I'm Back!
Believe it or not, I have been knitting lately. I've knit two hot pink boucle shrugs as gifts for two little girls and they absolutely love it!!!! Yippee!!!! I picked a winning pattern! I got the pattern from Newtons and it is just sooooooooo easy! I'd post a picture of the shrugs, but I already gave it to the little girls. Just take my word for it.....the shrugs were really really cute!
I've also knit some rectangular shawls as last-minute gifts for friends. I can take pictures of those, but they really don't look great when I put them on the floor for pictures. I'll see if I can get my friends to pose with the shawls.
And lastly, I knit a shrug for myself! Actually, that's what got me knitting again. I went to Newtons' Spring Fling and saw my friend Jean wearing a cute shrug and begged her for the pattern. I saw her on a Friday night, too, at Newtons, and wouldn't let her get away without telling me how to make the shrug. It's a rectangle, but the ends are folded in such a way to make billowy sleeves. And then a simple dropped-stitch collar is added. It is really cute, and quite simple to make. I made one for my boss for her birthday, too.
Anyway, I've had a birthday since I last wrote, and here's the picture:
Those are my lovely daughters, A. and K. My handsome son is still in Pittsburgh, where he goes to college.
Also, we have a scanner in the office now and I can scan the calendar photo of me that was taken last year, as well as the photo of a bald me that just came out in a book on cancer survivors. I'll post those soon!
I've been having a very difficult time, lately. From February to just recently, I had been feeling depressed and exhausted. Everything just started to pile up on my desk both at work and at home. I missed a lot of deadlines for my assignments in my education class, and I finally turned in my application to the doctoral program. It was 9 weeks late. I just could not get my act together! (But I still got an A in the class!).
I finally talked to an endocrinologist, who ran a battery of tests and has signed me up for a sleep disorder test. Now I feel really dumb because I've been reading all these books about health and diet, and according to them, I have been feeling very very tired because I am menopausal. Duh!!!!! Well, okay, fine. So I panicked. I went and saw my oncologist (who thinks I'm crazy anyway, because I was hoping I would lose weight with chemo. "Joy, are you looking at your chemo as a weight-loss solution? Well, it's not.") and the endocrinologist. Hopefully he'll find something (minor, I hope) so that he can give me the new drug that is coming out in July that is supposed to be for people with thyroid problems but also helps with weight loss. I can't believe I just said that! But, yes, I still want to lose weight! Lots of it!
I love my cell phone! I've had it for about a year and half already, but it was only about a month ago that my best friend from law school told me that I could download mp3s into the phone so that it would be kind of like an ipod. I did, and it does! Act almost like an ipod, that is. Now my treo is everything I've ever wanted in a phone: phone, calendar, camera, diet tracker, computer, and now ipod! I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!
My daughter is leaving in a couple of weeks to join the Peace Corps. She's been assigned to Central America, which is great, because she loves that area. K lived in Chile during her junior year in college and is quite fluent in Spanish. She also used Chile as a jumping off point to travel all over South America and Easter Island. I have no doubt she will do the same in El Salvador! I am happy that she will be a lot closer to home.....El Salvador is 3 or 4 countries south of Los Angeles (let's see....Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador?....maybe Nicaragua is in there someplace, but I'm too lazy to look it up)....I'll be able to go visit her!
I have a confession to make: This last week I have been obsessed with myspace. I was trying to spy on my kids, but they found out, and blocked me. Oh well. But more interesting, I looked up two old boyfriends and found them via their children. Kids put waaaaayyyyy too much information about themselves and their families online! Anyway, just by reading the kids' (not my kids!) blogs and looking at the pictures, I see that I have made the right choices in life. Although L and his wife look very successful, and I was feeling a bit wistful for the life I could have had with him (I broke up with him to marry my now ex-husband), you know, two parents who stay together and raise their children, who grow up to be beautiful and smart and popular because they are secure in the knowledge that their parents love each other. Anyway, L and his family are all that, but I quickly realized (well, okay, maybe it took a day or too for me to come to my senses) that what L and his wife represent was what I ran away from! Twice! No, not the part about the parents who love each other and stay together and raise their beautiful and smart kids, but the part where one becomes mired in the sameness of everyday life, held down by the expectations and limitations of the same 50 or 150 people who see you every day of your life. I remembered that I did not want to raise my children in a Filipino ghetto (not a socioeconomic ghetto, but just that feeling of being surrounded totally by the same 20 Filipinos who lived on my block, and the same 150 Filipino families who went to our church) because I felt constrained while I was growing up. I felt limited and felt, too, that my potential was being denied, because "nice Filipino girls don't act like that", even though what I wanted to do (like have a boyfriend, go to the college of my choice, WORK) was not so bad.
I was the first female associated student body president at my high school, I was in a beauty pageant, and I was smart. I let my mother talk me into not applying to Berkeley and UCLA ("because you might get raped!") and instead went to UC Irvine because then I could live at home and commute, and more importantly, my parents could keep an eye on me. I let her talk me into living out her dreams and marrying a successful and wealthy and very much older Filipino businessman who was very abusive and who lost his business and everything else in the end. I think she knew that I was getting ready to be sexually active (with L), and so the big push to marry S was on!
Gosh, seeing the pictures of L and his family brought back so many memories of my own late adolescence/early adulthood, and also opened up so many wounds that I thought had healed. I do feel wistful still, when I think about the girl who, 30 years ago, had the world in the palm of her hands, yet let the dictates of her parents and closed society take over her life. I believe that my experiences have colored my perception of the world and led me to make the decisions I made when raising my children.
I love my own beautiful, smart, and popular children, and seeing how they move about in this world makes me so proud. Because I sent them to good high schools, and back east for college, the world is their stage. They have so many opportunities to be happy and successful! And on their terms, not mine, not my Mom's, not the local Filipino society.
I've also knit some rectangular shawls as last-minute gifts for friends. I can take pictures of those, but they really don't look great when I put them on the floor for pictures. I'll see if I can get my friends to pose with the shawls.
And lastly, I knit a shrug for myself! Actually, that's what got me knitting again. I went to Newtons' Spring Fling and saw my friend Jean wearing a cute shrug and begged her for the pattern. I saw her on a Friday night, too, at Newtons, and wouldn't let her get away without telling me how to make the shrug. It's a rectangle, but the ends are folded in such a way to make billowy sleeves. And then a simple dropped-stitch collar is added. It is really cute, and quite simple to make. I made one for my boss for her birthday, too.
Anyway, I've had a birthday since I last wrote, and here's the picture:
Those are my lovely daughters, A. and K. My handsome son is still in Pittsburgh, where he goes to college.
Also, we have a scanner in the office now and I can scan the calendar photo of me that was taken last year, as well as the photo of a bald me that just came out in a book on cancer survivors. I'll post those soon!
I've been having a very difficult time, lately. From February to just recently, I had been feeling depressed and exhausted. Everything just started to pile up on my desk both at work and at home. I missed a lot of deadlines for my assignments in my education class, and I finally turned in my application to the doctoral program. It was 9 weeks late. I just could not get my act together! (But I still got an A in the class!).
I finally talked to an endocrinologist, who ran a battery of tests and has signed me up for a sleep disorder test. Now I feel really dumb because I've been reading all these books about health and diet, and according to them, I have been feeling very very tired because I am menopausal. Duh!!!!! Well, okay, fine. So I panicked. I went and saw my oncologist (who thinks I'm crazy anyway, because I was hoping I would lose weight with chemo. "Joy, are you looking at your chemo as a weight-loss solution? Well, it's not.") and the endocrinologist. Hopefully he'll find something (minor, I hope) so that he can give me the new drug that is coming out in July that is supposed to be for people with thyroid problems but also helps with weight loss. I can't believe I just said that! But, yes, I still want to lose weight! Lots of it!
I love my cell phone! I've had it for about a year and half already, but it was only about a month ago that my best friend from law school told me that I could download mp3s into the phone so that it would be kind of like an ipod. I did, and it does! Act almost like an ipod, that is. Now my treo is everything I've ever wanted in a phone: phone, calendar, camera, diet tracker, computer, and now ipod! I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!
My daughter is leaving in a couple of weeks to join the Peace Corps. She's been assigned to Central America, which is great, because she loves that area. K lived in Chile during her junior year in college and is quite fluent in Spanish. She also used Chile as a jumping off point to travel all over South America and Easter Island. I have no doubt she will do the same in El Salvador! I am happy that she will be a lot closer to home.....El Salvador is 3 or 4 countries south of Los Angeles (let's see....Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador?....maybe Nicaragua is in there someplace, but I'm too lazy to look it up)....I'll be able to go visit her!
I have a confession to make: This last week I have been obsessed with myspace. I was trying to spy on my kids, but they found out, and blocked me. Oh well. But more interesting, I looked up two old boyfriends and found them via their children. Kids put waaaaayyyyy too much information about themselves and their families online! Anyway, just by reading the kids' (not my kids!) blogs and looking at the pictures, I see that I have made the right choices in life. Although L and his wife look very successful, and I was feeling a bit wistful for the life I could have had with him (I broke up with him to marry my now ex-husband), you know, two parents who stay together and raise their children, who grow up to be beautiful and smart and popular because they are secure in the knowledge that their parents love each other. Anyway, L and his family are all that, but I quickly realized (well, okay, maybe it took a day or too for me to come to my senses) that what L and his wife represent was what I ran away from! Twice! No, not the part about the parents who love each other and stay together and raise their beautiful and smart kids, but the part where one becomes mired in the sameness of everyday life, held down by the expectations and limitations of the same 50 or 150 people who see you every day of your life. I remembered that I did not want to raise my children in a Filipino ghetto (not a socioeconomic ghetto, but just that feeling of being surrounded totally by the same 20 Filipinos who lived on my block, and the same 150 Filipino families who went to our church) because I felt constrained while I was growing up. I felt limited and felt, too, that my potential was being denied, because "nice Filipino girls don't act like that", even though what I wanted to do (like have a boyfriend, go to the college of my choice, WORK) was not so bad.
I was the first female associated student body president at my high school, I was in a beauty pageant, and I was smart. I let my mother talk me into not applying to Berkeley and UCLA ("because you might get raped!") and instead went to UC Irvine because then I could live at home and commute, and more importantly, my parents could keep an eye on me. I let her talk me into living out her dreams and marrying a successful and wealthy and very much older Filipino businessman who was very abusive and who lost his business and everything else in the end. I think she knew that I was getting ready to be sexually active (with L), and so the big push to marry S was on!
Gosh, seeing the pictures of L and his family brought back so many memories of my own late adolescence/early adulthood, and also opened up so many wounds that I thought had healed. I do feel wistful still, when I think about the girl who, 30 years ago, had the world in the palm of her hands, yet let the dictates of her parents and closed society take over her life. I believe that my experiences have colored my perception of the world and led me to make the decisions I made when raising my children.
I love my own beautiful, smart, and popular children, and seeing how they move about in this world makes me so proud. Because I sent them to good high schools, and back east for college, the world is their stage. They have so many opportunities to be happy and successful! And on their terms, not mine, not my Mom's, not the local Filipino society.
posted by knutty4knitting @ 3:47 PM
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