New carpet today--and it looks great. The downside is that now we have to move all the furniture back and I'm tired. It needs to be done, but maybe one more day of making my way through the maze we created when we moved it out of there won't hurt. One thing work does is wait.

I've learned that a lot of things we force ourselves to do aren't really that important. The furniture doesn't care if it's sitting in the wrong room, and now, at last, neither do I. As you grow older, you tend to focus on what's really important in your life--and having the rooms back to normal is just not that critical to me right now. It will wait.

A few years ago I would have been obsessive about getting everything back in place--and cleaned thoroughly before books and pillows and all the little junk I have sitting on tables were put back into place. I'm not the same person now. My kids taught me the ABC's for my more relaxed persona, and Inky gave me the graduate course.

The 'things' in our life are not that important--you've heard it before, but take it to heart. What's important are the warm-blooded beings around us. Our kids, our family, our pets. Work can wait while we focus on giving attention to the love that surrounds us. Time to give a hug or a pat on the head--or just sit and enjoy the company of those others that give us joy.

We had to replace the carpet because of Inky, our old junkyard mix dog. We got her from the Humane Society twelve years ago. She was two at the time, and when we adopted her, the lady told us she had been scheduled for euthanasia the very next day.

She was a funny dog who enjoyed jumping up and down on her hind legs when she was young--this big dog--and was the epitome of vibrant life. She was unceasingly loyal and wonderful to us, and insisted that we learn the fun in leaving things behind to play and romp and go outside. She had been abused, and seemed to know, like animals in that special sense they have, that we were her salvation. She shared our strange mix of sadness and pride as the kids left one by one, and then even seemed to grow old with regret that she would have to leave us, too. It hurt my heart to see her embarrassed, confused and sorrowful when her body failed her at last and she began having accidents in the house.

We finally had to make the choice between watching her slowly starve to death or giving her a quick release from the liver cancer that conquered her unbelievable spirit after 15 years. We chose to let her go. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

I'll tell you what. The new carpet's great; I'm sure we'll love it. It's just that it can't quite match the old stinky stained one, and Inky still here.

just a patsy

hi there!

This is a test. This is only a test.

Just got the blog set up and thought I'd write a little something to see how it looks on the template.

And give you a clue to the name of my blog, and my eBay seller id. My name is Patsy, and I'm teased endlessly whenever someone in a movie or anywhere, refers to a fallguy as a 'patsy'. So there's kind of a double meaning here.

Because when applied to knitting (and spinning, as well as some other passions) the double meaning works. I am a patsy. I buy yarn based on some random attraction it has for me--with no clue whatsoever what I want it for, or if it will ever become anything other than a hunk of yarn. I just like the texture, or the color, or some other indefinable something that appeals to me. A patsy for fiber.

That's me.

So I'll write about it here, and find new loves to share with you--and I bet you'll like some of them, too.

Thanks for stopping by. Talk to you later.