GRRR!! Grafting BAD!

So I finished the toe on a new Jaywalker a couple days ago, and set it aside because I wasn't feeling up for grafting at the time (am fighting an INSANE bout of Startitis, and let's face it, the only thing more antithetical to Startitis than grafting is seaming).

Well, tonight I decided that I really wanted to just get this damn sock finished (read: I really needed to free up my #2 needles so I could start a different pair of socks entirely, never mind that there's a second Jaywalker to be done), so I sat down with my lovely Ann Norling grafting directions and my new Chibi needles (in cool-ass green case) and set to grafting.

As usual, it looked entirely wonky the first few stitches, but I kept the faith, persevered, and made it to the end of the toe. I fed the needle and remaining yarn end through to the inside of the sock and examined my work.

DAMNSHITFUCKINHELL!!!! I missed a stitch!!

That's right. Completely missed a stitch. There it was, just hanging loose, practically waving at me, ready to go zipping up the sole of my sock at the slightest tug.

So I undid the graft, as of course the missed stitch was one of the first few.

I got a drink of water, calmed myself, sat down and tried again. I got about two-thirds of the way across the toe of the sock before....

DAMMITSHITFUCKINHELL AGAIN!!!! I missed the SAME blasted stitch!!

One I stopped swearing, I undid the graft a second time and set the sock aside. As I explained to Caz: Obviously, tonight was not meant for grafting. And besides, if I tried again and missed that stitch one more stinkin' time, I would NEVER stop swearing. Like, the world would end and there would just be God sitting there with everyone all angel-fied around him, and me, still swearing my angry black guts out into the post-apocalyptic void.

Grafting bad!

The Perils of Procrastination

Argh. So, after last posting, I have managed to take a couple steps forward, and at least one GIANT step back on this whole "road to adulthood" thing.

I had meant, lo those couple weeks ago, to reply to all the kind, thoughtful, sharing responses I received and appreciated so much.

But you know how it is - you have a bunch of semi-deep emails to write, and you think, "Oh, I'll do it tomorrow... on the weekend... Tuesday... when I have more time...." and next thing you know half a month has passed and you've sent out exactly squat.

Add in that I started to re-organize the stash one Friday afternoon when I somehow managed to shoo Caz out of the house for a bit, and I took a ton of pictures and Oh Holy Heck do I have a lot of yarn. I mean, not compared to many, but I think all the fiscal savings we were supposed to be getting out of not eating out so much after having kids? Has gone straight into yarn. It's... well, it's kind of alarming, honestly.

So anyway, I started up this big ol' stash post, and then got kinda side-tracked on that, and so... urgh. Anyway. Suffice to say - I'm going to try for that whole "Flash Your Stash on April 1st" thing that seems to be going around. Though I'm... er... more than a little embarassed by it all, really. I've come to embody the phrase "an embarassment of riches", and I'm sure a lot of folks are going to be going, "What? You've got hardly anything!" Regardless, I'm stunned.

In other news - Kool-aid is on sale at the local grocery store. I've picked up... um... a silly amount of the stuff, honestly. I'm really jazzed at the prospect of dyeing a bunch of yarn soon, though. Like, if I could, I would shoo the boys out of the house, crank up the CD player and dye yarn and pretend to be a diva for an entire afternoon. Who's coming over to join me?!

So, for any who might have been concerned, I'm still alive and kicking, just a really bad procrastinator. But hopefully I'll get back into the blogging thing soon. Though, for other news of what I did this past week, you can go check out my LJ, which I have not fully given up just yet.

Goin' Deep

So, this isn't so knitting-ish. Mostly it's a musing, and so for those of my four readers (I'm like the Conan O'Brien of blogging, only it's not irony - oh well) who don't want to know about anything non-yarn-related, feel free to catch me again in a coupla days. I promise I'll talk knitting then.

I think I'm finally going to have to really grasp, really embrace the fact that I've grown up. That I am, in fact, A Grown-up.

It's weird. I'm 32 years old, I'm a mother, I've been married for seven years to a man I've been with for a total of 12 years now. My best friends are people I've known for two whoppin'-great decades. So you would think I'd come to terms with this by now. That somehow, in 32 years, I'd have figured out that I was actually an adult.

But I really haven't.

I remember several (several!) years ago I caught this thing on C-span, of all channels. Michael Medved, who I'd previously only known as a film critic, was talking about how the rampant consumerism of our culture was sustained by an artificial extension of adolescence. That adolescence, by virtue of a whole bunch of factors, is that time in a person's life when they have the most disposable income as well as a large amount of self-determination combined with low responsibility. Add in that most adolescents are struggling to figure out who they are and who they want to be, plus feel a strong need to express themselves and be recognized for who they are (this week), and you get an advertiser's wet dream. And so, in order to keep expanding their customer base, advertisers and corporations keep trying to widen the range of "adolescence". Which is why you now find nail polish marketed to grade-schoolers in teddy bear-shaped bottles at the same time that auto makers are marketing minivans to the tune of "Teenage Wasteland" and trying to convince the Baby Boomers that they aren't too old to have Sugar Smacks for breakfast every morning. (Okay, these are all old examples, but you get the point I hope, because I haven't paid much attention to ads the past few years now.)

Anyway, that concept has stuck with me ever since. That idea that childhood and adulthood have gotten really mixed up into this uncomfortable mishmash and left a lot of us really confused as to what the hell is expected of us, what the correct path is in our lives... it resonated somehow.

Not surprising, I suppose. My folks used to joke that I was "8 going on 40" when I was a kid. At the time it was a big joke and I secretly took a bit of pride in being "so mature". Now I look back and see there's nothing funny about a 9-year-old giving herself stomach ulcers.

Which is the shortest way I can think of to say that from very early on, there were a lot of situations where I felt like the adult in my family. And while in some ways (okay, a lot of ways) it sucked, it has given me the ability to avoid making a lot of mistakes in my life.

The thing, though, is that I wasn't mature in every arena. And my folks, not always being good at the whole "adulthood" thing themselves, weren't able to teach me much about the things I really was going to need once I was out on my own. Which is why I still find myself having to devise ways to "outsmart" myself if I want to stand any chance of making it from one paycheck to the next without writing a bad check (O Debit Card, how I love thee!). It's why my house is pretty much always a wreck. It's why I get all stupid about things sometimes.

But the past week or so, I've had a couple weird things happen that have made me go, "oh, uh... I guess I'm really not a kid anymore."

The first is I was dinking around the blogosphere, and I happened to notice that a lot of the cool-kid knit-bloggers out there are people who I'd thought were, well, a lot older than me... they aren't. There's maybe a handful who are five to eight years older than me, but most are actually just about my age, give or take a couple years. Which kind of gave me some pause while I realized that no, my peers are no longer primarily working Joe jobs until their "real career" takes off or until they figure out what they want to be when they grow up. Most of them are, if not what they wanted to be when they grew up, in jobs which they're pretty enthusiastic about.

The second thing was that a couple friends of mine are facing real serious marital troubles, to the point where there may well be two more of my friends facing divorce. Which, I have to admit, really has me thrown. Not just because these are people who I care a lot about and I simply ache for them in their pain, but also, in a petty, selfish way because I'm flabbergasted. I mean, divorce is something that happens to my parents' friends, not mine, right? My friends are all still dating and just getting married and being bright happy newlyweds, right? Right? .... Not so much.

It seems I've misplaced the past two years. Not surprising, I suppose, seeing as how the kids are approaching their second birthday in a couple months, and well... what the heck have I done in the past two years except be a parent and become a knitter? Really, nothing. And, at the same time, everything.

Except, of course, become A Grown-up.

I dunno. I mean, when did y'all "know" you were a grown-up? Do you feel like A Grown-up most of the time?

It's all so confusing and seems so impenetrable sometimes.

But it's gotta happen. I mean, somebody's got to be the Grown-up around here, and I'm not going to follow my folks' example and make the kids do it, so... time to grow up, Thorny. Now just to figure out how to DO that.....

Just for Scout

So, I had to wait until the rechargeable batteries for the digital camera finished, you know, charging, but here it is - my pics for the Knitbloggers Virtual Field Trip. Though, since I don't have a back door/yard, I just took pics out my windows. The joys of apartment living and all that, y'see.

Anyway, this first is a view out my bedroom window - I was hoping to capture the fact that it's snowing like freakin' kee-ray-zee up here, but my flash wouldn't go off, so no dice.


This second is a picture of the same tree, but from the living room, where all the knitting takes place.


And here's another view from the living room, this time if you were to look left while standing at the window.



And then, because I never did get this up ages ago, here's a pic of my Supah-Dupah Knitting Spot:

The neefty little stool is often a home for beverages and other paraphernalia, while the quilt is often over my lap. And yeah, there usually are toys strewn all over the place. It's what happens in a house with twin toddlers, you know? And I could spend time picking up all them toys, or I could just kick 'em out of the way and get to knitting. grin!

And, in case you were wondering, yes, my knitting bag is indeed an Oceanica Airlines bag (i.e. the fictional airline used by the unfortunate castaways on Lost, which is one of my big-time favorite shows (though it better get moving with some more plot advancement if it wants to stay that way!)). I got it via Television Without Pity and I lurves it, precious. Lurves it!

The tag line, as it's a bit hard to read, is "Getting halfway there is all the fun!"

In other news, I seem to be over my bout of the flu, though I'm still kinda wonky in body and mind. Hopefully some more good sleep tonight will help me return to my former self tomorrow.

Oof. Chicago backlash

Urgh. It's happened again. We went down to Chicago, ran our butts off, and now we're all on the express route to Plaguesville. sigh.

The kids have taken turns running low-grade fevers all week, though without much in the way of other outward symptoms, aside from Ben suddenly turning into a little old man and casting evil glances at the radio while covering his ears. I figure the poor guy had a headache, and the noise was too much, because he uncovered his ears and seemed much less tetchy once we turned the radio off.

Anyway, so I thought we might be doing all right until earlier tonight, when suddenly I was passing out in the recliner for no known reason, and then woke up aching in just every joint. Even my toes hurt! Caz quickly diagnosed flu and I'm too tired and achy and glum to argue.

So probably won't post for a couple days again until I get over this. blegh.

But before I go take a nice hot shower and go to bed, I wanted to get a little knitting news up.

First, I've joined FemiKnit Mafia's Turtles KAL, specially designed for all those who didn't quite make Olympic gold. I'm very happy about this, as turtles are a big favorite for me, and I would have been really sad to have not been able to be a part of a turtle-themed KAL. (And while I'm at it, congrats to Ms. Lefty Mafia on her new status as Mama! Such good news, and such good timing - I was getting overly wound up that the bastards in the Wisconsin legislature are being so bastardy about gay rights issues. Bastards. A little good news did a lot for my personal headspace. grin.)

Secondly, I got my patterns from Black Water Abbey the other day, and I'm about 95% sure that I'm going to do Bramble Berry first. Just as soon as I figure out what yarn to choose. So many yarns, so little time, you know?

I swear there was a third thing, but heck if I can remember it now. Oh well. Too tired and my back is killing me. Time for the healing power of a hot shower followed by sleep.