The Birthday Ball 2008

Sometimes my day job is stressful. I'm a clinical psychologist and I work in a veteran's hospital. The major way that I cope with my stress is to write essays. Sometimes I send these essays to people - especially people who understand military life. Never have I posted one online. However, I am posting part of one here...because it is part of my story today. The original story was sent to a friend of mine who is a Marine, after all it was partly about him (he is the "you" I refer to in the story) and it was also about Marines in general. I have edited the post to delete all personal information about the individual patient so that confidentiality can be protected.

The Birthday Ball

Every year at this time the USMC gives itself a formal birthday party. Typically this party is a grand ball replete with military elite in dress uniforms and women in spectacular ball gowns. This tradition has been in place for two-hundred and thirty-something years. Birthday Balls happen all over the world wherever Marines congregate. Princes and princesses they are in an annual fairytale that includes reading of a proclamation from the Commandant, service of the first piece of cake to the oldest Marine who symbolically hands it off to the youngest Marine, band music, dancing, laughing, drinking, enthusiastic "hoorahs," and all the merriment that has been saved up since last year's party. Young and old. Black and white. Enlisted and Officer. And don't forget the pretty girls.

What could be better? "Nothing" you say with the confidence and the wisdom that comes from spending one's life as a member of the Corps. But you would be wrong, as you will come to see in the story below. I know that I reminded you the other day that you did owe me a Birthday Ball. You don't anymore. Yesterday I attended a Marine Birthday Ball that surpasses any other party I have ever attended.

You see, yesterday we had a Birthday Ball at the hospital About 2pm, several young, strong, good-looking Marines wearing Dress Blues arrived on the unit. Along with them came men from several generations wearing Marine hats and pins who were dressed in street clothes. They brought with them an entire party. Staff and Marine alike enjoyed a decorated sheet cake, balloons, a bouquet of flowers, USMC napkins and placemats, music, speeches, and traditions. No other military service does this for their sick and injured.

Each in his turn, to a man, every single Marine shook hands with patients, they looked each other in the eye, they complimented their medal-covered chests whispering "wow, completed combat tours", they identified as brothers for life. Our Marines didn't dance on their feet, but they did dance with pride and become whole in mind and body, heart and spirit, always wearing smiles from ear to ear. When asked the Marines in the hospital said "This Ball's for Me." And so it was.

However, I was there.
I danced, too.

The essay was written on Thursday. On Friday night about 7:30 I got a phone call from my friend Lee who is a Colonel in the USMC. Anyway, he asked me to attend the real Marine Birthday Ball that would be held in Birmingham on Saturday night at 7p. He said the story moved him so much that he wanted to make sure that I got to attend a real ball. Of course, I said "Yes!" and began to wonder how was I going to get a formal ball gown the next day AND have it altered, and get both a manicure and a pedicure, AND, oh no! He called at 10am to say that I needed to be ready at 5pm rather than 7pm! No ball gown was obtained but a pretty party dress was and off we went to the Ball. And here's another of the pics my daughter took of us on our way into the chariot, his Jaguar. My very own fairytale came true for me last night when I finally got to be a princess dancing with a prince at this 2008 Birthday Ball.

Yarn Contest Winner is NWKnitterMama

UPDATE - I have not yet heard back from NWKnitterMama to claim her Hope Yarn prize. If I do NOT hear back from her by Sunday, November 23 at 10am Central Time, I will select another winner.

I have selected the following person as the winner of the yarn contest...

NWKnitterMama on Ravelry (Angela)

my hope is that my children will have a peaceful, blessed life, and that their father and i will be able to give them the nurturing they need to grow into compassionate adults who make choices to do what is right, even when it is difficult and unpopular. i'm NWKnitterMama on ravelry.

All of you submitted such beautiful comments that it was very hard for me to choose. Having raised my daughter to 18 which we just celebrated this week, I understand what it means to think about the above hope every single minute of every single day. We need compassionate young people now more than ever. I hope that NWKnitterMama realizes that wanting this for her children is half of getting there...

Thank you to everone who submitted comments. You have given me such new hope....Beth

Economic Slump Sale in My Etsy Shop

The holiday season is approaching and everyone at work is talking about cutting back on gifts for loved ones. At my daughter's 18th birthday dinner last night I heard about a little girl whose family had their electric power turned off. 85,000 families had their homes foreclosed in the month of October. With these kinds of things going on.....I will be offering lots of Etsy sales so that patrons of WhorlingTides will be able to buy the things they want for the people they love.

Some of the details as posted on http://www.whorlingtides.etsy.com/

ECONOMIC SLUMP SALE

We are all having a hard time with the economy. So, I’d like have SALE items in my shop at all times between now and the end of December. I know that, if you are like me, you will want to be able to still provide high quality gifts for your loved ones. Here’s the first sale….

YARNS ONLY:

• 25% off any one yarn.
• If you buy 2 - 3 yarns, I will give 35% off the total order.
• If you buy more than 3 yarns, I will give 35% off the total order AND free PARCEL POST shipping.

Sale prices will be refunded via PayPal.

Hope you enjoy the sale!

Some pics for your viewing pleasure.....

Sunshine and Cranberries (BFL)

Purple Glaze (merino bamboo blend)

Pink Kisses (BFL)

Hope: A Yarn Contest

Hope Yarn

I love words, I am the girl in the corner reading the dictionary to learn the root meanings of words. Although it would have been hard to figure out in advance that I would come to love words when I was first acquiring language. The story my mother always told is: "Beth wouldn't speak until she could formulate complete sentences. She wanted nothing to do with responses containing a single word." If that story is true then the first thing I ever said was "I want a horse." So my very first thoughts were of hoping to have a horse. It took twelve more years of hoping but I finally got Dixie, a barn sour strawberry roan who taught me how to ride with confidence. Confidence is a good skill to learn as a girl of thirteen riding around in the back hills of Alabama. Today, as the parent of a soon-to-be adult daughter (she will be 18 in two days!), I marvel at how my parents were able to allow a young teen girl to ride all alone on the back of a semi-trained mare into the woods where there were known to be bootleggers and active stills. But they did. And never once did anything remotely bad happen. Well, once I had to walk back to the barn after Dixie dumped me onto the ground. Embarrassed and brushing dirt out of my hair, I made it back to the barn in 30 minutes where ALL the laughing farm hands were waiting along with Dixie, also laughing, who was standing in front of her stall. I ramble...

Let's get back to hope. The dictonary says that hope is having a resonable expectation that something one wishes for will come true. In this country, we need some of that today after years of war and the knowledge that things are going to get worse in the short term for many people we love.

The Hope Contest

I think a fiber contest would make us all feel better; don't you? Here's the deal.

The Prize: Hope Yarn

1. Add a comment to this blog entry telling me what you hope for most right now. Use of creative thinking and positive language will be given highest consideration.

2. Make sure that you give me only one hope - otherwise I will only read about the first one and that might not be your best one.

3. Be sure to leave some method for me to contact you. The winner will be posted on the blog, but I would like to be able to send you your "Hope" prize.

4. The deadline: 10:00 am Central Time, Sunday, November 16, 2008. I will post the name of the winner by Sunday at 10:00 pm.

5. Your price will be the skein of "Hope" yarn that I handspun after the election last week.

Yarn Specs

36.7 yards of Merino Silk blend that was drum carded by me. The silk is a beautiful gold-yellow adding softness and shine through out the yarn. Some white glitz was also added during the carding process. Hope was handspun on my Schacht Matchless with a z twist and then plied with both a stark white linen yarn and gold embroidery thread.

I can't wait to read all your responses! I hope you enjoy reading them, too!

Kentuck Festival 2008

If you live anywhere in or near Tuscaloosa, Alabama and you have any interest what so ever in the arts and the local color...during the third weekend in October you will be at the Kentuck Festival. It has been that way as long as I can possibly remember. And I have been there so many times that I cannot even count them on two hands. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would be showing and selling my work there this year, after all I just learned how to spin on December 27, 2007. Still, October 18th and 19th, as part of the West Alabama Fiber Guild, WhorlingTides exhibited and sold tons handspun yarns, knitting kits, and drop spindle kits. I made new friends and got some amazing invitations to participate in future events and even join an art gallery.

Carol T, President, West Alabama Fiber Guild

Sister Carol Drum Carding Dog Hair

About exhibiting at Kentuck...One can hope. One can wish. One can imagine. But being there so far surpasses all of those cognitions that instead of rambling the reader into obvlion I borrowed the image that you see to the above right...."Heaven is a Kentuck of a place." Truly, I was in fiber heaven. I took off from work on Friday so that I could help with the setup. Then on Saturday, Carol T., the Guild President showed Deirdre and I how to prep the flax for the linen demonstration. Immediately, however, I became very busy with sales so I had to focus on that. A few other Guild members wandered in during the day as you will see in the pics. Some were knitters, some spinners, one lace maker, and Sister Carol who really is a nun was drum carding her dog hair which Carol T. was spinning into yarn.

Deidre at Her Amazing Weaving Loom

The next three images were taken at my booth. These yarns were all handspun and handdyed by me at WhorlingTides. I sold so many skeins on Saturday that I had to raid my fiber stash just to have enough to set up the display again on Sunday. SAFF was the very next weekend so I had little time between shows to re-stock. I hope not to do two shows so close together again unless I really have substantial prep time.

WhorlingTides' New BFL Monochromes

More of WhorlingTides' Monochromes

A Variety of Handdyed Handspun Yarns

A new handspinner was born at Kentuck. She learned quickly how to use the spindle and is still making yarns according to her mom. I know that it takes a long time to make enough yarn for a project and certainly she is not quite ready just to enjoy spinning for the sake of spinning. In time K. That will come in time.

Another Etsy Fiber Artist. She's from Florida.

This fiber piece is one of many that the above artist displayed at Kentuck. She also has a shop on Etsy, which I will post here as soon as I locate her business card. I love the way she is influenced by the tattoo world. Her work is highly detailed and spider-web-ish. Layers of thread are sewn to more threads until it becomes an image. I would like to watch one being made.

Kentuck Heaven. It was a wonderful event. I hope to be there again next year. It was a great time to get to know other fiber artists, the members of my own guild, and to experience people looking at my fibers. I like to watch their faces and to hear what they have to say when the whisper to their companion "so soft," "oh...look at the color," "I wish I could knit" and so many more. Even if they just smile, I am happy they stopped by to touch WhorlingTides.

Election Day

"....while we breathe, we hope. "
Barack Obama

In case you have not yet heard Obama's victory speech...here's the link.
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=6185658