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Ten years into widowhood, after one year of incredible happiness and nearly 14 years of single blessedness. Retired, and mostly enjoying it. Still knitting. [Zen]tangling.again after a brief hiatus.

Monday, September 21, 2009

First, the brownie.

Then the salad. Then the baked [nuked, if you want to get technical] potato. Then the last two slices of bread with the last dabs of raspberry jam from the jar, for dessert. Washed down with the orange juice I didn’t finish at breakfast and a cup of milk. Two fingers inadvertently baptized in my cup while I reached behind myself without looking.

Firstborn shared a new-to-me website: My Life Is Average. I didn’t get much internet time on Saturday, and I completely forgot to check my Bloglines. So there were 200 entries waiting for me at MLIA, alone. Here are my two favorites.

I frogged the baby socks before church. Two reasons: (1) in daylight the contrast yarn for the heels was nowhere near as good a match as it had seemed at dark-thirty the other night; (2) the yarn tones nicely with those two silk ties which I took apart to make a skirt for Cuprit and/or Jessica. I think I will be able to get a cropped vest from it if I go with a deep V or scoop neckline. If I can’t eke out something for the big dolls, I will make a vest for Beyla and set it aside until she arrives next year.

I have been misspelling Nicolai’s name. Je suis désolée.

I rummaged about in my sock yarn stash and came up with the leftovers from my Stripedy Stockings. [Brings to mind the line from the old Irish Spring ads on TV: “Manly, yes. But I like it, too!”] I fired up the needles, put in a movie, and in an hour or so had an inadvertent nap on the couch and an inch of cuff to show for my time. Not feeling the love for this sock in this yarn. Back to the stash I went. I was in the mood for something brilliantly colored but not so bright as to deserve the sobriquet clown barf. And after knitting Cuprit’s teal sweater, I wanted a meatier yarn.

I finally, finally, gravitated to the remnant ball of turquoise and yellow yarn that Micki dyed, which became a pair of socks for LittleBit. It’s a plump fingering yarn and will make a larger sock so the baby can wear it longer. I think I will have enough to do this; I weighed it before starting and got 33.2g. If the first sock weighs more than 16.6g, I am in trouble. But I have finished the first cuff, and I only used 6g, so I think this will be one of those projects where I wind up with half a yard leftover when I put my needles down.

I am much happier with this third sockly incarnation. The yarn is properly sproingy, there is no noticeable striping or pooling, I like the colors individually and collectively, and the yarn seems happy at the prospect of hanging out on my grandson’s tootsies. I may very well finish the first sock before I need to leave for the dentist’s office this morning.

I am taking the whole day off, which means that I will probably be just fine and have a lovely, productive day at home, with no residual pain. [And if not, I can always nap.] Today, amongst all the knitting, I will get my ducks in a row for next Saturday.

Every September, there is a Relief Society broadcast from Salt Lake City. The first one was two months after Firstborn’s arrival, and I remember walking from our basement apartment to the Marriott Center, carrying her in my arms. Thirty-one years later, the broadcast has become a major cultural event, and with the revisions to what we used to call our homemaking meeting several years back and now call HFPE [Home, Family, and Personal Enrichment], the stakes have one or more service projects before dinner, and then the broadcast itself.

We are making lunches for the night shelter, doing something for the children’s hospital, and a third something which entirely eludes me. The only reason that I remember what we are doing for the night shelter, is that I am in charge of getting the supplies to make and wrap 400 sandwiches. 200 PBJ and 200 meat with mustard [because mustard doesn’t spoil, and mayo does].

This is why I spent all day yesterday with my phone off. I was pretty much “peopled out” after fetching the chicken, etc., for Saturday’s singles dinner. I have already deleted all emails pertaining to that activity. And now I need to dig through my inbox and read the ones I’ve been ignoring, pertaining to next Saturday’s activity.

I am reasonably good at slaying dragons; I just prefer to take them on one at a time. Ordinarily we would not have two major undertakings on successive weekends, but our stake hosted the Young Single Adult conference for something like 14 stakes. I hope the guests had as much fun as we worker bees did. I genuinely enjoyed my time serving in the kitchen and schlepping the food.

I wonder where my sword and buckler and flameproof gauntlets have gotten to?

1 comment:

Jenni said...

Good to know that all of us were good practice for the rest of your life "organizing and feeding the masses".