quiet January

I have heard over and over again that January is the most depressing month of the year. I can understand why. It would be hard being the month that follows December, which is filled with the excitement of Christmas and New Year's. In January all of the pretty lights and Christmas decorations have come down and there is nothing to distract the eye from the landscape that is cold and brown in the dead of winter. I feel sorry for January, it is to the year like Mondays is for the week. I gets a lot of hate. I don't want to bash this month. It has been a nice month. We had a nice time last week celebrating my dad's birthday with friends and family. We had snow this week (a very rare occurrence in my neck of the woods). I even got a day off from work. Fun! I try and keep in mind that the time quite times in between exciting times are good times for preparation. January is like that. Christmas time is before it and spring time is after it. But in the cold of January there are the spring flowers preparing quietly under the cold ground. There is a season for everything. We as humans need to experience a contrast in the weather and the activities in our life to appreciate each of these seasons in their on way and what they bring. There are fewer distractions so we can have an easier time focusing of important things and grow in that. Since it is colder outside, I want to stay in my bed with my heated blanket longer then I would if the weather was warmer. Seating in my warm bed with a cup of coffee is my favorite time to have my devotional time reading my Bible. I am more likely to read in my bed longer since I am putting of going outside. Remember the quiet preparation time and try to enjoy it.
I am still looking forward to what 2014 has in store.

My hero in an eye patch

I thought that since it is my father's birthday I would write about him.  This is about a discussion my brothers and I had about our dad a couple months back.

My whole family and I watch AMC's The Walking Dead. If you are not a fellow viewer of this zombie filled soap opera I will give you a little explanation of the character, known simply as "the Governor", who is much more scary than any of the flesh-eating zombies on the show. ( Maybe I should call them "walkers", because none of the characters living  in the Walking Dead universe have ever used the term "zombie", nor have any of the characters, before the first day that zombism began to spread, known that the only way to kill a zombie is to SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD! That was, unfortunately, learned by trial and error. It gives me some comfort knowing that I am well informed on the whole zombie exterminating thing if a break-out ever occurs. I digress; let's return to the Governor and my dad.) The Governor is a super bad dude that is a little wacky. But he reaches his pinnacle of bad & wackiness when he looses his eye.

AMC c/o  http://screencrush.com/the-walking-dead-season-4-spoilers-governor-standalone-episode/

Look at The Governor (actor, David Morrisssey) with his big, bad gun, his bad snarl, & of course his bad eye patch!
It seems that, at least  in American cinema, that the eye patch gives an antagonist  more of an evil persona compared to the average two eyed bad guy. But when I asked my brothers about their thoughts, they agreed that they feel the same way as I do. The three of us have feelings of comfort and nostalgia from a man in an eye patch. That is because our dad only has one eye. He lost vision in his left eye when he was an infant and had been blind in the eye ever since. When I was less than two, and my brother Jordan was about 5 months-old (our youngest brother, Jamison, wasn't born yet), our dad had his eye removed due to pain and vision loss the atrophied eye was causing in his healthy seeing, right eye. The left eye's removal was a success and ended his pain and deterioration of his right eye. It was not traumatic for him since he was never able to see out of the eye. (I know it is a completely different for others loosing a seeing eye). He was able to get a wonderful prosthetic eye. It is one of the best I have ever seen in real life. Most people have no idea that it is a prosthesis. He is comfortable enough to joke about his eye.We sometimes play and mess with his spare glass eye. Jamison would take naps on our parent's bed when he was a very young child, & when my mom would go check on him she would find him asleep, wearing a pair of dad's jeans and dad's glass eye on top of his. This was one of Jamison's very weird ways of emulating our father. (Of course when you put the prosthesis on top of your eye it looks like you have a protruding blue eye, which is both creepy and hysterically funny. If things get a little boring with our guests, we just bring out the spare eye and let the good times roll). Another thing I remember about dad's glass eye is when you are about six years-old it is a great trump card against anything considered cool. "Oh, your dad is a policeman. That's nice... My dad has A FAKE EYE.". Or if you need something interesting to add when introducing yourself; "My name is Hannah. My favorite color is purple and,,, my dad can take his eye out". I don't know how many times I caused my father to be swarmed by a herd of elementary school children begging him to take his eye out. He never would oblige the kids (bummer). When I was six years-old  I felt that he missed out on a lot of opportunities to shock and awe. I have told him he could work in a haunted house tour on the side. He would just need to take out his eye, add some ketchup for blood, scream, "MY EYE! MY EYE!" and freak people out. You know, for supplemental income.
If I were ever to write a story, I would make the hero wear an eye patch. Why should all the bad guys get all the glory of monocular swag? Here is my real life eye patch wearing hero:

Happy Birthday, Daddy! Love you,

hannaH 

Ending the hiatus

Hello, again. Let's see, I guess since it has been nearing 6 months since my last update I should wish you a Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, & Happy 2014. I know, my bloggie, it has been a LONG time since the last time I have written you. It isn't that I forgot about you, I just hit a dry patch in my creative, or maybe just my productive, part of my brain for a little while there. Just because I haven't spent a lot of time speaking to you doesn't mean I don't care for you! I am one of those people who can go a long time without speaking to good friends. One of my oldest & dearest friend and I can go many months without speaking, and as soon as we see each other we talk a million miles an hour starting right where we left off as if no time has passed. I do realize that this is a bad habit that I should break. Honestly, I just didn't feel like writing. That is nothing against you as a blog, Ms Granny Square Flair., I just didn't have anything that I wanted to say. I haven't spent that much time on the crochet hook either. I finish a baby blanket for a cousin in the fall. I have been adding a couple rows to my ripple afghan for my bed, and I have been working on a beanie for myself with some wool yarn I have had for a while now. I haven't been excited over any crochet projects over the last few months. I haven't even taken many photos. That being said, I am ready to awake from my creative hibernation. I recently read a blog post by Jeff Goins about his 500 word a day challenge. With that in mind I have been writing 500 words a day for the past couple of days. Goins' challenge is to do this every day for 31 days. I am hoping that this will result in some good future posts for you.
I will admit that I thought about starting another blog that would focus on more personal entries. I did start a new blog the other day, posted one entry and then decided Tuesday night that I wanted to keep everything here on Granny Square. So I got rid of the new blog & here I am. I started slacking-off updating this site because I felt bad if the content I posted wasn't directly related to crochet. I let that thought get in the way of writing for this site. As much as I love crochet, I cannot blog about it every day. I will continue to crochet, and post about it. But I decided to let myself be ok with the fact that I cannot write or post about crochet all the time. I might be obsessed with crochet, but I am not that bad. This little site is my cozy little spot on the internet. I feel comfortable and at home here. I can say I missed writing you, Granny Square Flair.
hannaH