I like her socks better than mine!

Knit Night, as ever, was terrific. What a great bunch of ladies! It’s like being at church, without the singing. I think that if everyone had Knit Night, or something like unto it, there would be a whole lot less contention in this world. [Unless your neighbor had bought up all the Koigu; isn’t that how wars get started?] But think about it: if we sat all the leaders of the free and unfree world down in a room with the Harlot and Wendy and Cookie A and Cat and Annie, and we gave them sticks and string and got them hooked on cables and bobbles and lace, and they made leper bandages and prayer shawls, and the only assassinating allowed was in Sock Wars? As Louis Armstrong sang, what a wonderful world.

Speaking of wonderful things, what a nice picture of Tola and Mike on the Harlot’s blog yesterday. I did a shout-out in the comments. Tola answered back [IM via blogpost, LOL] and waved to Tan. And I was “inspired” to write the following. It’s funnier if you know the tune for “Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree”.

I looked on The Harlot’s blog, and what did I see?
Mike and Tola in Annapolis – squee!!!
Book tour brought me such a nice surprise:
Mike and Tola, right before my eyes.

Harlot took a picture, and they’re so sweet.
He’s real tall, and she’s petite.
I didn’t get to go, but I was glad to see
E-friends grinning, close to WashDC.

(And it was fun to read through the comments and see SuburbanCorrespondent's name. [P.S., Secondborn loves your blog.])

OK, so if life is wonderful, why the title for today’s post? Because Micki is working on her second Anastasia, and I definitely like her sock better than mine. [All of her recent pictures are spinning, not knitting; it was her Lendrum that I played with two weeks ago.] She did an Eye of the Partridge heel flap, and that sock is pure poetry. So I will be trying the same for my second sock, and I think I will be much happier with it.

I am not happy with this.



I wore my Monkeys yesterday. When I took them off at the end of the day, there was a big old hole in one of them. I thought I’d inspected them pretty thoroughly for bite marks [moth damage; I do not have a new weird habit that you need to worry about], but apparently I missed something. So they will be washed very carefully and then frogged and the yarn recycled into footies or mitts or a scarf or something. I am way too frugal to throw out a pair of $20+ socks, and Jitterbug is too skimpy in terms of yardage to just frog and re-knit, and I just love the yarn. So it will join my green and plum Lola in the frogpond.

Insert expletive of choice, here.

For those of you who have been worrying about my mental health [you know who you are], this week has gotten progressively better. It helps that I like my job and love my co-workers. Having face time with the Bitties and their parents on Sunday also helped, as did going to LittleBit’s concert on Monday night and hearing all that glorious music. And Knit Night. And getting an email from an old friend who is unhappily married and just taking it one day at a time; that really put my singleness back into perspective.

I also learned long ago that service prevents depression. [I don’t mind being sad occasionally; I refuse to be depressed, ever again.] So I wrote a congratulatory email to someone I don’t like, whose hard work bore fruit. And I did LittleBit’s taxes. Twice. Once with TurboTax, where we discovered that I hadn’t paid attention to which program I was using, and it would cost $49.95 to get her $11.05 refund! And again using paper forms. I also used the interactive voice response program at work to allocate my upcoming raise into four buckets: my 401K, my Christmas Club account, paying down my line of credit, and the rest of it to improve what I laughingly call my standard of living.

[Almost] Cozy is perking along nicely. I added a third ball of yarn at Knit Night last night. A knitting project that doesn’t argue with me, is great cause for rejoicing! I need to go update my progress report on Ravelry.

I paid $3.23 a gallon for gas last night. I am considering getting that train pass a month earlier than planned.

Tonight I’m going visiting teaching, and then I just want to curl up on the couch and knit. I think I will check out that furniture shop again on the drive home tomorrow. Or maybe during lunch on Friday, since my best-friend-at-work will be off.