Just Keep Learning

What’s Happening?

You’re never too old to learn new things. Never.

I think that’s been the theme of the week (month?), but it’s a good one to keep reminding myself of, as education is an awfully big part of what we’re doing around here. How good for me to remind myself that it’s not all energizing and fun to learn new skills, even when a good portion of it really is.

My new friends Canva, WordPress, and Stitchmastery and I are getting to be more friendly and cooperative with one another, and I’m trying to renew my acquaintance with Word. I did just take a class on the whole Office Suite a few years ago, but it’s amazing what you (I) forget when you (I) don’t use it very often.

I think I’ve gone from producing 2nd grade level Canva creations to maybe artistically challenged 5th grade ones, so that’s improvement. I’ll get there. If I can learn to type at 50, I can learn this other stuff. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway, especially when Canva starts laughing at me. I sometimes wonder if it has a self-scrubbing feature, so no one can tell what software was used to create a design unless it passes some metric of acceptability.

What am I learning?

Speaking of technology, we’re about to try something that feels like it’s straight out of the Jetsons. Did you know that you can ask ChatGPT to map a route for you that takes into account the yarn shops along the way to your destination? You can, and you can even refine that request so that you only add a certain amount of travel time, or have websites you can check (important, as the information wasn’t 100% up to date).

We’re heading up to the Northeast to gather assorted belongings from my previous address (including the yarn collection—whee!) and we’re hoping to visit a few shops along the way. It looks like we may have found a great way to do that.

I’m thinking my daughter-in-law could use the same idea to find playgrounds for the grandkids when they road trip. Or maybe we decide we’ve got to find a place that makes tableside guacamole along the way? This could reconcile me to AI.

What am I Knitting?

All this learning, especially centered around technology, leaves me feeling a little harried. It’s been good to take the time to slow down now and again this week and enjoy the good stuff: A long afternoon’s chat with an old friend, making a new recipe from scratch inefficiently rather than buying sauces pre-made and bottled, and, of course, knitting.

The deep blues in one of the skeins I’m using in my The Shift cowl are melting into a deep purple and playing so prettily against the springy green that’s rising in another skein. I can’t help but stretch out the fabric periodically and admire how the colors are playing against each other. I wouldn’t have chosen the red and greens to combine in one skein, but that’s one of the wonderful benefits of this sort of random-pairing knitting. I don’t choose to control how the colors match up. I just watch, admire, and give thanks that this is a more acceptable practice in knitting than it is in Canva.

What are you working on today?

Happy knitting!

Kiersten J

5/30/2024