Monday, March 30, 2009

Motorcycles and Needlework

Recently I've become intimately acquainted with two hobbies/passions. About 4 or 5 years ago I rekindled an old interest in needlework. I bought materials and magazines, found websites and eventually met, on-line, a fabulous group of stitchers. I've attended several stitching retreats through the Victoria Sampler, and met some wonderful friends.
Needlework is a beautiful, challenging, calming part of my days and I've accumulated enough stash to keep myself happily creating for the rest of my life. It's clean, colourful, intricate and speaks of home and history. It's tactile art, and I haven't decided which part is better: the finished object or the process.

Then there are the motorcycles.
Two years ago I quit my old job working for a yellow pages publishing company, and started to work with my husband at his motorcycle salvage/repair shop. I don't actually fix the motorcycles, but am involved in all the administration, customer contact, lingo, parts, grease, grime and mess. This part of my life is the anti-needlework. The spontaneous, unplanned, stressful, profane, bewildering, dirty yang to needlework's yin.
Motorcycles are my husband's passion. He has accumulated enough motorcycle parts to last his lifetime. To him they are beautiful and challenging; they are his tactile art, and he hasn't decided what he enjoys more: the running motorcycles, or the process of fixing them.

I started this post with the intention of demonstrating two hugely different parts of my life, but I've just now realized how much my husband and I have in common. Soon we're going to start dressing alike, as those older couples do, lol. Wait a minute....maybe we already do.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Status Quo

Just when I thought I had everything under control, my kids "done growed up on me".
So.... this blog is about life after child-rearing. Life at work, with my motorcycle-loving husband, and life at home with only one retreating kid left to nag. He's hardly ever here anyway.

Ahhh...the freedom.
The possibilities. The rediscovered hobbies. The NEW hobbies.
The empty rooms.
The 21-odd years that passed in the blink of an eye.
What the hell happened?