Congratulations, my fellow Americans. You have health care. I don’t know much about the bill because, frankly, it all goes over my head. Speaking, however, as one who has enjoyed the benefits and suffered the pitfalls of socialized health care I can say, categorically, it doesn’t suck. It puts you in the drivers seat of your own health care, which is not altogether a bad thing.
Thank you, knitsibs, for all your warm, wonderful get-well-soon-and-have-you-tried-insert-craft-here? messages of support this week. They’ve made me feel better, but also made me realize that I am being a big baby. Yes, my shoulder hurts, but at least I have arms, and so I hereby swear and/or affirm that I am pulling up my socks, putting on my Big Girl Panties and getting on with it. This will not become a Whining Blog. Let’s have some fun.
This week’s M3 video is too big, in more ways than one, for the little multi-media box on the home page. The band is Okay Go, the song, This Too Shall Pass, seems appropriate for today.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w
Sara wrote this week asking what was up with my barn.
Remember my barn? That’s it, up there on the right. It’s still there, and thank you for asking. Still empty. Still not mine. I learned to paint buildings this week, and think I may capture my barn in watercolours one fine day, for posterity.
I’ve moved on a bit, and am now dreaming of a self-build project. I’d like to live in a spiral-shaped straw bale house, with lots of south facing windows. It needn’t be large, but it must have plenty of built-in a bookshelves, and a small amount of land where I can grow veg, and keep chickens, and maybe bees, and where it never rains ’til after sundown. Scratch that last part. I’d have to leave Wales to get that.
Mary wrote today asking, ” Whatever happened to the Knitter’s University you were looking into setting up? Really, really ambitious project.”
As it happens, the work on this project has been ongoing for the past year. It’s been a process, growing bigger than I ever imagined it would be; at times paralyzingly so. That nasty inner critic, she’s as bitchy as a Project Runway designer. I haven’t managed to make her shut up, but I have stopped paying attention to her, mostly. And the project, my School of Creative Knitting (SOCK) has become a magnum opus. I look forward to sharing it with you.
I miss your podcast, but I’m really enjoying the more timely communications and your great video distractions.
Living in Portland, Oregon, USA and being a cynic, I’d say we’re on the path to having some kind of health safety net, but hardly close to anything you’re used to. 🙂 Thanks for the videos.
If you need a hand with any of your really ambitious things, Please remember to ASK us. We’d love to help.
Well, the best I can say about US healthcare is that while we’ve all had to be “in the driver’s seat” for our medical needs for awhile now, Americans might get to be in the driver’s seat for our insurance too. I wish we had a single payer system but having insurance be available to most people (even the sick people! imagine that!) is a big step in the right direction.
I love the OK Go video! From what I hear they managed to do the final version in all one take!
Sad to hear about “your” barn but I have always wondered about it. We have a beautiful brick house on our road with a similar story and I know that these old family rivalries can be impossible to get around.
That being said I’ve always dreamed of a round straw-bale house. I would model mine after the wonderful architecture in the hobbit village of the Lord of the Rings movie!
Sadly, we haven’t gotten universal healthcare in the US yet. The insurance companies’ stocks just went up big time yesterday. Still, there are some big improvements. I wonder when we’ll drag the rest of those McCarthyites past that big red scare word: “Socialism”.
Brenda!!! I’ve soooo Missed you! Loved the post! That video Rocks, I shared with all my friends on facebook I loved it so much.
After reading your blog post it reminded me of two things, a friend of mines blog post “Be Happy NOW!”, she is such a sweetheart, her blog is called “Beyond Mediocre” http://www.beyondmediocre.net …
AND I know your going to love this if you haven’t seen it yet… **A Drum roll please**
http://www.simondale.net/house/index.htm
I’m obsessed, their “Low impact woodland homes” I’m in love! I live on a sailboat and I asked my husband if we’re ever done with the boat, can we please live in a “hobbit house” (as I call em). He’s game!… ahhh, someday!
So glad to see you back, hope your doing better! Smiles ~ K
One small step for the United States … meanwhile we have the highest infant mortality rate in the industrialized world!
That barn is gorgeous. Europe seems so much more paintable than the U.S.!
Brenda, glad to hear you’re well. I’ve missed the podcast, but have enjoyed your posts. I’m trying to learn about frozen shoulder, as I think that may be the problem with my shoulder as well. I’ve had terrible pain for upwards of a year now and of course, I am self-diagnosing. One of the problems with American healthcare is that doctors are often very quick to treat with prescription meds, in this case anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxants — as the first course of action. I am less in favor of the prescription route as a first course since there are always side effects, preferring instead to try physical therapy. It is difficult, though, to convince a doctor (and insurance company) that PT is the better treatment, so people like me often suffer in silence for long periods of time. Hence, the self-diagnosis and the lack of desire to seek real medical treatment.
On a much happier note, I truly get your desire for a “self-build project” and to see things grow. My husband and I just built an 8×12 greenhouse and have started planting a variety of vegetables, fruits, and flowers. Life has gotten so busy and we decided that we really wanted a project that we could work on together. It’s so peaceful in the greenhouse and it’s wonderful to work in the dirt.
It was a rough winter here in the states. Enjoy the spring. I think it may finally be here.
Brenda! I think I found a solution to help combat your knitting withdrawal without further aggravating your shoulder http://bit.ly/bbfdbr
Now if I could only find a way to combat my withdrawal from your podcasts. :0)
Miss you,
Linda
Hi Brenda,
Oh my, it’s one of those synchronicity moments. Just two days ago I re-listened to episode 80 and you teased us with information on your knitting university. So this morning I was googling you and wondering what happened with the project.
So the teasing continues!
Ann in Ohio
Oops — I misspelled it — synchronicity!
Brenda,
So I think the silver lining to your situation is starting to come out. Your creative approach is allowing you time to create art that is inspiring. The accompanying videos and posts I love the grandmother video-knitting)have made me take a breath, smile and go on with my spirits uplifted. Joy and satisfaction can come in many flavors, so thanks for sharing a new flavor with your many knit-sibs.
Ann… No worries. I fixed it for ya! 😉
I had taken a long (2 year?) sabbatical from podcasts when I decided for my spring break (visiting dad with the kids in california) I would knit Ysolda’s Damson and catch up on Cast-on. So I had been shamefully absent and now am catching up on all news Daynesh. In 2009 she asked for listeners to contribute their favorite Audible titles (I have been a member since the beginning and am grandfathered into a free book every month!!!!) and mine is “Ireland” by and narrated by Frank Delaney. It is a magical, wondrous tale of an itinerant Irish story teller whose stories about Ireland are woven into the story of HIS life.
Also wanted to share that I have been suffering with chronic (back) pain since adolescence and that I recently discovered what it is to be PAIN FREE when I started seeing an acupuncturist. Living PAIN FREE is actually quite a revelation! So while a lot of people do not approve of alternative methods I just wanted to share that I’d tried just about everything – drugs, PT, Chiro, yoga, prayer, etc. and that this seemed to help more than everything.
I am only half way through the 2009 podcasts and am catching up on the blog when I’m taking breaks from Damson!
with affection,
sadie in brooklyn (writing from Lake Sherwood, CA)
Oh such synchronicity! Just stumbled across that video yesterday by chance. And bees, they seem to pop up everywhere. Just came across this great bee keeping system which has tipped the balance for me toward bee keeping http://www.biobees.com/. It is kind to the bees, simple and cheap. What more can you want? Oh yes, a south facing wall with little alcoves for the hives, like I saw today at the medieval ruins of the walled garden of the Sister’s House near Minwear, Canneston Bridge (Pembs.)
Hello!
What a joy to hear / read from you again! I hope you are getting better and I wish you all the best. It is great to see you do still have that kind of humor I love so much.
I dont understand about ” socialism ” and having a health insurance; we do all have one here in Germany and its fine.
Love and get well soon! Irene
Brenda, I have missed your podcast so much, and I’m so pleased to hear you are focusing on the good — so often health is as much mental as physical, so I hope your positive attitude can help your body to heal.
Reading your comments on healthcare, I thought you might find interesting a post I wrote almost a year ago on my experience, as an American, of Britain’s healthcare system. It’s here: http://tinyurl.com/lf2ywm The whole American attitude to healthcare just blows my mind, but it’s the comments on this post (over 300!) that really told the story. As a former American expat in the UK (who is now a repat to the US and quite desperate to get back to the UK!), I thought it might resonate with your experience).
Hope Spring brings renewal and healing for you. And… um… more podcasts for us…! 😀 😀 😀