Today when I awoke, the mugging feeling inside was gone. The air felt light and the sun streamed in the kitchen windows now that it is high enough in the sky to clear the redwoods that grow along our back fence. When we planted those trees, it never occurred to me that they would eventually block the sun in the winter.
The hope is that the Santa Ana winds will dry up all the moisture that got under our house during the recent rains, but not drop any live electrical wires in the yard or blow over any of those redwood trees. As the Gilder Radner character, Rosannadana, used to say "It's always something."
Watching the lime tree shake around with the almost constant wind gusts has upped my stress level again. It started with the rain issues on top of deadlines. I did send in the edits of KNOT DEAD AGAIN on time on Monday, but it only cleared the way for finishing Classy Yarns by the March 31 deadline.
Luckily, I have come up with a way to deal with it and that gives me something to show for it. You probably already guessed that it has something to do with crochet. In the Crochet Series, I talk about one of the characters having an emergency kit to deal with her anxiety. It's a ball of string and a crochet hook meant be used and reused. She just makes a chain of crochet stitches not meant to become anything. I wanted some different. Something that wouldn't make me tenser by being too complicated, but would be pleasing and become something usable.
I have an affinity for granny squares because,well, leaning to make one literally changed my life. So I grabbed a J hook and some Red Heart Yarn called Stripes and started a granny square. As soon as it began to take shape, I felt my body begin to unclench. The original plan was to mix in some rows of black yarn, but I didn't want to have to worry about changing colors and weaving in all those ends, so it has become a growing granny square of the the one yarn. The bright colors make me smile and every time I work on it, I feel the stress dissolve. Unfortunately, the stress does come back, but then I take a crochet break and feel better.
Eventually, it will be the size of a small throw and hopefully a reminder of how healing it is to work with yarn.