Jananas

This is the third in a series of home videos that my great-uncle took at various family gatherings in the late 1950′s and early 1960′s. This montage has my mother showing off her fantastic hullahooping skills and the extended family vacationing at Watrous (a definite favourite place for great-uncle Jack, who insists on the health benefits of drinking Watrous water). I really like the look/feel of these videos, especially because it is interesting (and unusual) to see old movies with people whom you actually know.

This is the second in the series of old family home videos. My grandmother (who was also an obsessive knitter, although I sadly I didn’t learn from her) is the tall, statuesque women in the red shell. She passed away when I was in high school. Its sort of strange watching her move around on video after so long, but nice because I remember little things about visiting her house as a child: hard raspberry candies from the army & navy, the little porcelain statues in her bathroom, the hardcover books in the attic, scratch & win bingo! cards, and knitting.

My great-uncle Jack Wickens record a whole series of home videos back in the late 1950′s and early-to-mid 1960′s. The videos are of family gatherings and trips. At some point in the 90′s he had he old family videos transfered to vhs. My dad had those tapes transfered to dvd for Christmas this year. My parents wanted a couple of extra copies, so Jason ripped the videos and we burned additional copies. Jason also very kindly broke down the movie into 9 shorter segments for me so that I can share them with the world (via YouTube).

I think we often underestimate how important our family history is.

I’ve been knitting hats for friends lately. I like knitting hats. They don’t take too much time and they just feel good in my hands. The hat below is for my friend Stefan and, yes, he requested that it be “slouchy”. Which translates into this weird ‘this is waaaay too long’ feeling when knitting it. However, it turned out pretty awesome! I’ve also been working on a Labyrinth Circle Rug to use up the odds and ends of balls of yarns that I’ve mostly used for other projects. I’ve also been working on de-stashing (so using up some of my 30-ish balls of Caron Simply Soft) to make a basic afghan for myself. Knitting FTW!

I’d received a message from a friend at Akoha recently letting me know that as a valued member of the community (read, someone who plays missions) I’d be receiving an Inspired Minds Deck in the mail. It contains missions inspired by TED, which focuses on ideas worth spreading. I can definitely see the connection there! I’ve been stoked all week about getting mail and just before I left the house today for a group meeting I got mine in the mail!

To participate in the great Internet sport of unboxing (or at least be a little tongue in cheek), here are the contents of my package. Thanks Akoha!