WordPress Daily Prompt: The Object of my Dejection

Tell us about the object of your dejection — something you made, a masterpiece unfinished, or some sort of project that failed to meet your expectations. What did you learn from the experience? How would you do things differently next time?

For the past ten years or more I do not do “made”, the computer moved in and the knitting and dress making moved out. I could tell you of the pullovers that were knitted as gifts for people I had not seen for some time, so I had to guess the size. Unfortunately someone may have shrunk in the meanwhile and knitting size XXL no longer fit. I could have saved the time and wool.

There was a time when I made all my own clothes. This was due to the fact that my size was not “normal”, but something that had not yet been seen. My arms were not even the same length and so the shoulders had to be especially formed on the garment. I also discovered that my waist line was not a line but sort of dipped at the back and rose at the front. It was annoying having to alter those standard patterns for the woman with the perfect figure. I persevered for many years and luckily I was in a group where the lady showing us how to do it was very understanding. I finished everything and the objects met my expectations. Unfortunately my body did not, it was changing all the time. 

I made many quilts from garn. My mother-in-law showed me the pattern. It was just plain crocheting, two rows of the same colour and then change. It was all recycled produce from the wool of old pullovers which was unravelled and again re-used. Not a bad idea. I had at least two or three of these giant quilts, but eventually I had more quilts that places to put them on. One day I had to make room and they went to the happy quilt hunting grounds, dejected and no longer used. 

As said, all these fruitless experiments with made to measure clothes and pullovers came to an end with the invasion of the computer. Computers also became dejected, replaced by something new. I remember the first computers, known as Commodore 64 and it seemed that was in 1982. I was then young and lovely, in my forties. Actually son No 2 wanted the computer, but as soon as he decided to do something more worthwhile, I took over. We soon progressed to the Commodore 128 which was perfection. Son No. 2 would insert a floppy disk and play for hours which was before the hard disk arrived. I would sit in the living room waiting for his bed time and then I would be in action. I discovered so many rifts belonging to the world of Koronis. The day of the mouse had not yet arrived and it was all done with a so-called joy stick. I cannot remember how many rifts were on this game, and I know I was always knocked out after visiting two or three, but as always little things please little minds.

My favourite game was Whizzball. An evil magician had stolen the colours from about 4-5 sceneries and the idea was to collect the colours and redo them all. First of all son No. 2 coloured them and when he was finished I did a repeat job. Who needs dejected objects when you have a computer. I do not know what ever happened to commodore. I should have kept the various computers I had at the time. The last one was an Amiga, which was more advanced. Then some guy called Bill Gates came along and it was all finished, we had to work with windows. 

A current object of dejection is my super bird house, a work of art. I bought it last year and deposited it in the front garden, as the back garden already had a birdhouse hanging from the branches of the apple tree. In the meanwhile we had both gardens refurbished and decided that the mini bird houses were not suitable. The birds are untidy creatures and did not collect the seeds deposited on the ground. We had a forest of strange grasses - did I see a few cannabis plants in between? This year we did some rethinking and decided the front garden would remain barren with no bird house, but our super bird villa would be placed on the wild flower lawn between the houses. This was fine, there was room and the trees opposite were full of birds. Unfortunately the birds decided it was not within their safety range of cats and humans and sat in the trees watching, but not eating. 

This morning, I had a brilliant idea. I moved the bird feeding station next to the apple tree on the other side and I had success. The birds were fighting for a front row place and my cats were watching with mouths open, although they had their own idea - The Bird House.

By the way was it my imagination or was it when I awoke from my golden oldie sleep after lunch, that there was no daily prompt. Had it been banished forever was my first thought. I was patient and in the meanwhile cleaned a few cupboard doors. When I returned to my iPad I saw it had  appeared, with a different author, but who cares. The pingbacks are still lost, but we have the Reader. And now I have better things to do. I have received a few Christmas cards from various relations and friends but realised mine are still waiting to be written.