Tuesday, February 19, 2008

befuddled on four points

1. One of our cars is in the shop. It is very likely that it will cost so much to fix it that it will then be attractive to sell the car in order to pay the repair bill. We are seriously considering this, and if we did, we would not replace it. We may soon have only one car, people. This would mean ditching at least some of our weekly commitments/lessons, and also not going to the grocery store whenever we run out of apples. While it may be the most sensible thing to do, I am completely freaked out about it. Of course, it is not my car that's in the shop and in danger of being sold. No, of course not. Rather, it is Joe's old Subaru that may be laid off, and my beloved Civic would then be promoted to Joe's commuting car.

2. I interviewed for a job. I seemed to have gotten the job, but I expected to hear last week about my first assignment, and I haven't. Did I get the job? Do I want a job? Do I want this job? Do I call and remind them that I exist? Do I sit back and let them get in touch with me? Again, freaked out.

3. Cat Bordhi's book is, as I said, mind-blowing. In just a few days, it has jolted me out of my circular sock stupor, in which I produced many pairs of socks but learned virtually no new knitting techniques for well over a year.

I have learned two new methods of casting on, two new methods of constructing a sock, a new way to manage circular needles, three new methods of increasing, a better way to join the end of a standard bind off, a way to make a column of ssks flow more smoothly, like k2togs, and a better way to deal with wraps on short rows. (See? I told you this book was almost overwhelmingly technical. Cat does all of this in a really friendly way, though. It's almost like having a class with a really experienced knitter who shows you all her tricks.) Consider me de-stupefied.


These first tiny socks I've finished have required me to find a quiet place to knit in order to figure things out. That's how not on auto-pilot I am with these socks.


4. I have run out of excuses for this:

because I now have this:

as well as two fine friends who have decided that we are having a work party at my house on Friday. I now have a deadline, because I don't want to be fixing this hole on Friday. Oh, no! On Friday, I want to be painting this wall:

And these stringers and risers:

And these walls:










Did I mention that I'm freaking out?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

No comments? Does that mean we don't think your problems are important, or are we so befuddled by them ourselves that we don't know where to begin? I grew up in a one car family, but the idea of it now scares me. What if something happened and we had to get to the emergency room!? Or the liquor store!? The wall? The painting? Yeah, it'll get done.

Granna Judy said...

Well, as I look at your four problems, one isn't a problem at all -- you've found some knitting that makes you think, and that's a Good Thing. AND you have a lovely quiet place in which to do it, which is even better.

And the wall and painting work will be done by Friday, so that's not a problem either.

See? Your problems have been reduced to two -- voila!

And I bet the job folks are just busy with something else and will get back to you shortly. It happens to people all the time -- you expect to hear on Friday and you don't hear till the end of next week. How could they NOT want to hire you?

SO it's really just the car, and when that's your ONLY problem, you can cope, right? :-)

I really hate Pollyannas!! I should post this anonymously.

Sullyce3 said...

;-) See you on Friday!

Lizabeth Cain said...

Know what? I wrote this in the morning, and by afternoon when I read back over it, I wasn't freaked out about any of this anymore. This was clearly a mood, not a series of problems.

I really need to get more exercise...