Hello. So, you want to know a little bit about me? Well, I was a Connecticut resident, living high on a hill in Fairfield County, surrounded by trees loaded with birds and squirrels and a 3 acre property overrun by the small herd of deer that resided there until we fenced them out.
We now “live on the edge” of Cape Cod in Eastham. I love to garden, play golf, bicycle, walk, bake, make music, and create things with my hands. Among my favorite “crafts” ( and I hesitate to call them just crafts, because many of the items I make are far beyond crafts — but I digress –) are knitting, crocheting, quilting, needlepoint, cross stitch, rug hooking, and last but not least stained glass.
The desire to start writing this blog came about from my thinking about my mother, gone for 11 years now, and her love for her family, her God, and making things with her hands. Among the many things she made were just lots and lots of crocheted things. Believing firmly, and saying so frequently, she never had idle hands as “idle hands are the devil’s workshop”. So, you almost always saw her when sitting still — reading, doing crossword puzzles, or crocheting. And, my goodness could she crochet. The fabric just seemed to grow below her hands as the hook flew across rows and rows of crochet stitches. And, among her favorite things to crochet — ripple afghans. The pattern was easy to memorize and the afghan could grow to be as long as she wanted it. My husband was a favorite beneficiary of her crocheting skills, and being 6’5″ tall, he also appreciated her ability to make afghans as long as he needed them to cover up with.
So, ripple afghans, the ripple effect of our actions, and the rippled-effects blog. Here we are. The ripple afghans that are draped in various places in our home, the ripple effects of my Mother’s simple, but not insignificant life, and the rippled-effects blog that I will be writing. Will anyone read it — will anyone care — will it really matter? The answer to the last is no, it won’t really matter. But just like the rippled effects of a pebble dropping into a pond — the ripples make their way eventually to some shore long after the pebble has dropped to the bottom and it never knows. We never know — how our simple lives are simple deeds can ripple to others.