Irresolute

She says what I’ve thought for many years; I am just not into New Years’ resolutions. Or some of the traditions I learned about when I moved to Texas thirty years ago. Particularly the one about eating black-eyed peas on New Years Day for good luck. I have eaten bad black-eyed peas and good black-eyed peas, and to my palate there isn’t much difference between them. [I will concede that they sustain life.]

But I was in the mood for some nice beans yesterday. And that means garbanzos or black beans.

I opened and rinsed a can of frijoles negritos, threw in the leftover canned carrots from my dinner on New Years Eve, added a box of the buttery sweet corn soup I like so well, tossed in a bit of minced bottled garlic and some dried onion bits, and decided it was still a thinner soup than I wanted. So I stirred in half a cup of long-grain rice from my pantry that needed using up. Texmati’s subtlety would have been lost in this concoction. Wild rice might have been perfect or a bit too much, but at any rate I was out of that, so oh well.

I almost ruined it, sitting here rhapsodizing about the ingredients before I went back in to stir the pot. But all was not lost, as you can see. Though a quarter-cup of rice or maybe a third of a cup might have been better in terms of consistency. Not a big fan of sopa seca, which this nearly became.



I spent a good part of the afternoon writing out and then graphing my own pattern for Mean Green Jellybeans. Mirrored irregular cables and a bit of lace, all wrapped up tidily in a twelve-row repeat. No pictures yet; you’ll just have to come see them at Knit Night. Plus, I want to get my friends’ opinions as to whether these might be worthy candidates for a PDF and my first foray into design-for-profit.

We may be getting bold in our old age. My dad’s mom used to say to him when he was young, “Be bold, son, be bold. But don’t be stupid.” Ninety years later, it’s still good advice.



Here is some knitting that I *can* show you. Behold January Sockdown’s Mystery Sock. Frugal wench that I am, I will be using the peacock iridescent beads which graced MS3 and the Mrs Beetons I made for Firstborn. And I am using the Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine that I brought home from the Christmas sock yarn exchange. It has been sitting atop my printer, whining softly for me to come and play; I usually like Berroco yarns and am hoping devoutly that the 30% nylon will not be as crazy-making to my hands on this project as it was in BittyBit’s scarf.

Fourthborn cannot touch wool without breaking out. She is a silk girl, all the way. And when my hands touch most man-made fibers, they start screaming “Unclean! Unclean!” In the skein, this yarn just felt soft and sproingy. So far, which of course is not far at all, I have heard no leprous outcries from my epidermis. Just happy humming. And this is such a pretty color.

I think I will knit these socks from both ends of the ball. When I finish this part, I will slip it onto my 000’s and knit the second sock to this point. The first clue is eight rounds of ribbing, which I did yesterday, and 17 rounds of pattern. Beads notwithstanding, I should easily get that done today. And then tomorrow I can work the second sock. I will just need to put a marker of some sort on the sock which is parked on the smaller needles. [Or I could trot over to Yarns Ewenique tomorrow and acquire a second 00 Addi Lace needle. But that would be logical, and I think I would rather spend that money at Central Market.]

Time to load up my bag and put it by the door. I am hoping that most folks have taken a day off and that traffic will be light. I’m driving in again today and will miss out on two-plus hours of prime knitting time. But I won’t be spending a lot of time at switchboard, so I might be able to finish the Herculean task of sorting the contents of the last of those 44 boxes the records service sent us when we told them we didn’t want to play in their sandbox anymore. When I left on Wednesday, we [the admin team and I] had a little over a dozen boxes left.

Job security. Which pays for knitting needles, field trips to Central Market, and the occasional bushel of sock yarn.