Afghans

Today, I'm thankful for afghans. Or maybe, more specifically, my family's practical creativity.

In my house right now, I have three afghans. The first is a twin-sized bright yellow afghan that I've had for as long as I can remember. It's older than Doc, my aged polar bear, but younger than me...but just barely. Grandma Ventura made one for each of her grandchildren. Stacey's was pink, Julie's was sea foam green, Matt's was blue and mine was yellow. I feel certain that Pam, Catlin, and Allison each have one, but I have not seen theirs to know the colors. Each afghan is made up of colored squares, stitched together with white yarn. This afghan is 6 squares across by 10 squares--I just counted. On a few occasions, when I was little, the white yard came unraveled, and left a slit between squares. I would stick my head through the hole and wear the blanket like a poncho. Mom would offer to crochet it back up (she's got skills, too--and afghans to show for it) but I would refuse, because only Grandma could fix my affectionately-called "Grandma blanket." That meant, on occasion, that I would have to wait for a year or two until Grandma came to visit us in Germany, or we went to visit her in Ohio.

The second afghan is also a Grandma blanket. When Julie got married my sophomore year of college, Grandma made her a queen-sized version of her sea foam green afghan. I made, offhand, some sort of comment that that's not fair! I may never get married, and if I didn't have a larger afghan I would never sleep in a larger bed! (Or something like that.) This was all relayed second-hand, mind you, probably from Mom to Grandma. I never said anything directly to Grandma. For Christmas that year, I opened up a new Grandma blanket--this one was larger...but only by one row of squares on the bottom, and one row of squares on the side. To be sure, it is an extra-long twin sized afghan. ::sigh:: It's also not yellow. Grandma used a corrugated yarn that was mauve-ish-pink and tealish-green. She said the colors reminded her of me. I thought, it's no wonder; I work at Winn-Dixie, and these are the Winn-Dixie colors... Grandma's comment was something like, "Here. Since you complained." I was grateful, though. It sounds like I was complaining, but at the ripe age of 20, I really didn't think I would ever get married. It seemed like an impossibility. I'm glad God had other plans, though.

These two afghans currently are on our bed. The yellow one (still my favorite) is covering my half of the bed, and the mauve/tealish one is covering Eli's half of the bed. This is in lieu of a comforter, since we didn't get one to match our current sheet set.

The third afghan is a zig-zag afghan, made from corrugated hunter green yarn. This one stays out in the general areas and is our "throw" afghan. My oldest sister, Stacey, made this for us a couple of years ago. I love it because it's so soft, and just the right weight to keep me warm watching TV without making me sweat. In the winter time, you'd be hard-pressed to find me sitting on the couch without it. Plus, Coco loves to climb under it and snuggle, so why wouldn't I use it?

I came home from tutoring tonight and just wanted to curl up on the couch with my Stacey blanket and veg in front of the TV, but lo and behold, Eli had already claimed my afghan--and my kitty! I felt naked...and betrayed. Okay, so it wasn't that bad. But he took my warmth and my cat! After I had eaten dinner, he gave me the afghan. Didn't I tell you he's sweet?

Well, don't get too gushy. He still took my cat.