple motto it would be, “Don’t postpone Joy!”

Right now I’m having a hard time finding any joy in my world but I’m looking for it. Today I found joy in seeing Heidi go out into the snow and roll around on her back like a puppy again. I found joy in driving my girls to school even though they missed the bus and it took time out of my day, it gave us a few extra minutes together and time for me to say I love you before they left for their day. I found joy in asking my online friends for some extra love this morning because I was finally allowing myself to experience my grief after holding it all in for the weekend and they returned it in spades. I am looking forward to the joy of not having anywhere to go tonight and being able to spend it at home with my girls just hanging out.

What brings you joy?

Where oh where have I been lately? Here there, a little bit of everywhere. I’ve been in one of my modes where I have a lot that could be made into blog posts but very little motivation to actually sit down and do it. I get kind of OCD about blogging at times and if I can’t do it the way I want it done exactly, I just don’t do it.

I have been knitting and crocheting a lot lately. Mostly in the evenings in front of the tv. I have about for different projects going right now. I just pick up whatever strikes my fancy and do a little on it at a time. Unfortunately never enough to actually finish anything though.

Last month when the new Knitty came out I was trying to find the perfect project for the new Cascade Greenland yarn that my LYS had just gotten in. I fell in love with this yarn and its rich deep colors. Cascade 220 has been my go-to yarn for a while and this one had all that and more. When I saw the Girl Friday pattern I knew I’d made a match. I bought the yarn and had the back done in less than a week. The fronts didn’t take much longer. But I’m stuck on the sleeves. I have crazy long monkey arms and I planned to add a bit of length to the already long sleeves but I misread the pattern and knit them even longer than intended. I was thinking I’d have to frog a pattern repeat before moving on. But last week I did a little remeasuring and decided they would be okay as-is. But I still haven’t picked it back up and finished off the sleeves. I could’ve been done and wearing this by now but I’ve lost my momentum.

(I apologize for the crapitude of these pictures. It was still dark when I took them but I was motivated so I went ahead anyway.)

The other big project I’ve been working steadily on makes me so happy.

It is the ugly as sin crocheted granny square afghan Emma and I have been doing together. I don’t know what it is about this that just makes me smile whenever I see it. It may be the mismatched bright colors, the fact that we are doing this together or the over all tackiness of the entire thing I don’t know. But it makes me practical cackle in glee. I just grab random balls of yarn, whip up a square and block it whenever the moods strikes. When I have 6 finished squares I crochet them together and add them to the blanket. The plan is to have it be 6 squares by 8 squares when it is finished (each square is blocked to 8 inches) but it may continue to grow beyond that if the mood continues to strike me. I’m glad I’m assembling as I go because otherwise I’d end up with a bag of finished squares and never get around to putting it together and my grandchildren would inherit them someday and just chuck them in a Goodwill bag I’m sure. Also there is no rhyme or reason to the square placement, I just add the last one finished, so the finished project will be about as random as possible. Another reason it makes me happy.

I am playing the part of Mrs. Armstrong in the “Best Christmas Pageant Ever” in December and this afghan may make its stage debut as part of my costume. Mrs. Armstrong is layed up with a broken leg and I think her character would have one of these afghans across her lap while recuperating.

The next to last project I’m working on is another basic crocheted blanket.

Once I learned the basics of the granny square I decided to try just making one big square that kept getting bigger and bigger as a baby blanket. This is some left over Caron Simple Soft I had in the stash from a cardigan I made Emma years ago. I love the bright colors and the soft washable (cheap!) yarn. I don’t know this things final destination. My niece is having another baby in the spring and if it is another girl I may give her this. If not I may just donate it to our church’s Prayer Shawl ministry. They give new blankets to all the new babies born/baptized in our church.

The last project I started recently is a Noah’s Ark and animals from an Alan Dart pattern insert I’ve had lying around for some time. They are intended for my grand-niece at Christmas. We’ll see how far I get. I have the parts for one elephant done so far. No pictures because it is just a bunch of little grey shapes in a pile.

So there you have it. That’s what I’ve been doing recently. There is more going on in my life and now that I’ve made a start on catching up with blog posts you may hear more about the other stuff sooner rather than later.