Trying new things

This past November I took a community education course in beginning knitting.  I made a very imperfect but still lovely pair of fingerless gloves for my daughter, sent them to her and they were lost in the mail.  I am knitting another pair now and I do find I like knitting. I decided to take the class and try to learn to knit because I thought it might help the stiffness in my hands from arthritis.  I think it does. Up to a point.  Then it may do the opposite.

In December some time, David and I went to the local (hoity toity e.g., prohibitively expensive) sporting goods store so he could look at winter gloves.  While there I came across their display of flies (for fishing).  They were so beautiful!  Who knew?  Certainly not me. Here are a couple of photos I took.  They don't do them justice.  The flies were all shapes, colors, sizes, of all kinds of materials, including Elk hair.  Elk hair!!!  And look at the Hexagenia Dun!  What a wonderful name!

David told me that he took a fly tying class as part of Boy Scouts.  I thought what a wonderful thing to learn how to do.  Lo and behold, the catalogue of community education classes came today and in March, they are offering Beginning Fly Tying, 4 weeks, $35.  I'm signing up.  What, you ask, will I do with the flies I learn how to tie - assuming I am capable of learning to tie them?  I have no idea.  Maybe next summer I'll take a Beginning Fly Fishing class.

Here in Maine we are trying out a new approach to state government.  We elected a Democrat and a woman, Janet Mills - the first woman governor of Maine and the first governor to win more than 50% of the vote in quite some time.  (Our last governor, Paul LePage -- who was Trump in our state politics before Trump was Trump in national politics -- was elected with 39% of the vote because of a third party candidate who split the vote.)  Governor Mills has already signed into law Medicaid expansion - which passed 2 people's referenda here in Maine, backed up by several law suits, and still LePage refused to implement the expansion.  Meanwhile, the Democrats also control the State House and Senate.  So there's a possibility that the state government will actually get some things done - for the first time in a long time.  Of course, some of what they do may be metaphorically "lost in the mail" or they may fail at some things they try to do.

I guess that's the risk of trying new things.

Peace.