A Knitting Project, Done!

Happy New Year! After a good, long break (with a little bit of laziness thrown in), I'm back! I thought I'd share with you all one of the projects I've been working on this winter. From as way back as I can remember, my mom always had some knitting, sewing, or crochet project tucked away in her sewing basket. I used to dig into her basket eyeing the needles with care and examining all the little bits and pieces stuffed away in their separate nooks and crannies. I would recognize bits of fabric from when my mom had made me a Peter Cotton-Tail costume for a kindergarten play or my Halloween costume of 1984, 1985, and 1986. (Note, I used the singular in reference to my costume of three years. Apparently, I loved the satiny blue silkiness of my "angel" costume in 1984 that I decided to be a princess in the same costume the following year, and a fairy the year after, haha! Since it was much easier than making a new costume year after year, my mom was fully on board!)

When I got a bit older and started playing the piano, my mom worked on a beautiful crocheted piece that rested on top of my upright piano. She would tell me the story of how she managed to learn how to knit and crochet. Back in Korea, when she was in nursing school, she found a piece of knitting someone had accidentally left behind in the clinic waiting room. My mother painstakingly examined the stitches, undoing and redoing, undoing and redoing until she had it figured out. For those of you who knit, you'll share in my awe and amazement! All of this of course made me itch to learn how to knit, but inevitably my mother would give me a firm no and tell me to study. In my adult years, after graduate school, I finally decided to teach myself to knit (armed with books, knitting friends, and youtube videos). Knitting, as you may remember if you've been following my blog for a while, is an excellent activity for relaxation and stress relief. Though of course it can also be a bit frustrating when a pattern doesn't appear to be working or you're under a gifting deadline. But for the most part, this repetitive, creative, and productive activity will likely give you a sense of peace and calm.

Well, getting back to the project I've just completed. I had decided to try out a beautiful pattern for fingerless mittens by Eunny Jang that can be found here. These Endpaper Mitts, as they're called, were to be a gift for my boyfriend. He's from Pittsburgh so, of course, he asked that they be black and gold to represent (what else?) the Pittsburgh Steelers. After much trial and error and those ever-so-essential youtube videos, I finally figured out the Italian tubular cast-on, the Kitchener Bind-off, and a couple of other new knitting tricks. The pattern is beautiful and I have no doubt that there are a number of mistakes in the mittens I made but I like to think of them more as autographs than mistakes! Each little mistake says, "Handmade by Cindy." Ha! I like the idea of fingerless mittens because they keep your palms and wrists warm while still allowing for dexterity and use of fingers. I was thinking they'd be good for typing on computers in cold offices and playing Angry Birds on the phone while waiting at the bus stop. He thinks they're also good for playing on the PS3 in a chilly house. So, without further ado, here are a few pictures of the beginning stages and the end product! (All taken with my phone so I apologize for the quality of the pictures.)

In the beginning

My mom is the hand model here, halfway done with mitt one.

And the final product on the b.f.

Playing video games.

And now I'm onto my next project, a lace scarf for a colleague!

Tips to Get You Through the Holidays

Grabbed above picture from this site

The Holidays. Bah Humbug. Just kidding, I love the holiday season, but honestly, it can be an exhausting, emotional roller coaster! Too often, what should be a time of reconnection with family and a celebration of the past year turns into something that feels more like work than it should. Not to mention the mounds and mounds of food and sweets that you're often surrounded by (potlucks, parties, cookie exchanges, etc.), resulting in overindulgence, physical discomfort (i.e. hangovers and sluggishness), and guilt for having given into temptation. Then comes New Year's Eve which can sometimes be the last hurrah in overindulgence followed by strict, Puritanical New Year's resolutions that often get discarded by the middle of February. This year I've been trying myself to keep things in perspective and not let myself fall into the same habits of previous years. So I thought I'd share with you a few tips from my personal Holiday Survival Guide. And away we go!

Evlyone's a Ritter Bit Lacist!

The muppets got it right. The Avenue Q muppets, that is. Check out the little excerpt below from one of the songs they sing...

Evlyone's a ritter bit lacist! (sung by the Asian muppet)

"Everyone's a little bit racist
Sometimes.
Doesn't mean we go
Around committing hate crimes.
Look around and you will find
No one's really color blind.
Maybe it's a fact
We all should face
Everyone makes judgments
Based on race...."



Avenue Q is a hilarious musical and I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone. This song in particular has been humming in the back of my mind the past week and a half as I've been constantly confronted by small acts of racism that people I know have been enduring. Fortunately, I myself have not been the target of these attacks, but, in a way, when anyone is attacked, we should all as a community be hurt, offended, and horrified.

I'm shocked. And not in a good way. I know I can be naive, but admittedly I'm guilty of thinking we've moved beyond random statements like, "Go back to China!" Actually, this happened to me once. Over ten years ago, I was walking through Covent Garden in London during my junior year abroad in college and I passed by an elderly gentleman in a suit and tie holding a briefcase who said to me in a normal tone of voice without ever looking me in the face, "Go back to Japan." I took a few more steps, disbelieving my ears, came to a faltering halt and turned around. He was already far away and it certainly wasn't worth it to run back to him and ask him what in the hell he meant by that. I know what he meant and it's not like I was going to fundamentally change his attitude towards me or my race (I'm Korean, by the way) that day. So I continued on, bemused by the events of the day, never to see or hear from him, or anyone like him, again.

That may have been ten years ago, but trust me, it still happens today.

OD'ing on Tech?

Wall-E

Prepare yourselves, I'm about to get up on my soapbox. 

This morning, I opened up an article on Psychology Today called, "Cyber Etiquette for Teens." The article starts:

"Computers and modern technology are taking up a lot of teen's time. While there are some perks to technology there are also some negative things associated with it. A national survey by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation found that kids between the ages of 8 to 18 are spending an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes per day using entertainment media (i.e., phones, computer, television, mp3 players or other electronic devices) that's more than 53 hours a week! And because our teens are so good at watching TV while working on the computer or texting a friend they have used their time-management skills to fit about 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into those 7 hours and 38 minutes.

With teens spending so much time working on-line via social networking sites, emailing, texting, visiting chat rooms, or just surfing the net, it's important that parents review the following Cyber Etiquette tips with their teen."

The article continues on to discuss tips such as, don't use ALL CAPS when posting and don't talk to strangers. It feels a bit weird that parents should discuss internet etiquette with their teens but that's just because I didn't grow up with computers until I got to college (I mean, I remember a time when I had a typewriter...!). The tips the author discusses are all valid and I'm sure are important to discuss, but I have to admit, the article went in an entirely different direction than I was expecting. After that dire introduction, I had expected that the author was going to discuss limiting time spent on technology for children and teenagers. And, in fact, she does actually mention it, but only as a "PS" at the very end: "Bonus Tip: Set time parameters on how long you're on the computer. The computer will never take the place of a person. Too much of anything is unhealthy so don't let cyberspace consume your life." 

Now, let me be the first to say that I've definitely been guilty of placating children with a movie or a game on my phone when I lost patience with trying to entertain them in an engaging and personal manner. And, actually, I don't think this is too terrible of a thing every once in a while. After all, in order to care well for our children, we, as adults, need to retain some sanity, no? However, I do get worried when I think of having children someday in a world that is so dependent on technology. I worry about how socialized my children will be if they spend most of their days interacting with an inanimate object. With visual and auditory over-stimulation at its finest in video games and movies and communication via texting and IMing lacking subtle cues that are only available face-to-face (emoticons :) do not count), I wonder if my children will grow up lacking sensitivity and empathy. I wonder if they will be able to understand and value the simple joys of taking a walk, watching a sunset, or spending a quiet, lazy afternoon reading a book. Though perhaps I shouldn't be so gloom and doom, there was a time when people thought rock and roll would be the cause for great decline in children and teenagers. 

More Evidence for Breathing as Treatment!

This morning, I came across an email from a friend of mine in Switzerland who has apparently been a regular reader of this blog. He forwarded a link to me of an article on NPR that again touts the benefits of a regular breathing practice to relieve stress, improve the immune response, and even affect the expression of genes! Who knew that something so simple and automatic as breathing can have such a positive effect if only we bring our attention to it? (I guess Indian gurus have known for centuries, which should be even more reassuring, breathing, or "pranayama," is an ancient practice that has been perfected over time, available to the western world to reap its benefits. So, check out the following article and try it out sometime! (PS, thanks Sandi for thinking to send this to me!)

Just Breathe: Body Has A Built-In Stress Reliever

by GRETCHEN CUDA

 

December 6, 2010

There are plenty of ways to relieve stress — exercise, a long soak in a hot bath, or even a massage. But believe it or not, something you're doing right now, probably without even thinking about it, is a proven stress reliever: breathing.

As it turns out, deep breathing is not only relaxing, it's been scientifically proven to affect the heart, the brain, digestion, the immune system — and maybe even the expression of genes.

Mladen Golubic, a physician in the Cleveland Clinic's Center for Integrative Medicine, says that breathing can have a profound impact on our physiology and our health.

"You can influence asthma; you can influence chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; you can influence heart failure," Golubic says. "There are studies that show that people who practice breathing exercises and have those conditions — they benefit."

He's talking about modern science, but these techniques are not new. In India, breath work calledpranayama is a regular part of yoga practice. Yoga practitioners have used pranayama, which literally means control of the life force, as a tool for affecting both the mind and body for thousands of years.

To read the full article, click here to head to NPR's website.