Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Do Not Squander Time...

…for that is the stuff life is made of. Ben Franklin
I had a really nice weekend. The weather was pretty good. I got some work done in the yard and around the house, but I didn’t go overboard and try to do too much. There were a few weekends earlier in the Spring when I worked close to 10 hours outside on Saturday, then paid for it on Sunday with total exhaustion.
It was still cool enough to bake, so on Saturday morning I made banana bread to use up a mushy banana, and threw in a meager picking of strawberries too. It turned out quite well. After years of making banana bread that I just didn’t like, I returned to a recipe that I learned in 7th grade, from the Betty Crocker Cookbook, and that’s the only one I make now.
On Sunday I made a cream cheese quiche with onion and bacon. I seem to be on a quiche kick – this is the second one I’ve made in two weeks. Both were very good!
So where does the squandering of time come in? Well, in knitting, unfortunately. I had been gifted with some needlework supplies earlier in the week, and among the needlepoint canvas and crewel yarn was a variety of colors of Red Heart acrylic. My first thought was to put the Red Heart in the box I have going to Goodwill. But then I thought maybe I would use some of the colors for slippers, and add some of my coned yarn to liven them up a bit. Or make a child’s sweater.
I spent too much time thinking about this yarn, searching for an appropriate pattern, starting the project, and then realizing what I knew all along, that it just wouldn’t be a nice finished product. And I knew this going in, so why couldn’t I stop myself?
I guess it comes from the old “waste not, want not” philosophy. Even though I hadn’t spent money for the yarn, or maybe because I hadn’t spent money on the yarn, if I could make something good with it, I would be at an advantage.
But life really is too short not to work with good yarn. So I will happily take this to the Goodwill on Friday, and who knows, maybe I will find some treasure there. Maybe not yarn, but maybe a cute summer top, or a book I’ve been wanting to read, or the perfect size teapot that’s also easy to clean.
With a long weekend coming up, there will be plenty of time to do good things: a little cleaning, a little visiting with family, and a lot of knitting. And if I squander time, I hope it’s only to take a really good nap!
Rusty is the king of naps!

1 comment:

  1. Always enjoy reading your blog but do understand the privacy concern. I felt very strange when I read a quote from me in an online newsletter from an educational institution. They had lifted it from another publication without actually speaking with me or referencing the source.

    Look forward to catching up more tomorrow. I am working on many of your goal areas also!!

    Cousin, D

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