“Small” Blessings

Recognizing that there is no such thing as a small blessing or small miracle, only an inability to properly recognize its fullness.

This is my week to go get the early mail. On Monday, when I was coming back up the elevator, I had a chat with a genial man about my knitting. [Yes, I take my knitting with me to the post office. Sometimes I wait two minutes for our mail; some days it’s closer to half an hour. I could stand there and fume and fidget, or I can add a few stitches or a few rows to the project du jour.]

Says he, “I can see how that would be very comforting and relaxing. You must be a really happy camper.”

Well, I try to be. I get a little testy when I get the 45th fax-to-the-land-line of the day. I have been known to talk back to the incoming fax machine, “Do I look like a fax machine?” Apparently somebody else’s vision is worse than my own, if they think that I do.

When I was getting out of the car after picking up the mail yesterday morning, I realized that I was no longer wearing my electronic badges for the building and for our suite. [“Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges.” Well, actually, we do.] I hoped that I had not lost it somewhere between the car and the post office, or the post office and the car. Not a good thing. When I got back to my desk, my backup had clipped it to a box where I would see it almost immediately. Apparently it had fallen onto the counter when I was picking up my planner, the car keys, the parking meter key, and my knitting.

I am so thankful that I did not have to email the office manager and ask for two new electronic keys. I have worked for the company for nine and a half years and this office for seven, and the only reason I have needed new keys is because the old ones were replaced when the key system changed and when my suite key was scheduled to expire. I have really tried to be a grownup about this. And since I am the gatekeeper at work, it was especially frustrating and embarrassing to find myself sans keys.

Whew!

The two attorneys who share their magazines with me brought me another bountiful harvest. I have two issues of “O”, one “In Style”, one “This Old House”, and an issue of “Texas Highways”. I foresee much happy reading while shawls and scarves block, and while I rest my weary hands from the typing test that I took. [And which, Heaven be praised, I will not need to take again.] Apparently in my office manager’s world, a net score of 65wpm is good. I remember when I typed 100wpm and better. But I am 30 years older, and my hands are not as supple as when I was a sprout. Thank goodness for knitting and blogging, both of which keep my hands moving on a daily basis.

I prayed to do the best I was capable of, and so I’m not really cranky with myself, just wistful and determined to improve, if I can. I did a little practice typing right before lunch, to warm up. The editorial from “Texas Highways”, and a couple of essays. I’m sure that helped.

Office manager’s last words to me as she went out the door, after telling me where she’d be for the next week and a half, were, “And I’m very impressed with your typing.”

I told her, “I’m not. I’m going to work on it.” Pause. “But thank you.” I’m usually way better at accepting compliments than that. She rolled her eyes and said, “whatever” and gave me a semi-exasperated grin.

OK, I know that some of you are here hoping for some knitting. Secondborn’s scarf is soaking as I type [at nowhere near 65wpm; it’s dark-thirty, and my hands are still waking up]. I’ll pin it out before leaving for work. My friend Rebecca has loaned me her blocking wires again, so in a few days I should have beauty shots of Adamas, Juno Regina, and this scarf. And then I can mark them as FO’s on Ravelry and scoot them out of the way.

When a project is done except for blocking, I keep it listed as “in progress” while marking it 100%. Since I tend to finish several ~ or many ~ objects before blocking them, that keeps the projects at the head of my Ravelry list where they are easier to find. I might forget to update them with shots of the blocked object if I let them mingle freely on the list.

It’s not elegant, but it works for me.

Not much actual knitting progress yesterday, since I drove into work for Knit Night, and since I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off, after work, before picking up Middlest. Half-price burger at Sonic on the drive home. Multiple phone conversations with Fourthborn, who was walking home from her job. Intercepting them halfway between their work and their new home, taking them home, getting my empty storage bin that had held Renaissance costumes, giving her her birthday present three days early, picking up Middlest’s dolls, stopping at LittleBit’s restaurant to give her a quick hug and an “I love you”, driving to the south end of town to pick up Middlest.

No wonder I was only up for about an hour of knitting and visiting last night! I am looking forward to this morning’s train ride into work and tonight’s ride home, preferably on the same train as Trainman and Ms. SMU. And lots and lots of happy, cooperative knitting.