On the Road

We are now fully into the holiday season, which, for us, means a lot of time in the car. Thanksgiving was a three-day affair with visits to each set of parents — I'm from a blended family, so I've got two sets. Of course, the eating was celebratory, and far from clean. Getting back on track this week has proven to be a challenge! Choosing to utilize, The 20s, has worked out very well. It has been much easier to stay on track with my workouts than it has with food. The workouts are 20 minutes each and exclusive to Beachbody on-demand. I made a schedule, which includes all the workouts from The 20s series and can be done within the 30-day free trial. The first two weeks look like this.

 Oops! The last day of each week was cut off. Week 1 should end with Primal Body 1 by Derick, and Week 2 should end with Revival, beginner by Taylor.

 So far, I've been really pleased with the variety and quality of the workouts. If you'd like to try it out, use the above link . Just to be upfront, I am a Beachbody coach, and the link is affiliated to me.

With all the time spent in the car, and more sure to come with Christmas, a good travel project was in order. Socks are my go-to for car rides, so I cast on a new pair.

Going deep stash, I grabbed some Knit Picks Imagination. Multi-colored with an unusual fiber blend, 50/25/25 merino/alpaca/nylon, and structure, a low-twist 2-ply, the yarn flummoxed me for years, demanding careful consideration in choosing a project. Feeling confident after successfully using a similarly blended yarn in a pair of socks this spring, I cast on, dismissing several potential problems with the chosen pattern. 

A sock and a half later, I had to concede the project was exactly wrong and start off in a new direction. The new project is a Frankensock, an amalgam of sock parts I admire. While it may be aesthetically off, there is potential for it to be quite comfortable.

The stocking misadventures set the tone for the rest of my knitting this week. The cable for the circulars in my big project broke, putting it on hiatus once again.

In gearing up for Christmas, I decided to tackle things which have been looming over me, tasks which need to be finished once and for all. An entire day was dedicated to cleaning the desk, which had, basically, become a four foot wide, eight foot tall junk drawer. As reward for completing that, I allowed time to finished two books I'd stalled out on just before the end.

Sister to the Sioux, The Memiors of Elaine Goodale Eastman, 1885-1891was a book I picked up on our South Dakota trip this summer which recalled the years Goodale spent in the Badlands, with the Sioux, establishing day schools for the Indian children. Goodale worked throughout the Standing Rock, Pine Ridge, and Rosebud agencies, living with the Sioux, learning their language and way of life. She was there during the build up to Wounded Knee and helped care for the survivors of the massacre.

I had some knowledge of what had happened there and how the preceding ghost dances and the death of Sitting Bull contributed to the tension, but I learned a lot from Goodale's detailed, first-hand account. As someone who moved between both worlds, her perspective was unique, and I was struck, not for the first time, by the way tragedies in history seem to unfold in slow motion, with all the efforts to avert them seeming only to bring about that which they were trying to avoid.

This is the kids and I at Wounded Knee. I was hesitant to take a picture at all, not wanting to dishonor those who were killed there. In the end, I took the picture, because I wanted to have it for when the kids were old enough to better understand the significance. In addition to the mass grave for the hundreds of Sioux killed in the massacre, there is a modern cemetery. The tree behind us was part of the modern cemetery.

 The cemetery was on a large rise overlooking the historical marker which is across the road. We visited with a Sioux man and his mother who sell their artwork there. He did bone carvings and she made dream catchers and did beadwork. Both were extremely skilled, and their work was beautiful! Being pretty far from anywhere, I asked them if there was someplace I could take the kids to use the potty; we had been on the road a while. They said we were welcome to use The People's church, so we started walking in that direction, but we never did make it there, for two reasons. First, it was a lot farther away than it looked, the sun was directly overhead, and it was hot. The second reason was, as we walked I started to get an eery feeling. I looked back toward the cemetery on the rise and felt like a trespasser in a holy place. I told the kids there might be snakes so they wouldn't argue when I said it was time to go back to the truck.

I got the same feeling reading Goodale's account as I did walking through the valley below the final resting place of the 300 Sioux who were rundown and killed there. So often history feels so far away, just words on a page. When it comes to life, it can pack quite a punch.