Frustration

My whole life has been an exercise in frustration lately. One big, fat, frustrating event after another. I've never particularly handled frustration well, I was one of those children who cried over their homework if I didn't understand, instead of just taking a deep breath and figuring it out.

(Mom, remember when I had to draw the phases of the moon? If I haven't before, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for totally doing that assignment for me.)

I decided to take apart my bird feeder and clean it, which I have never done in the oh...five years I've owned it. It was quite moldy and gross, and I had noticed the birds throwing most of the seed out and about rather than eating it. Maybe because it was moldy and gross? It was very easy to get apart (yay!) and to clean (double yay!) but I couldn't get it back together. It was really frustrating, and I do believe I called my mom at some point, but eventually I muscled it back together.



FAIL!!1!

Maybe that's why I like knitting so much. Things start to go awry, the flush of frustration starts to creep up, just when you're about to FAIL, you do better. You FROG!!1!

P.S. Cath, yes I *do* have a problem with laddering when I knit a sock using magic loop!

I vehemently denied it in knitting group (which sounds like a 12-step program...and well, I guess it kind of is) because I don't have a laddering problem using DPNs and that's how I usually knit socks. But yes, later I realized what you were saying. I should re-try magic loop and rotate the stitches round the bend. I've denied magic loop for a looong time, because it puts so much tension on the stitches on the bend and that bothers me. It must be very frustrating for such a fabulous new technique to be denied.

And P.P.S. I did finally dump all the seed out of the birdfeeder into my new tugtrub and put it back together correctly. It was much easier than the way I did it wrong. I think there's another lesson in there somewhere.

How Square!

Something I was excited to do while visiting my parents was to go through all my mom's inherited knit and crochet projects and help her frog the ones she didn't want to finish. I think my mom was excited too ... the first thing she said (after hi) was "Did you bring your ball winder?" Of course I did.

I wish I had taken a picture of my mom's yarn room. Yes, room. I have a yarn corner, she has a room. However, I'm not *too* jealous because most of the yarn and UFOs she has are not her own. Some of the projects date from a great aunt who died when I was in high school in the 1990s. They date from the last millennium! Some families pass down jewelry or priceless heirlooms, we pass down yarn. And acrylic yarn at that. Not that there's anything wrong with acrylic ... as long as I don't have to knit with it.

My mom didn't want to complete most of the projects, as most were knitted and she prefers to crochet ... not to mention a lot of them were funky, so they got frogged. Except for one bin, where I hit the jackpot:

110 SQUARES! Already knit! Not by me!



Now I get to do the fun part of blanket planning and plotting without having to knit the squares. I'd like to carry the same shade along diagonal lines with clear warm and cool color sides. I may try an i-cord edge made famous by the Mason-Dixon ladies. Or I may choose another from their fabulous first book. (The second is on its way!)

And if I do need a few more squares, I know where there's a room full of yarn.

I Marched for Babies!

On April 27th, I was one of 4,300 people who marched for babies as part of the March of Dimes March for Babies.  Four thousand three hundred people!  Forty-three hundred people!  That's amazing!  

Thank you so much to everyone who sponsored me.  I set a crazy goal for myself of $500, knowing I could drop it at any time if I wasn't close ... because we all have to meet our goal, right ... but totally not necessary.  I kicked that goal's ass and then some raising $637!  That just amazes me, thank you so much.

And I would also like to say thank you to the other four thousand two hundred and ninety nine people who walked with me to help raise $450,000!

Yay!  Five miles for $637! ... that's more than $100 per mile.  As a matter of fact, I can do basic math (with a calculator) and tell you that's $127.40 per mile.  Yay!

Sorry that picture's blurry ... it was five miles people.  Everything was a little blurry.