Week Twelve: Chop Wood, Carry Water

This week, I’ve been struggling with dual and somewhat opposing impulses.

On the one hand, I’ve experienced a terrific burst of energy and creativity. I’ve been storing up yarn and patterns, and quilting fabric and my own designs, for years; suddenly it’s time to CAST ON. Now. Start. Finish. Work. Sew. Knit like the wind! I’m getting vivid dreams. I’m getting the urge to sketch things, make plans, open new files, and (in a purely theoretical sense, since it’s SNOWING as I write this) open the windows and let in fresh air. Spread my wings. Redefine and reinvent myself. Run run run run run.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HwTFViLR5Y

On the other hand, I’m disciplining myself with quiet time, practicing meditation, and reading about mindfulness. I am trying to listen to the quiet, follow my breath, and be still.

Don’t do something — just sit there.

I need both things in my life. Sitting still doesn’t take away from my busy-ness as much as it prepares me for it, conditions me for it. The writing I do after I wake up and before I go to sleep is not creative writing but a way to both organize and de-clutter my mind. It also makes a safe space for anything that wants to be written about, contemplated, memorialized, or speculated upon.

So how do these different impulses interact with each other? Do they crash into each other? Do they pull away from each other? Do they chase each other like snakes trying to make meals of each other’s tails? Do they twist in opposite directions to form a knot? Internally, they probably are taking turns doing all of those things. It’s difficult to keep that internal conflict-resolution process from showing on the outside, but that’s another benefit of the sitting practice, of the breathing practice, of the mindfulness practice, of the writing practice.

And this practice is difficult. I have often described my father, who just turned 79, as the oldest living undiagnosed and unmedicated ADHD patient. When I was growing up he always worked at least three jobs. He finally retired from his primary job only to work a series of post-retirement jobs and travel with my mother on trips ranging from Alaska to the Panama Canal, and from San Francisco to Maine. (They’re banned from New Hampshire, though, or maybe it was Vermont. Don’t ask.) He still gets up early and does a few hundred situps before he goes to the basement to lift weights, row, and walk the treadmill. He simply does not stop. (Unless golf is on TV, then it’s naptime!) And the older I get, the more I discover that I am truly my father’s daughter. When I was younger, I swung my legs, tapped my fingers, hummed (I thought) to myself. I ran, I rode, I hiked, I biked, I paddled. When I was in class I doodled beside my notes, made lists, passed messages to my friends. The knitting I took up almost a decade ago has given my hands something to keep busy with while my brain focuses. If you have never tried if, let me tell you that sitting quietly and emptying your mind is HARD. They don’t call it “monkey mind” for nothing. It is full of chatter that must be dealt with. And I’m not very good at it.

At the risk of driving my readers crazy, in Wherever You Go There You Are Jon Kabat-Zinn quotes one of his students as saying “When I was a Buddhist, it drove my parents and friends crazy, but when I am a buddha, nobody is upset at all.” So I’m trying not to go all “Buddhist” on anyone. I’m not in an evangelistic “three recruits and I get a zafu” program, and in many ways, this place is familiar territory to me. Some of my Zen and Buddhism books have been on my shelves for quite some time now. The wheel turns, and they are needed again for me to regain my balance. I’m writing about my own experience. If my words speak to you, it’s up to you to decide what that means for you.

But, as Bill Cosby might say, I told you that quote so I could tell you this one. In The Miracle of Mindfulness Thich Nhat Hanh quotes a line from a Vietnamese folk song:

Hardest of all is to practice the Way at home,
second in the crowd,
and third in the pagoda.

Right now I’m practicing at home, swinging five bats before approaching the plate to assess what life intends to throw at me next. (From the way it’s gone so far, I’m guessing knuckleball.) I need to do what I need to do. It’s not time to try to walk and chew gum at the same time; it’s time to walk for walking’s sake and chew gum in order to chew gum. When I try to do more, I tend to bump into things.

Week Eleven: This Thursday Intentionally Left Blank

Did you miss me yesterday? Sorry, I’m transitioning (temporarily) to Friday posts so that I won’t miss a week when I’m on Spring Break in a couple of weeks with the kidlets.

Someone asked me this week, “So, where are you going for Spring Break?” Of course I answered “OHIO!” with a big fistpump. Even when I was in college in Ohio I took my Spring Breaks in Ohio. And it was usually in the middle of March, so even if you felt springlike, there was no getting around the fact that it was NOT a good time to start your own personal cycling season; the temperatures were usually in the range of 40 to 50°F. If I got any riding done when I was home on break, I usually had a sore throat and a cold by the next week. It… wasn’t exactly a vacation at the beach.

Okay, time for progress reports!

Last Sunday I was enjoying the lack of need to go anywhere since the weather was crappy. I sat on the couch and knitted on my Wingspan shawl until I ran out of yarn near the end of the 8th triangle. Lo and behold, the second skein of yarn for it arrived on Monday afternoon. YESSSSS. It is a different dye lot and looks a bit darker to me, but I really don’t mind or care. I get to keep knitting.

In the meantime I have pulled out a pair of socks I started knitting last October or so, on yarn that has been languishing in my stash for years. (How many years? Well, I stopped in at Ruhama’s in Milwaukee [all right, really Whitefish Bay] before I saw “Mean Girls” in the theater. Which came out in 2004. That’s a pretty long time for a skein of fine-looking German sock yarn to make up its mind about what it wants to be. And who would have guessed it would actually want to be socks?) They’re intended for someone whose feet I don’t have immediate access to, so I really hope they’re going to fit. Knitting fitted items to spec is not one of my natural gifts, so while I can knit socks, they usually go to someone whose feet happen to be the right size. Locating people whose feet fit my socks is also a gift.

And…. drum roll…. tomorrow I shall knit the Very Last Piece for the project-which-will-soon-be-unveiled. I cannot tell you how hard it has been this week to only knit one piece per day for this project, with the end so near in sight. There was such a temptation to hole up and crank out the knitting and finish early. I decided to join the resistance and maintain the pace, despite how eager I was to get the whole thing “done.”

In non-knitting news, the kidlets really did a lot of stuff since my last post. Middle Son won a trophy in a spelling bee, Youngest Son earned a ribbon in the same bee and then proceeded to lose his two front teeth over the weekend. Eldest Son went and turned 14, putting a real cramp in my tendency to still think of my inner self as 22. He’s almost taller than I am, and his feet are already bigger than mine (though we can still trade shoes in an emergency). And I went ahead with my valiant weight-loss plan, did two Jillian Michaels workouts in two consecutive days, and completely wrecked myself. I took Thursday off from programmed exercise, and by the end of the day I was able to go both up and down the stairs without screaming involuntarily. I’m calling that a victory and will strive to make progress from there.

Back to knitting news! Due to an unexpectedly favorable alignment of circumstances, I will be able to attend Late Night Knitting tonight for the first time in more than a year. It takes me an hour to drive there (and there might be freezing rain in the early evening), but I can stay until they kick me out at 11pm. Then (sigh) I have to drive homeward for another hour (and there might be snow in the late evening). On Saturday there is a rummage sale/bake sale at my kids’ school (for which I will be baking) from 8 until noon, so I’ll need to be there at least at the beginning of that. Then I think there’s a Pokémon tournament somewhere that needs to be Hung Out At with Eldest Son. Then there will be a Batman movie to watch, Doctor Who to view, and some test knitting for Phase Two of the Ginormous Secret Project. Then…. ah, how I like being busy.

Week Ten: Zeno’s shawl

Last week I said that I would probably finish Wingspan before I finished all the parts for my Double Top Secret Massive “Get me the Guinness Book of World Records on the phone, stat!” Ginormous Knitting Project.

Well, things change. Creation is a… dynamic process, shall we say. And for once it’s not because I stalled out on the large project; it’s because I’ve lengthened the small project. When I got to the halfway point on Wingspan, I weighed the remainder of the yarn and found that exactly half of the original skein was left. I was delighted. Everything was going exactly to plan. Well, it was going to plan until I realized that having only half of the yarn left at the halfway point was a Very Bad Thing, as there was more to knit than just the other half of the shawl. To “analogize” for a moment, it’s as if I were building a tool shed and used half of my building materials to construct and attach two walls to each other. Hooray, with the rest of the materials I can finish my shed…. if I don’t need a roof. For Wingspan, you knit these eight wedges, then you knit several rows across the neckline. Then you bind off, which always takes more yarn than just knitting straight across.

Oops.

I didn’t want to stop after seven wedges, as it seemed a little too small to look like a shawl. So. I looked on Ravelry and found there were exactly three other people in the world who had one skein of the same yarn in the same colorway and were willing to sell or trade it. (The dyelots don’t match, but nobody’s perfect.) So. I am currently in negotiations for the procurement of one said skein, which I shall use to knit an extra seven (not eight!) wedges onto the first eight, which should give me plenty of yarn for the neckline and the binding-off. So. I don’t know when said yarn will arrive. When I run out of yarn I will have to set Wingspan aside until the second skein shows up.

The small project gets both larger and slower; its finish line is pushed back indefinitely just as it comes into sight.

But knitting is pretty cool. If you keep knitting, even if it is only a few stitches a day, if you’re bullheaded persistent your project will reach a finish line. It might not be the finish line you originally had in your sights, but a finish is a finish. And some knitters find their finish line by planning something really big and stopping early. Take that, Zeno!

Meanwhile, The Big One glides toward completion as if it were a fresh hockey puck in the wake of a Zamboni. Ten parts to go. I’ll have time to contact the Guinness Book people before Spring Break.

Below the surface, other ideas and plans are emerging and being evaluated. Every day brings some new thoughts to mind. I’m investigating, researching, and contemplating. Who knows what can happen in a year?

Week Nine: The Ninety-Three Percent

As of today I’ve hit an important milestone on a knitting project I’ve been working on for a few years now. For various reasons I am not ready to reveal its nature in this space (but those of you who know me from “another space” will be able to figure it out pretty quickly), but I can say that I now have just 15 units left to knit before I assemble the whole thing. That puts the project at 93 percent complete, though in truth after I have those other 15 parts knitted I will call it no more than 99 percent until every last end is woven in. And because even the pre-assembly work is going to take some time, I can’t even give you an estimate as to when this project will be completed, photographed, and fully shared. Just know that I am very happy that my daily work, which I’ve been referring to as “quota knitting,” is getting me steadily closer to a huge creative goal.

But trust me. When I do the reveal, you won’t miss it! (You may question my sanity, but you won’t miss it.)

Most of you, when you see it, will want to ask me one question. The answer to that question will be “yes.”

I’ve also been chugging away on the Wingspan shawl and really should take another picture now that I’ve finished 5 of the 8 wedges that make it up. I don’t know if it’s the merino sock yarn, or the Addi Turbo needles, or a combination of factors, but I find it delightful to knit on it and shall be sad when I’ve finished it. But finishing it will allow me to take care of some other projects that also need my attention. Such as socks made from sock yarn. (What a concept!)

This week has been busy with healing myself body and soul, shoveling show out of the way, and driving kids to, fro, and back again as they all took turns being under the weather in various ways (dental work, low-grade fevers, sniffles & sneezes, and good old-fashioned hooky-playing). One of the best things I did was go back to campus Thursday morning and reapply myself to my calculus book. I’m having to start almost from scratch with the math, but today I got to a place where I am doing well and seem to have a deeper understanding of the type of problems I’m solving. We’ll see. Between the weather and everyone’s health it’s been tough to get down there. Now that we’re healthier I am renewing my commitment to finishing the course. My math-related plans after that point are still nebulous, but slowly forming.

My progress on my other resolutions has been somewhat hampered by the knitting done on these two garter-stitch projects, but there is a small project I had intended to cast on for on Valentine’s Day that calls for a new type of cast-on. So as soon as one of these projects is complete (most likely Wingspan), I will try it out and perhaps be able to check off one more completed resolution.

And finally… it’s finally MARCH! My already-teenage son will turn 14, my sister will be performing at SXSW in Austin (on his birthday!), we will have Spring Break, and DOCTOR WHO will be back on television!

Week Eight: Spiking

This will be a short post just to make the quota. I have been under the weather and so have some of the kidlets this week, so I’ve been trying to keep up with keeping up. I told myself that during Lent I would knit one square per day on a huge project I’ve been working on for a couple of years, and as of today I’m one square ahead of pace, having knitted the only square that needs additional stitching. If I can finish it tomorrow (which will require learning a new sewing technique) I will have 21 plain squares left to knit and can then think about how to seam up the whole thing. Thinking that far ahead right now just adds to my fatigue (and I’m already perplexed as to why lying on the couch all day napping, knitting, and watching TV has worn me out).

I’ve been enjoying knitting on Wingspan again after fixing a dropped stitch, but I have tried to do my “quota knitting” first… so poor Wingspan is waiting for me to pick it up again. I’m on the fourth wedge of probably eight. I don’t have any new photos but will probably take a progress shot when the fourth wedge is done.

I logged into WordPress last night to try to write a post, but nothing came to mind. When I looked at the little stats bar, I noticed a big spike in viewing. I investigated a little more, then realized that I’ve conditioned everyone to expect new posts on Thursdays. That’s when I aim to write them, too; however, this week I was too worn down for the inspiration to strike at the usual time. I’d like to thank those of you who showed up on your own, looking for my words. It reminded my of my late grandfather, who used to keep a vegetable garden. Next to the garden there was a post for a huge purple martin house that he built himself. Every fall after the birds migrated away, he’d take down the house, clean it out, and store it in the garage for the winter. Every spring he’d take it out, clean it up, and put it back on the post so it would be waiting for them when they returned. One year he didn’t get the house up in time, and the birds took turns waiting on the top of the post!

Woody’s martin house looked something like this.

By next week I might have a lot more to say or show. For now, though, I’d better rest.

Week Seven: Renewal

After much agonizing, I have decided to renew a library book which I detest. Two weeks ago, there I was at the library, minding my own business, having dropped by to pick up a series of graphic novel-style mathematics books for my 6-year-old son. On my way to check out the books, I happened to notice a new arrival — a book on Euclid and his amazing book, Elements. I thought it would make a good introduction to book and author before I sat down and tackled Elements for myself.

Wrong, wrong, couldn’t have been more wrong. I started hating this book on Page Three.

Don’t even point.

Wait — now that I look back at it, I realize that I started hating this book waaaaaay before Page Three. Because I hate that the quote from Blaise Pascal that appears before the preface is in untranslated French.

I also hate the preface, which gave me my first sense of the author’s writing style.

It got worse from there.

I soon decided that the only proper course of action for me was to write a scathing review of this book so that I could warn off any of its potential readers. Time is precious these days. If I could establish that this book is a waste of both time and space, we could all move happily on to the next item in the queue. However, I didn’t think it would be fair to be nasty about a freshly published book that I didn’t actually finish reading. (Think back to high school. Can you imagine your Literature teacher’s reaction if you had attempted to turn in a book report on a novel you didn’t finish?) So, I struggled forward, trying to keep my temper. It wasn’t my book, so I couldn’t throw it with great force. I did toss it aside often, though. Then I would think, “It’s not that long. I can really get through this” and pick it up again. Then I would yell “I HATE THIS BOOK!” and put it down again. So my progress in the reading of it was not that swift or consistent over the last two weeks.

Yesterday I got an e-mail from the library… the book is due this Friday. I had 48 hours left to read the book, and 96 hours’ worth of more pleasant and useful things to do within that 48 hours.

So I’m going to try to renew it tomorrow. Between chapters, or segments, or paragraphs perhaps, I shall be sharpening my pen and charging up my electrons. I have two more weeks…. unless someone else, perhaps the author’s mother, is on a waiting list for it.

Slop season. Not spring.

One might also look out one’s window here in Wisconsin and imagine that spring is coming and this is a time of renewal. Think again, bucko, it’s only mid-February. Just because you can see patches of grass amongst the snow, slush, and mud doesn’t mean the crocuses are coming any time soon, nor should they dare. And you should probably stay inside yourself if you know what’s good for you. Flu, whooping cough, and black ice are laying for you.

So. Until Spring is really here and there are better things to read that don’t have such a tight deadline and bizarre moral imperative, there is knitting to do. The dropped-stitch lace scarf is complete and has been entered on the Finished Projects page. I have cast on for a Wingspan scarf/shawl and gotten a couple of sections done. It has kind of an unusual construction, but the knitting itself is quite easy. So far, there are three of us in my local knitting group who are making them.

Wingspan in progress

(I don’t know why I can’t get the photo to show up. Sorry, just click the link.)

During the past week I have also gotten my oldest child signed up for his freshman year of high school. He is almost 14. He is almost as tall as I am (he checks this every morning). However, he is nowhere close to understanding just how ambitious his desired schedule actually is: Honors English, Eastern Cultures, Science 9, Geometry, P.E., German 1, and Intro to Engineering. I can’t wait until we get started on this in the fall and pour hormones into the mixture, add heat, and see what happens! He is a bright boy — he will just have to work harder at this than he realizes.

And now, a special announcement:

UNWIND 2013

I’m happy to announce that we are in the planning stages for the 6th “Unwind” social event, to be held Saturday, September 7, in conjunction with the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival in Jefferson, Wisconsin.

This event is NOT an official Sheep & Wool event, nor is it an official Ravelry event. It is a private party that you are invited to! The price of admission (which is cheaper, the earlier you register) covers dinner, a goody bag, a chance at a door prize, and the chance to hang out with some seriously fun knitters, crocheters, spinners, and others! And yes, you can and totally should bring your needles, hooks, wheel, spindle, and what-have-you. All the cool people are doing it.

On your registration form you can also choose to purchase a T-shirt. When you arrive at the Festival on Friday or Saturday and check in at our table in the main building, which should be just in front of the fence around the Silent Auction items, you will pick up your goody bag and T-shirt.

We have a cap of 150 attendees, so if you want to come, please sign up early. We can take walk-ins at check-in time at the Festival grounds, but NOT at the event itself.

Updates, discussions, and Q&A should take place in the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival group on Ravelry.

If you would like to help sponsor the event or donate a door prize, please email me or PM me on Ravelry.

I hope to see you there — I’ll be the one wearing the Doctor Who Scarf!

Spam of the week!

This spam post (thank you, Akismet, for throwing these right into the spam bucket as soon as they’re received) was too… entertaining not to share with you. It’s almost like a very, very, very long haiku.

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Week Six: Degrees of separation

I’m enjoying a more contemplative day today as the snow gently falls on the pines and the pastures. Having ignored the urgings of the weather service to heed instructions for French Toast Alert Level Orange, I’ve done my driving for the day without adding to my stores of milk, bread, or eggs. Quiet music plays from the TV’s music channel. Knitting is being accomplished; reading, contemplated.

Not taken from my house, but it might as well be.

As I was driving back from “town” this morning I was thinking about how people keep saying that the internet has allowed people to opt out of personal interactions, that we are not learning how to effectively interact with people face to face. I wonder about that. If you know me, you probably know I spend a lot of time on Facebook. I check in several times a day, sometimes for hours at a time. I post, comment, share, like, friend, and play a popular game using letter tiles.

Through Facebook I have been able to connect with interesting people, stay in touch with relatives, and reconnect with more distant souls. My Facebook friends range from my first friend (born two days before me to the family two houses down the street) to people on the other side of the planet, sometimes cyberfriends of cyberfriends. I can peek over the shoulders of my twin third-cousins as they work their way through medical school. I can look at the first photos of the first grandchild born to someone in my high school graduating class. I can witness the silly exchanges between two best friends, or between partners. I can see a list of the songs my sister-in-law is listening to on Internet radio, and with a click of the mouse I can hear them, too. These are the kinds of events I wouldn’t ordinarily witness. They are a view into ordinary life that a class reunion, a family reunion, or even a phone call or a letter doesn’t have a way to truly include.

Through Facebook I’ve been allowed to participate in more joy, anxiety, humor, pain, happiness, and sorrow than I thought my heart would have room for. Babies are born and celebrated, and babies die and are grieved. Kids say the darnedest things. Students study, party, win, lose, and goof around. Pets get sick. Friends make plans, issue invitations, meet up, and share the photos afterwards. Grandparents fall down. People have surgery. Prayers, positive thoughts, and (((hugs))) fly back and forth like electromagnetic waves. Funny jokes and silly pictures are circulated. People are poked. A classmate waits in vigil for her comatose sister to open her eyes and rejoin the world, and her classmates wait invisibly with her.

This is more connection, not less. These are the kinds of shared events that used to only happen within a family. Because of Facebook, our families have grown if we have allowed them to. And not only have I discovered things about my friends and my family — I’ve discovered more about myself. I could compare my accomplishments with those of others and be depressed, yes; I can also encounter unsolicited viewpoints that make me stop, think, reconsider, reaffirm, adapt, change, and grow.

I’m not indulging in these musings just to distract you from the paucity of my knitterly and academic accomplishments in the last week. While the variable weather and the resultant slick (and sometimes invisible) roadways have kept me from getting to campus to work on my math, I am 29 rows (1,218 stitches) away from finishing the dropped-stitch scarf. I have a shawl project all set to go that a real-life, in-person kind of friend is making at the same time. I’ve also initiated a Valentine’s Day cyberspace knit-along event involving a whole batch of friends I’ve never met in person. And I’m making bits of progress on my longer-term knitting projects as well.

This was not a stated goal, but I’ve gotten all caught up with both “Downton Abbey” and “Castle,” and I’m starting on “Top Chef.” Ten more episodes to go on that one. If I have a marathon I might be able to finish in time for the live finale, but I’m not sure. I also have a stack of interesting books I’m trying to make time for. I miss reading.

Week Five: Quantum of Progress

This week I’ve stayed busy, but until a few minutes ago I didn’t think I was getting anything done. Then I looked at what I did today:

• Went to knitting and drank one chai latte. (This list gets more impressive, I swear.)
• Turned the heel on one sock.
• Finished one blanket square.
• Knitted one repeat on a scarf.
• Gave away one of my typewriters.
• Worked on calculus homework for about an hour.
• Read one more chapter of Plato’s Republic.
• Left some cookies on campus for friends.
• Filled up the gas tank.
• Thrift-bought the shirts for tomorrow’s Spirit Day.
• Went to the bus service to look for our lost mittens.

The list really does go on and on. And if you look at the whole week, you’ll see more of the same. Had a new washing machine installed. Had the old washing machine hauled away. Baked a batch of cupcakes. Mixed a batch of frosting. Caught up on “Castle.” Applied for one job. Made a pot of chicken soup. Swapped out the rear axle on my bike. Little things that didn’t take much time to do, when considered in isolation.

In my fantasies, it would be really nice to spend the day doing one thing all day long. Like, read a whole book, reorganize the whole upstairs, give away all the clothes that need to be donated, sew up a complete quilt, write a whole short story, watch a complete trilogy. But I don’t get that kind of time, and I suspect my brain doesn’t work that way. Besides, when I do try to spend a day that way — if I don’t almost immediately get a call from somewhere, saying someone has been hurt, and I must come and get them Right Away — I can no longer see the tree I’ve gotten done through the forest of neglected tasks.

My task is to keep spinning the plates. Not even all of the plates — spinning most of them is fine as long as they are the right plates. Some of the plates deserve to crash or be replaced with new ones. And I need to forgive myself and move on when I think I’ve broken the wrong plate, or am not spinning enough of them.

• Wrote one blog post.

Week Four: The sum of the parts

If a pile of unrelated halves could add up to a shorter pile of related wholes, I’d have more progress to report — at least, progress in the Finis! Mission Accomplished! Level Complete! sort of way. But, to paraphrase Buzz Lightyear, “That isn’t my way, is it?”

Well then, let’s see what we do have.

I finished one slipper (half of a pair) and a washcloth.

(no new picture since last week. feel free to use your imagination.)

Here is half of a sock that I cast on for while watching my alma mater play hockey against the team whose TV coverage I can actually receive in my home.

Half a sock is better than…. no, it’s still just half a sock.

Wait…. here’s half of a pair of socks! That’s better, right?

The sock for which I had sufficient yarn.

To tell the truth, I actually showed up at Thursday morning knitting group with this sock just to prove that I had actually knit a sock. We’re a little funny about socks, my group is. If you don’t make socks at all, we’re fine with that. It’s a lifestyle choice we can both understand and respect. If you tried making socks and you suck at making socks, we’re fine with that. Oh, we will tease you about it, but really, we’re fine with that, too. But if you can make socks and nobody ever sees you making socks, well… we seem to have a problem with that. The gang actually chipped in the summer before last and made a birthday present for me out of sock needles, sock yarn, and a sock pattern because I “never make socks.”

This sock had an interesting origin. I discovered somehow that Wisconsin would be playing Miami University last weekend. Now, if you know much about Sports of Any Kind, you should know right away that this is an Unusual Occurrence, as Miami is usually in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) and Wisconsin is in the Big Ten/11/12/13 Conference. However, when it comes to HOCKEY, it’s a little bit different. You play the nearest hockey teams. Sometimes, and more often than you might think necessary, you play teams in Alaska. Now, Miami has recently had a most excellent hockey team and Wisconsin, so far as I knew, wasn’t on the college-hockey-playing map. This year has been an exception; Miami has struggled, while Wisconsin built up an impressive winning streak. Even Miami’s “hockey blog” group predicted that, at best, Miami would win one and lose one over the weekend.

That’s exactly what happened. Wisconsin won the Friday night game as I cast on for this Miami-colored [and coincidentally Wisconsin-colored] sockette made from stash yarn. And Miami broke Wisconsin’s streak by winning the second game on Saturday night, when I was just past the gusset stitches. They were exciting games to watch — although the kidlets still don’t quite understand why I wasn’t rooting for Wisconsin — and I got one sock out of it. Sadly, after weighing the leftover yarn, I’ve concluded that I probably won’t have enough red yarn to make a mate for it. I’ve had plenty of suggestions that I simply reverse the colors in the second sock…. but that isn’t my way, is it?

No, it isn’t.

So I just sent a message to the only person on Ravelry who has a skein of this yarn that they’re willing to sell or trade. Come icing or high-sticking, my little hockey sock will have a mate that well and truly matches.

I haven’t knitted a stitch of the drop-stitch lace scarf, and though I did cast on and knit a couple of rows on the next Gigi slipper, it wasn’t even enough to take a picture of, so that’s all the progress that’s worth reporting on the knitting front.

But on the resolution front? Any news there?

This post takes care of Resolution #1 for the time being. And I made some progress on Resolution #3 by getting my butt down to campus this week and setting myself up for success in calculus. Yesterday I even studied and took extensive notes. I had forgotten quite a bit since I had to suspend my studies, but I finally did find the place in the textbook before which I need not go, and I will re-educate myself from there. I’ll make copies of my notes and start taking on homework problems starting tomorrow. The sooner I get it done, the sooner I’ll be ready for the Most Excellent Job in technical editing.

P.S. I’ve started watching Season 3 of Downton Abbey and should be all caught up by Sunday night. Just so you know.