Hi, joscelynk, Like you, I was nervous about needing to re-teach myself to knit after so many yrs away from it. I still had the initial instruction book and also found some "how to knit videos" on Utube for beginners which really made the start over process easier.

I agree that knitting is keeping my attention focused on the "task at hand" rather than ruminating on worrisome issues. Wishing you the best and hope you'll keep us updated on your approaching surgery.

@jocelynk Now may be a good time to get into a habit of taking care of yourself when you need to calm down, or distract yourself. There are many tutorials on beginning crochet, as my neighbor told me, on Youtube. I am left-handed but crochet right-handed, and after almost 15 years still consider myself a beginner, content with easy/simple patterns that use very basic stitches! The repetition is calming to me.

I am glad you shared about your upcoming surgery. One thing you might consider, is journaling about it all, to move thoughts and concerns out of your mind, as they do the little hamster wheel thing of occupying your time. Here is a discussion thread about that, that you may find interesting. https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/journaling-the-write-stuff-for-you/ Being able to write things down has helped me in my health challenges.

Please come back for more support!
Ginger

You are in my thoughts. You have already faced so much. I will think of you in a special way in June. I used to crochet as well, but am not sure I could do it again. It did keep my hands busy and many relatives received not so attractive shawls for Christmas. I think just the doing helped my sanity a bit. I never did knit even after taking lessons. After a lesson I would go home and try to do more. At each class meeting, the instructor ripped out all I had done because I had dropped a stitch or something like that. I dropped the class along with plans to make a sweater. I do admire those who can knit. My sister is the one who can do crafts. She makes lovely cards. She used to do macrame, embroidery, and needlepoint. I was not good in my home ec class in junior high. I despised sewing on a machine and also the cooking part. I still remember having to wear my dress I had made (with lots of help from others) as all of us modeled. The grade I made in that class was a "C", the first ever for me. Ah well, I should have insisted on not taking the class and doing shop with the boys. Maybe I would have done better at that because later in life I took a woodworking class and made a dinner table. It served for many years. As we are trying to downsize, we knew getting rid of that would allow a bookcase from my mother to be in its place. We put the table by the mailbox on a Sunday and put a "Free" sign on it and it was gone when we left the house two hours later. Best wishes to you @joycelynk. @joybringer1

That sounds like a great idea, joclynk. Want to begin learning now, so you have everything you need and on hand when you may be home for a while? For me and my personality, to begin now or soon to organize my new craft endeavors would be a lot of fun and help direct my focus on something new and interesting....You know, it'll be a good thing to focus your energies and thoughts on something else.....but even more to focus on doing something nice for someone else!

I love this....these very talented women can lead you down the knitting lane!
Bless you on this journey.....and you'll be in a lot of thoughts and prayers in June.....elizabeth