It Has Arrived

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

All My Rowdy Friends Are Knitters

OK, not all of my "rowdy" friends are knitters.... I have just been listening to a lot of country music today.

The nice line of dogs you see here is usually the site I see when my "secretaries" wait for something to do like be petted, help mom with important character decisions; decide on yarns, needles and a good next project. When their services are not called upon they take naps.

Today more stitches were put down on The-Wonderful-Sweater-Called-Clark. The back is nearing completion at a much faster pace (probably because I am working on it). I should be able to cast on for the front by the end of the week, Thanksgiving withstanding. Knitting is the continual thing that helps me relax and lately I have needed relaxing for various reasons.

There is good news on the job front: Two places have responded positively to my resume and said they would be notifying me again soon! *swoon* I am so pleased. I hope the hours work out well and I get paid for training because I could really use it. Yes, I know - I sound like a broken record on that front. Maybe everything is going to open up soon.

A job also means something even more splendid: More yarn!!!

My Mind Roams Today

There are moments when all you can think about is being someplace else. Some place where you feel as if you have escaped into a quiet place to rest for a while. It doesn't have to be a place far away. It can be quite near. Like the cafe' at your favorite bookstore. Yeah, I'd like to be at Barns and Noble's right now sipping on a cafe' mocha and munching on a sugar cookie surrounded by books and people that I don't have to talk to if I don't want. Tonight, though, I would also be surrounded by yarn and knitting needles and books on knitting because this is a knitting night. Yessir, a full-fledged knitting night.

DH has gone to his tai chi practice and I am alone. Instead of making me feel all depressed and itchy to have company, I feel as if I am actually getting a good treat. I measured The Wonderful Sweater Called Clark against its recipient and feel good about how it is turning out. Tonight I am going to concentrate a good portion of knitting time upon said wonderful sweater and, once I find my Interchangeables - Hubby has put them somewhere - I am going to cast on a sweater for him.

Yes, I can mention knitting projects here without worry he will find out. He looks at my knitting and all of its many projects as almost a disease. It is a good disease as far as Dear Hubby is concerned, but a disease none-the-less.

As if the plans for knitting were not enough, I have spent a wonderful hour roaming Ravelry.com and seen so many projects I would like to undertake one day.

All in all, this has been a yarn-filled day more or less. SS came over for lunch and while he was here he helped me de-tangle a couple of masses of yarn. According to him, de-tangling yarn and other things is a stress-reliever for him. I, personally, consider it a miracle and will help him de-stress sometimes (although unintentionally).

Today I re-discovered a pair of nice worsted weight fingerless mitts, a hat, as well as the worsted weight pair of socks I made for myself. I wish I had had these this past Friday! Perhaps my hands would not have gotten so cold! (I am now determined to make myself some mittens for such occasions; I am just not sure which yarn to use from my stash.)

!@#$$%$%$&!!!!!!

Bobby. Bobby. Bobby. You really aren't that trendy right now. How about picking up some knitting needles for a good sweater and if you don't like pants, how about a skirt?

Wonky. Weird. Wundernuts!

Things are...unusual here. A wonderfully good friend has recently discovered his father has cancer and today it was told how long he could expect to have his father around. It isn't as long as anyone would have hoped.

It has also made me remember all of that long year when I was with my Mom and helping her as much as I possibly could and making mistakes as I did so. A lot of old memories have returned and it hurts.

Isn't it odd how some pains never truly go away or are 100% healed? Grief is like a scar that never completely closes. It is always ready to tear open a little and bleed. In my long years of overcoming the grief of the losses I've suffered that fateful pair of years, I have discovered nothing makes it completely all better, but there are a few things that make coping a little easier to do. For me one of those things just happens to be yarn. Since all of this has begun with our dear friend I have found myself planning projects as well as working on all of the current WIPs lying about. I wish I could just spread the peace of knitting a little further into this situation, but I can't, and the memories I have, though bittersweet, are my memories and I can stand them...now.

X-Post Library Thoughts

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Picked up the knitting needles again...finally!

I am not exactly sure why, but I haven't been knitting like the normal fiend with needles and yarn I usually am. It isn't that I haven't had ideas or that there aren't projects to complete, because there are: I just haven't been knitting. The tug of the knitting needles didn't actually finally hit until a couple of days ago, but then my shoulder was so very ugly because of the recent fall that the thought of working with yarn or doing anything requiring me to move my right shoulder even the tiniest bit made me sweat.

However, the doctor's visit told me I did not have a broken shoulder, but a cracked collar bone and there could be some deep tissue damage I need to get checked out later on in the week. Oh, and the x-ray showed that I had broken my arm at some point in the past three months and it was now virtually healed. The odd part is - I didn't think of myself as hurting enough to actually go get it checked out, which now has my doctor worried: If my pain level is high enough that I can't tell if I have a broken bone then something needs to be done differently, and this means different meds and such. The only thing is that, currently, my meds are to the point where I can have a normal life and think through the days instead of having them just blur in a drug-induced haze. I like that - having a life.

But I digress....

So, today the arthritis was acting up and my hands were sore. I had not really thought about knitting until Hubby brought home something from Church (yeah, today was sort of a bad pain day in other joints than just my shoulder) that said we were collecting children's' hats, toys, etc. for a Christmas drive. Suddenly I knew how I wanted to get started on this - a child's hat. When I cast on for the wee thing it felt wonderful and right. Luckily the shoulder is healed enough that small knitting projects aren't going to bother it, and now, after only a couple of hours, the little thing is forming nicely. I can't knit at my normal speed because of the arthritis and shoulder, but it feels so good! It is as if I haven't had anything sweet in ages and suddenly have been given something from Swiss Colony as a treat!

The little hat is being made out of self-striping sock yarn and there is also some yarn left over from small knitting projects, also in sock yarn, that have me already planning on the next little hat, probably a little larger for a bigger kid.

You Are Chess

You are brilliant and shrewd. You can often predict what people will do in the future. You thrive in complex situations. You deal with contradictions well. You can have many streams of though going on at your mind at once. You keep track of things well. You are very patient. You have lots of endurance, even when your energy dwindles

What Board Game Are You?

Knitting a New Direction

For the past little while I have either been too sick or too hurt to knit. Now that the shoulder is better I have discovered I am going to have to knit some more dishcloths because my stash is down and am digging into the ones I made for my sister.

Today I put a dishcloth on the Swiffer head and used it on my floors because I didn't want my dogs to get sick from the Swiffer wet pads. The floors aren't as clean as I want them, but they are actually better and tomorrow and the day after give me hope I can actually get things looking even better.