In the Middle of the Night

My mom had an uncommon amount of common sense. When I was a young, hormonal girl in the throes of unrequitedness, she would smile gently and remind me, “Lynn, boys are like streetcars. There’ll be another one in 15 minutes.” And she was right. When I was young.

Now that I am squarely in the middle of my life, I have learned that not only are the pickings decidedly slimmer [even if the men and I are not], but there are downsides to public transportation as well. For example, if you need to go home in the middle of the day and there is no bus waiting at the usual stop to take you to the station, so you walk four blocks to the station and arrive in time to see the train pulling out? You will have to sit on a metal bench for an hour and a half and smile sweetly at panhandlers and tell them that you have no money to give them, because you are a single mom and have no money, just blessings.

[This, I know, is what our British cousins would call a prevarication. I have no money because I just paid my tithing and my bills, and I bought a spinning wheel. I told them the truth. I just didn’t tell them all the truth. I learned this from my children.]

There was another middle-aged woman waiting for the train. We were Safety Kids and sat together. And the transit cops were much in evidence, so we weren’t really bothered by the transients. And I had my knitting. So it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it could have been. Even when the platform was invaded by a horde of middle-schoolers heading back from a field trip, who had enough collective energy to power a small village [who am I kidding; they were a small village].

Even though I was not in the best of moods, and their noise level matched their energy level, I could tell that they were good kids. One of them gave up his seat and squished in with two skinny friends so that another woman my age could sit down. They were not profane or abusive; they were just loud. And as we rolled past Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, I was impressed how great it was that these kids were outside, living their lives, not inside the hospital, fighting for them.

I hit the drive-through at Panda Express and picked up an order of orange chicken *and* spring rolls with mustard. I left the office a little after 1:00; I was sitting here at my computer about 4:00 and went to bed around 5:00, full of fiery food rather than the chagrin which had occupied the last several hours.

I woke up a little before midnight, just as LittleBit was getting home, so we had evening prayers together for the first time in weeks, maybe months. And then she went to bed, and I am apparently up for the duration.

The guys among you are probably scratching your heads and wondering why I had to come home in the middle of the day, when I was not throwing up. [Yay! for not throwing up!] The ladies among you will have figured out that I had a Female Emergency yesterday, something that is prone to happen at the beginning of the reproductive cycle when we are getting used to having hormones, and unfortunately also at the end of it when we thought we were safely past it.

I do not know if there is a male equivalent of the helplessness that you feel as you overflow your protection, or the embarrassment which accompanies the knowledge that anyone standing behind you can tell what time of the month it is. Thankfully, I learned decades ago that it’s almost impossible to die of embarrassment. And mercifully, it was a coolish day yesterday so I had a long jacket with me. Still, I think I was never so glad to be sitting in my own car as I was last night.

I am about ready to hit the fridge and bring out the rice I was unable to finish last night. She tossed in a side of sweet and sour sauce, and I have some leftover pineapple as well, so I think I am in for a treat. Not sure what I will do for the next four hours until my alarm goes off. Maybe finish binding off Serpentine [medium] and cast on the next one and then a little spinning?

I think we could use a little music. And I seem to be on a kick. But you can’t argue with the classics.

Firstborn sent me this yesterday. Her boss sends out inspirational thoughts to their office.

Good morning.
Patience
A man must learn to endure patiently what he cannot avoid conveniently. [Michel de Montaigne]

So, apparently, must a woman. Even when she is her own personal Red Sea, and drowning like Pharaoh.

56-Year-Old Women Should Not...

1. Be having visits from the Red Fairy.
2. Eat refried beans while enduring a visit from the Red Fairy.
3. Need Midol, and be without it on the Sabbath.
4. Have flushed the anti-inflammatory prescription last week, just because they hadn’t taken it in two months.
5. Have food cravings; see #1.
6. Miss church because they had chills and fever; maybe it wasn’t those beans after all?
7. Throw up on Mother’s Day. So hard they get a nosebleed.
6. Kill spiders by throwing up on them; so I didn’t, but that deserves its own paragraph, below.

I called my friend Leslye to let her know that neither of us would be at church. LittleBit had a command performance at her restaurant; all those Sabbath-breakers taking Mom out for her once-a-year lunch. And I? I was otherwise occupied. I asked Leslye to snag some chocolate for me, if that was what they were handing out, because I wasn’t always going to be throwing up.

I really hope they didn’t give me another mouth to feed geranium to keep track of.

I woke up a little past 2:00, about five or ten minutes before Middlest called me from Virginia. I asked her what time it was. [Our block of meetings run from 11:00 - 2:00.] I suspect that the real reason I was sick is because the Adversary did not want me at church, and not simply because Mother’s Day is my least-favorite holiday. Witness: I’ve never gotten sick on Father’s Day, and I’m not all that crazy about it, either.

After I was done chatting with Middlest, I left a message on Leslye’s cell phone. “Please tell me there is not a tall, good-looking man wandering around the chapel with a ring box in his hand, looking for me!” Hey, if he really is Brother Right, then he’ll be there when I’m there, and not when I’m not. Right? It’s all about the timing.

My friend Tinks sent me this Mother’s Day card. [OK, that link takes you to a generic page. Click on Mother’s Day More and then on What Mom Hears. Unlike Mother’s Day per se, I like this card!

And on we go to the story about not-barfing-on-the-spider. I was sitting in the tub, minding my own business, hoping that the hot water would warm my cramping abdomen and get it to stop. And all of a sudden my mouth started watering, so I grabbed the little washtub that I use when LittleBit and I are having Gilmore Girls moments, soaking our feet side by side while we eat popcorn and watch old musicals. And I propped it between my knees and my chest, and I waited. And then I saw a tiny little spider, no bigger than the head of a quilting pin, scrambling frantically to get out of the washtub. And I thought, “Nobody, not even an eensy weensy spider, deserves death by vomit.” So I dipped a corner of the washtub into the water and drowned him in tub water. It seemed the kinder thing to do.

OK, how lucid are you when you know you’re about to hurl?

I cautiously sipped some apple juice around 4:00pm. It stayed down. I followed that an hour later with a bowl of ramen noodles. They stayed down. Bowl of applesauce at 6:00pm? It stayed down, too. Houston, our stomach has landed! I spent the late afternoon updating my queue on Ravelry and the evening watching most of Waking Ned Devine while knitting away happily on the medium Serpentine Mitt. And catching up, gingerly, on a day’s worth of calories.

Got an email from one of the Good Brothers, offering empty boxes and a strong back, for my move. Got another one from Leslye, saying that she had my chocolate for safekeeping. Got about four hours of sleep when I went to bed very late last night, and while I would rather stay home and knit or spin!!! I think I am well enough to be a responsible corporate citizen and get on the train this morning.

It’s Monday. I’m vertical. That’s progress!

Baby Grand

I had no idea that this song even existed. Pretty amazing.

Stay me with enchiladas, comfort me with sour cream, for I am depleted by motherly concern. [With apologies to Solomon and his Song (2:5), which we never, ever discuss in Gospel Doctrine class; I’m guessing it falls neatly under the “as far as it is translated correctly” part of the Eighth Article of Faith.] I had a lovely long talk with one of my girls yesterday; I need to have one with another.

It is not the girls themselves who are wearying, nor the fact that they are each struggling with mighty challenges; it is, I think, what the Savior was talking about when the woman touched the hem of His robe in order to be healed, and He felt virtue flow through Him and out into her. I am an ordinary mortal, trying to live the commandments to the best of my understanding and abilities. Most of my contact with the Spirit comes in quick flashes and promptings, not in extended conversations where I open my mouth and He gives me the words to speak.

The flashes and promptings go onto my honey-do list; they take nothing out of me. But the moments when I know that I am speaking Truth, rather than just hoping that I am, those leave me spent.

Yesterday was a very good day; I got all four of the temporal items checked off my list [fed the elders, voted in the local election, picked up the filing cabinet and the spinning wheel], *and* my nails done. Dinner with Brother Sushi last night was everything I could have wished. Good food, and plenty of it. He unloaded my new filing cabinet out of the back seat of Lorelai.



We traded stories. And as he was letting me back into his pickup, I asked him to scratch a spot on my back that I cannot easily reach.

Back-scratching is a very intimate thing. I am nearly as picky about who gets to scratch my back [notwithstanding the layers and layers of clothing between the scratcher’s hand and my epidermis] as I am about who gets to touch my bare feet [which is basically nobody, thank you very much; I don’t do pedicures though I probably should]. LittleBit is the best back-scratcher in the immediate family. She knows just where the itches or tension are lurking, and she has the strength to push and dig until the itch or pain goes away.

LittleBit, unfortunately, was at work when the Itch Fairy attacked my left shoulder blade last night. Brother Sushi was an excellent substitute. I went into dinner tired, hungry, sleepy, and for lack of a better word, fraught. After I hugged him goodnight, I was replete and listened-to and non-itchy.

Look what I noticed sitting on top of an unused desk when I walked down the hall to kick off my shoes.



It’s been in this box since 1991. Just waiting for me.



A small and vibrant piece of myself that I needed to set aside for awhile. And now it’s time to pick it up again.

Have a blessed and peaceful Sabbath, everyone. I had hoped to attend sacrament meeting in my future ward, just to make contact with the bishop and the high priest group leader and the Relief Society president, and then come back here for my meetings, but I did not get out after dinner last night to tank Lorelai. I have enough gas to get to church and home, and to the gas station in the morning. So that will have to wait until next Sunday.

I Enjoy Being a Girl [Not!]

You would think that at age 56 I would be done with this nonsense. You would be wrong. I keep telling those ageing eggs “Honeys, nobody is lining up to sign your dance card.” They must be deaf, or just exceedingly hopeful. I noticed a little tenderness north of the equator when I was toweling off the other day and I thought, “Oh please, not that, I have too much to do right now.”

But apparently the universe disagrees. So hand over the Midol and the dark chocolate, and nobody gets hurt.

In knitting news, the first Serpentine [small] is finished and in my opinion resembles nothing so much as a pink saguaro cactus with a Fauxhawk.



And I have cast on the first Serpentine [medium], because it looks as though there will be plenty of yarn.



One of my attorneys sent out the following email on Friday afternoon, “I am heading over to the Dallas courthouse - does anyone need anything?”

I responded, “One (1) cop, single, straight, age appropriate, no substance abuse problems.” We will blame that on Flower Drum Song.

And in other news, we now have this.



[Yes, that is the Holy Family still hanging out on my end table.] The wheel is actually prettier in this picture than in real life. And yes, that is a platform bolted onto its T-shaped base. The bobbins are different from the ones I had, back in the day, but I’m sure they will do.

Thanks, Jeri! She emailed me earlier in the week to say that a spinner she knew had just put up an ad for this, for a ridiculously low price. I call it a blessing for paying my tithing. It’s not as pretty as my first S-10, which had a matte clear finish, but it has personality and character, and it treadles smoothly.

I resisted the temptation to buy any fiber, though this new shop in Lancaster has all sorts of yarny and fibery goodness. The owner believes in supporting Texas producers. She carries the lovely Brooks Farm Yarns, and roving from the woman who sold me this wheel, and all sorts of names that you would recognize. I like her, and I will be back. They have a community spin-in, out in front of the shop, on the second Saturday of every month. I won’t make it next month, because I’ll be directing the people with the strong backs, but maybe the month after that. It’s not a bad drive at all.

I was supposed to have dinner with Brother Sushi last night, but he had major overtime at work, so I expect his call ~

And there it is. Later, gators! He says he has all sorts of stories to share. As do I.

In Which Ms. Ravelled Impersonates an Evil Troll…

Click on this link. Look at the picture that accompanies the article, and then at the title of the article. Then look back at those flowers and tell me, does anything strike you funny about them?

I subscribe to that newsletter because I am a passionate [if non-practicing] believer in marriage. And I also have a non-prurient interest in what constitutes “healthy and normal” intimate relations, should the day arrive when I am able to be a practicing believer. My field research has left me, umm, a bit shell-shocked.

That subject wasn’t something that I wanted to discuss with my parents. Therefore, I didn’t know how to discuss it with either husband. [Well, I *did* have a brief discussion with First Hubby when we became friends again six years ago, but it was perfectly chaste and entirely philosophical.] And when I mentioned a concern to my gynecologist, thirty years ago, he gave me some specific advice that might have been useful if I hadn’t gotten embarrassed and started doing multiplication tables in my head to drown him out.

I now have a female gynecologist; I could probably ask her, if there were a need. Which, presently, there is not.

I think most of us want to know that who we are and what we want, in any aspect of our lives, is normal. And I think that that certainty is crucial in our intimate life, if we have one. To know that we are cherished by our beloved, and to able to stand confidently before our Maker because our relations with our beloved are apropos.

[Is it warm in here, or is it just me?] Time for a little comic relief.

1. Firstborn called me from work yesterday, asking if I need more boxes. Which I do. She said that she would bring me about eight, with lids; one of her coworkers had built a fort of empty boxes around the desk of another coworker, who was away from her desk. And that as soon as the second coworker [who apparently has no sense of humor] cooled down, they would take down the fort and carry the boxes out to Firstborn’s car.

2. My chair at my desk at work has developed a moaning squeak when I scoot around on the carpet protector. I think it’s in the key of Q. And it’s not a reek-reek-reek kind of sound, more like a woah-oah-oah. As if a tuba were trying to give birth, with trombone descant. [Hovanhess would be pleased.]

3. I am having wonderful learning experiences while riding the train. Today I was surrounded by young men going home for the weekend from Job Corps, to visit their mothers for my least favorite holiday. The young man who was sitting next to me was talking to the one across from me, and he used the phrase “smoked him like a Philly bl*nt”. I wasn’t sure that I’d heard the whole phrase, though I got his meaning. When the other two young men left the train, I asked if I had heard him correctly, and the very proper businessman sitting across the aisle cracked up, “Pffft!” If he’d been drinking coffee, we would all have been baptized.

I can’t wait to see the expression on LittleBit’s face when I repeat the story to her. [She just about died last week when I told one of our elders that I will be “going to church in the ’hood” after I move. I will be living in a transitional but respectable neighborhood. My new ward is urban and umpteen kinds of diverse, and the meetinghouse borders a somewhat iffy neighborhood, and I am not worried in the slightest, because I know that that is where I am supposed to be.]

Cue Billy Joel.

Tune in tomorrow for a road trip, two acquisitions, and a photo or two.

Pink Rules, Turquoise Drools!

Cast on while waiting for the train to start, yesterday morning. This is how far I’d gotten when I walked into the break room. It’s blurry; just look at the length and not the stitches.



And here is where I was at the end of lunch.



And when I went to bed, after Knit Night.



Yay! for knitting that cooperates. Yay! for Mim and her knits. [This one is Serpentine, and it’s free.] Yay! for one of my favorite yarns. [Leftover from Mal’s Mitts, which I made for LittleBit’s friend at Christmas. Dream in Color Smooshy in “Cool Fire”. We loves this yarn.] Yay! for [relatively] fat needles. [Addi Lace 2.5 = US size 1.5].

Happy fingers! Lickety-split knitting! What’s not to like?

Here is a link to my friend Sooz’s column on divorce and integrity. She comments that while we do a good job in the church of teaching people how to court and be married without compromising eternal principles, we rarely discuss how to apply those principles to the coming-apart of a marriage. I remember carpooling, about ten years ago, to one of the dances with a brother in my ward. We stopped to tank his car, and when he got back in I asked how long he’d been divorced. He replied that it should be final in a couple of weeks.

I was considerably less assertive in those days. Today I would tell him politely but firmly, “Please take me back to my car. I’m not riding to the dance with a married man.” Back then I was still reeling from my own divorce, still too much into pleasing others, and so I just prayed very loudly inside my head “Oh please do not let us get into an accident tonight. I didn’t know!”

I had a moment at work yesterday where I got to flex my assertiveness muscles. It was right in the middle of my busiest time of the morning, and I came back from my break to find two of the legal secretaries chatting with the woman who relieves me. She left, and they stayed, grousing about how overwhelmed they were and how much they didn’t want to go back to their desks and work.

After about two minutes of this, while I sorted the incoming mail preparatory to opening it and pulling all the staples, I interrupted them and said, “Of the three of us here at my desk, one of us wants to do her job. Would you mind taking this elsewhere?” They were a little startled, but they left.

Yes, there are aspects of my job that I don’t like. Yes, I have days when I would rather be anywhere else than my desk. But if you really, truly hate your job and think that you’re picked on [when you’re not], why stay? Why not go to work somewhere else? And if not, then go grouse in another part of the office, where it doesn’t interfere with me doing what they pay me to do.

I read this review and will probably buy the book. I think I have a pretty clear idea of whom and Whose I am and where I stand in relation to where I want to be or where He needs me to be. I do think these questions might help me to refine my discipleship.

This was good, too. Yes, I did a bit of reading while I ran the scanner; I’m getting that down to an art.

Dashing down the hall to get ready to head for the train. Thankfully, there’s still time to make the one that I want.

A Calculating Woman

DART [Dallas Area Rapid Transit] has a nifty little online calculator, to help you figure out how much you would save by riding public transportation. According to their model, I will save about $530 a month on car expenses; this includes not only the cost of fuel, but maintenance, tires, interest and depreciation, insurance, license and registration; it does not include the loan payment. I think my savings will be somewhat less than that, but I would have to grab several files to be sure. And I haven’t had breakfast yet.

From here to the train station that I’m currently using, is 9.5 miles, compared to the 25 miles I drive one-way to Dallas. From my new home to the train station that I will be using is 3.75 miles. And I haven’t figured out how far it is from the duplex to the office, but at least 10 miles farther and possibly as much as 15. So this month I will drive somewhere between 50-60% less and after that something like 75-85% less. After three days of riding the train, I am incredibly more relaxed *and* I don’t want to go anywhere else once I get home. I just want to cook a simple meal and putter about and knit.

Pretty cool. Here’s the link to their calculator so you can put in your own numbers. And now I'll stop torturing you with math.

How about I tease you with knitting instead? Here are the Anastasia sisters, side by side, as of dark-thirty this morning.



And what about this?



I don’t know if it’s a difference in grist between the Addi Turbo and the Addi Lace, but the second sock is noticeably larger, both in width and in length. And my left foot is not all that much bigger than my right. It could also be the difference between K2tog and SSK, because my eyelets are definitely bigger on the second sock. But look at that ugly pooling, which is nonexistent on the first sock. I don’t mind the two faint green stripes, but that pond has got to go.

I wonder if I need to gear down to my 000 for this second sock? And if so, I wonder where that needle might be? No doubt I will find it while packing. I know that it made the move from the old place, because I have the bag that it came in.

Oh dear, I guess this forces me to wind up the purple cashmere and cast on a scarf...

DP’s v. Magic Loop v. Two Circs ?= GLM Ski Lessons

Wendy has a new sock posted on her blog. Seriously cool! And she gives the most cogent argument that I’ve read for the use of two circular needles. Here’s my comment on her post:

I like Magic Loop *and* DP’s; it depends on if it’s a traveling sock or a stay-at-home sock. I tried socks on 2 circs, and for me it was like when I tried GLM ski lessons; I was fine with 3-foot skis and no poles, but when they gave me 4-foot skis *and* poles, my brain fried, and I spent the rest of the day in the lodge drinking cocoa.

I didn’t want to post on her blog that I got so stressed from the second day of GLM* that I gave myself the quick-step, which is a fun experience when you have to get yourself downhill fast and get off your skis and into the loo without running down your fellow snow bunnies.

I would have gone straight home that day, but I’d ridden the bus up the mountain, and my car was 15 miles away. I just sat in the lodge, trying to look glamorous in my pink parka and my socks. Girls, remember when I drove us up to Bogus Basin right before Dad died in 1990, and you all turned green from the hairpin curves? That road.

*[this is an interesting article, even for a non-sports-type like me]

I was a reluctant convert to Magic Loop. I love circs for knitting sweaters; it’s how I was able to crank out a basic adult sweater using EZ’s percentage method [as taught in Jacqueline Fee’s The Sweater Workshop] in seven days, back in the mid-1980’s. I also love the rectilinear pokiness of using DP’s for making socks, while weeping a bit over the occasional broken needle. I’m a knitter on a budget, and I try to take good care of my tools.

I love the feel of Crystal Palace’s resin-infused bamboo DP’s. They are wonderful for slippery yarns, and they are stronger than plain bamboo and more flexible than wooden needles. They are also pretty, in a very quiet way. [Addi Turbos, while perfect for sticky yarns, are not pretty.] I much prefer the Addi Lace not only for knitting shawls, but for knitting socks.

This second Anastasia, which is on my 00 Turbo needle, was going more slowly than the re-do of the first sock, which was on my 00 Lace needle. I swapped needles before going to bed last night. I didn’t get as much knitting done at stake conference as I would have liked, simply because of the fiddliness of all those SSK’s with a blunt needle tip. SSK is by its nature slower than K2tog, because you have to twist the stitches before working them together. [You knitting muggles can just ignore this part.]

I have yet to fire up my new KnitPicks Harmony needle; I’ll let you know what I think, when I do. Which will probably be later this week. The 00 Lace needle is so sharp that it wears a hole in my left forefinger when I’m pushing stitches. It’s nice to have a second project on fat needles, for when I want to give myself an extra day or two of healing time. The Harmony is pointier than my Addi Natura. And I think it will look fabulous, dahling, with that purple cashmere yarn I bought a few weeks ago. Maybe one of Knitspot’s “little nothing” scarves?

I will almost certainly buy Wendy’s book when it comes out. And I may find myself trying two circs again, to get tighter stitches on the sole of my sock and looser ones on my instep. We shall see.

I have two loads in the wash, and it’s almost time to go put them into the dryer. Exciting times, chez nous! But I will not be stinky at work today, in spite of Firstborn’s snarky comment last night :)

The Most Important Things

I didn’t get everything done that was on my list for yesterday. But I think I got the most important things done. I love spending time with my best friend. It doesn’t happen nearly often enough, as far as we are concerned. It was definitely easier when we were in the same ward and saw each other several times a week because we were ferrying kids to and from activities.

And I have to say, I enjoy walking through a museum much better when I am with her, than I do when I’m with the thundering herd, AKA my dinner group buddies. I don’t want to follow a tour guide. I barely tolerate those canned bits of information on the jobbies you can hang around your neck. I want to read the sign that accompanies each work of art, and I want to think for myself, and I want to discuss it with somebody who loves art as passionately as I do. Particularly when they know more about it than I do. And I want to go at my own pace. Fortunately, her pace and mine are compatible, so it was a great outing.

The J.M.W. Turner exhibition, running through the 18th at the Dallas Museum of Art, is huge. Almost too big for me to enjoy. I did skip the room with the time-line and contemporary history. Each room was painted a different color; I don’t remember a single one that was Boring Museum Grey. And I like his earlier stuff better than his later work. While I love the colors that the Impressionists used, I am much more fond of the Old Masters. I want trees that look like trees, and women who look like women, and rich, saturated colors. If I want nondescript color mooshes, I will sit down with my brushes and my tubes and moosh them myself.

[Oh yeah, that’s a bad side effect from having gone to Main Street Arts Festival two weeks ago and the DMA today; I want to pull my watercolor supplies out of storage and make messes. I so do not have time for this!]

The one that moved me most deeply, was The Tenth Plague of Egypt; this is the best image that I was able to find online. In the foreground you see two women grieving over a child, and sitting behind them a woman[?] with her head in her hands, and another dead child. For me it captured what those mothers must have felt when they realized that their stubborn Pharaoh was not a god who could save them.

I also liked Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus, though I had to ask my friend for the story behind it. I did not remember that Polyphemus was the Cyclops, nor that his father was Poseidon. I managed to skate out of reading most of The Iliad and The Odyssey, back in high school. [Poor Penelope, having to weave an additional 20 years because her idiot husband taunted the son of a Greek god.]

One of the last paintings in the exhibition was an impressionistic work that I liked, The Angel Standing in the Sun. It reminded me of some of Minerva Teichert’s work.

Stake conference last night and this morning was interesting, as usual. Our stake president is very loving, very tender-hearted, and steadfast in reminding us that we need to be obedient. More than one ox got gored in his closing remarks today. None of mine, fortunately, were on the menu. [OK, one got bruised a little when he reminded us that mothers are to teach their daughters to cook and sew, etc.; I’ve been too busy over the years, just trying to keep them fed and clothed, to do as much training as I would have liked. And the ones who do cook, are way better at it than I was at their age.] I do appreciate his telling us that the sniping which goes on [occasionally] between the stay-at-home moms and the moms who work outside the home, needs to stop, today.

I will miss him when I am in my new ward and new stake. Thankfully, the stake president in my new stake was the bishop when we lived with our friends for a month and a half, after we left the Hill Country with our tails between our legs. So I already know him, like him, and trust him. And I expect to esteem my new bishop as much as I do my present one.

I have been getting impressions with greater and greater frequency this year. I do not know what this means, other than I am working actively to remove thoughts, ideas, and associations that would interfere with that. I have one long-term friendship that I sense should come to an end; moving will make that easier, while making it harder to maintain those friendships that I do want to keep.

On a happier note, there is a woman in the stake with whom things have been strained for a number of years; she was briefly engaged to a man who was [for a time] my friend, and for whom I was developing feelings. They brought out the worst in each other. She and I exchanged pleasantries at the meetings this weekend, and I think the bitterness between us is past.

It feels as if the Lord is enabling me to tie up all sorts of loose ends in recent weeks. And I have the feeling of moving toward a bright and busy future that holds no opportunity for self-pity or stagnation. LittleBit is making plans for a place of her own; the details are still sketchy, but she has brains, determination, and ambition *plus* her heart is good. I trust that she will make decisions that are safe and well-considered and firmly on the Lord’s side of the line.

This morning, I finished the block for the knit-along afghan we are doing in my Knit Night group. Also made real progress on the second Anastasia. Don’t know if I will have time to block it before Tuesday night, but it was a quick day-and-a-half project, and I liked working with the yarn better than I thought I would. Picture, maybe, tomorrow. Time for me to gather up my laundry and take it over to Firstborn’s. Mostly I would like to stay home and take a nap. So maybe I will get up an hour earlier tomorrow morning and do it at the laundry center here at the apartments.

Being Somebody

I read this article and thought you might like it.

My KnitPicks order came yesterday. And it’s three kinds of gorgeous! This kind:



[Two skeins of Gloss Sock, in Woodland Sage. The color is fairly true.] And this kind:



[Three skeins of Gloss Lace, in Mermaid, which is a much lighter aqua than you see here.] And this:



[Ten skeins of Gloss Lace, in Aegean, which is much darker than in this photo, about as deep as Prussian Blue, but greener.] Teal, not blue. (Repeat as necessary.) I also got my first Harmony needles, which I plan to use for knitting the lace yarns and maybe my contribution to my friend’s niece’s baby blanket.

In other happy knitting news, I am nearly done with the re-re-knitting of the cuff on the first Anastasia. Which means that I may finish it this weekend and pick up the second sock where I left it after discovering the extra K2tog and dropped stitch on the first one. I guess it’s a good idea that I’m not so OCD as to count every blessed stitch knit and tinked and frogged and knitted and tinked, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Extending my preferred metaphor of “the glass is half full”? This yarn has been half-socked four times now and is nearly done with the fifth incarnation. This is if you count the two earlier sock patterns that the yarn didn’t want to be.

The morning light pouring in over the top of the fence around my patio is so warm and lovely. I tried to capture it with my camera, poking my hand through a gap in the vertical blinds, but the two shots I fired off, didn’t turn out. Doing the subject justice would require more time and attention than I care to give at the moment; I’d rather be knitting. So you’ll just have to take my word for it.

The patio itself could use a good sweeping. Not happening. I want some breakfast, and then I want to curl up and knit. I’m expecting a call from Best Friend about our junket to the museum. And I really, really need to do some laundry today. But oh Danny Boy, the yarn, the yarn is calling...

Could I Please Just Marry Gregory Peck?

Though for me he will always be Atticus Finch, reluctant shooter of mad dogs [but not Englishmen], last night I stretched out on the couch with my knitting and the denouement of “Roman Holiday”. I love that man’s voice. It’s a Harley Davidson kind of voice, deep and rich, and he conveys more emotion by the simple act of swallowing than today’s younger actors manage to pull out of an entire bag of shticks.

Just flat melts my butter.

Yesterday was weird. I woke up around 2:15 and couldn’t get back to sleep. Which made for a long, long day. Left a little after 6:30 and called Firstborn at work to confirm what I remembered about how to get to the nearer train station.

What a lovely, pleasant drive! The train itself was comfortable and not too crowded; that may change in coming weeks, if gas prices continue to rise. And I caught a bus at the front of the station for the last couple of blocks to work. Eventually I will walk it. [Eventually I will also sleep through the night.]

I put about an inch and a half on the second Anastasia; I had to rip back to the first round of pattern when I realized that I’d knitted the spiral into the sole as well as the instep. During “Roman Holiday” I worked on the cuff of the much-frogged first sock.

Some thoughts on riding the rails: I like the people-watching. I need to carry less stuff. I like the extra knitting time [about 40 minutes each way in the current incarnation; more like an hour once I’ve moved]. And it takes longer than just hopping in my car and going.

Amusing moment: surfing the Web while opening the morning mail and pulling umpteen staples, looking for a mandoline to go with my eBay cookbook that arrived in the first batch of mail. Realizing that I can pay $45.00-70.00 for a basic mandoline with steel blades and legs that tilt it at an ergonomic angle, or $25.00 for a Kyocera mandoline with a ceramic blade and no legs plus it comes in red. Beginning an order at surlatable.com and coming to a screeching halt when I see $7.95 shipping for an order that is going to top out around $35.00. [I found a second item that I wanted.] Remembering that one of our former employees shopped at the local store. Finding the local store via the website. Eight minutes away. I’ll just hop in my car at lunch and save myself $7.95...

The car. Is at the park and ride. In Hurst.

This will take a little getting used to.

Tonight is dinner and dancing, and tomorrow morning is a bit of culture at the Dallas Museum of Art with my best friend. Tomorrow night is the grownups-only session of stake conference, which I always enjoy. I’m feeling un peu triste, however; tomorrow night at the Richardson Symphony, Olga Kern is playing the Rach 3. J’adore the Rach 3. I will just have to comfort myself with sockliness.

Must be out the door in twelve minutes, if I want to catch an earlier train than yesterday. This could get interesting.

No Crying over Spilt Milk!

No photographing of it for the blog, either. I took my charger and spare batteries to juice up at work, but I left the camera on my computer desk here at home. Pity. Cleopatra could have bathed in the puddle that I created when I dropped my bottle of milk while re-entering the office at lunch yesterday. Thankfully, it was a plastic bottle and not glass, and maintenance sent somebody up immediately, so no real harm done except that I was thirsty all afternoon.

Nevertheless, I had a good day, in spite of several other petty irritations on that order. I had more bits of bad luck yesterday than I normally do in a month, and each time by the grace of Heaven I was able to regroup and get on with the day.

I left the house at 6:30 to go buy my train ticket. The kiosks at the station were all malfunctioning. [But it was a lovely morning, and I had a nice, non-strenuous walk from the park and ride.] I decided to try Union Station in Dallas. I missed the entrance and had to take a two or three mile detour. [But I had time to go back and try again.] There was no free parking so I could just pop in, get my ticket, and be on my way. [But the DART cop was pleasant when I asked.]

I sent an email to one of the attorneys, who lives in a northern suburb of Dallas. He had offered, when he heard that I was going to start riding the train but had missed the cutoff for the office’s monthly ticket order, to pick one up at the station. Sometimes he works in the office, and sometimes hearings and other lawyerly duties keep him in court or working remotely. He didn’t get my email before he came into the office. [But he walked over on his lunch hour (!!!) with my cash and picked up my ticket for me. I’ll turn in my receipt today and be reimbursed sometime next week.]

On Monday I got an email from the office manager, informing me that I had a “webinar” [virtual seminar] after lunch yesterday, with the other members of the committee I’m now serving on. I was the only one who showed up for it. So I had to take notes for the others. [But I also took my knitting, and I got two rounds in on the second Anastasia, in between scribbles.]

While heading toward the Tollway after work, I was nearly creamed by a guy in a big truck. [But the side mirror settings that I learned while teaching LittleBit to drive, enabled me to see him and stay out of harm’s way.]

In the good-news-only department, my Amazon order arrived yesterday, as did my clogs from eBay. And because it was my last day to drive into work, I was able to get everything home last night, plus a nice big nest of empty boxes and the day’s newspaper for packing up breakables.

You are sitting there wondering if suddenly I am the sister of that guy from Lil Abner who walks around with his own black cloud overhead. No, not really. But I went to the temple last night after work, to serve in the House of the Lord, and somebody whose name we won’t mention, but he is popularly depicted in a red suit with horns and a pitchfork, did not want me to go, or to feel the Spirit if I did.

I went anyway. And because I knew what was going on, all day, I was able to drink a fourth of the milk that I paid for, and allow my co-worker to serve me, and frog back Anastasia to the dropped stitch, and make three trips to the car to get everything properly stowed, and realize that the only thing that really mattered was my attitude.

And this morning, our home is filled with that same peaceful, thoughtful spirit that comes from Heaven. There is a stillness in my bosom that has been missing far too long. [John 14:27 ~ “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”]

After I completed my service in the temple last night, I drove to La Madeleine and had quiche Florentine, a cup of their tomato-basil soup, and a mini-parfait for dinner. I ate slowly and deliberately, grateful for hunger and the means to satisfy it.

In discussing my medications with my doctor on Tuesday, she agrees that I no longer need the anti-inflammatory, which must be taken with food. And I have been able to cut way back on the diuretic as well. Which means that I might once again be able to participate in the monthly fast at church. I have really missed the privilege of fasting to bless the poor.

Once a month, those of us who are physically able, abstain from food and drink for two meals and donate what we would have spent on those meals, for the benefit of the poor in our congregations. That money pays rent, utilities, doctor bills, etc., for Latter-Day Saints in need of assistance. [When that molar broke, twelve or so years ago, other people’s generous fast offerings paid my dentist to have the shards extracted.]

I have my new Barbara Walker books entered on Ravelry. I guess it’s time to take them out of the box and put them on the shelf. And then to open the box from eBay and see if the shoes fit as well as I think they will. And then to locate the train station that my daughter sometimes uses, which is far less busy than the one on the county line.

I think it’s going to be a blessedly amazing day.

Falling in Love

I do believe that I fell in love yesterday afternoon. Now daughters dear, do not panic; I am not running off to Club Med with my waiter! But I did find the first piece of furniture that told me it wants to live in the duplex. And I put it on layaway. I won’t post a picture until it’s paid for, and probably not until it’s in place. It’s a wardrobe from Scotland, and I’m thinking of asking the boys to retrofit it with shelves. Or I may just stack all of my plastic shoe boxes of quilting fabric and notions inside it. There are two small metal rods on either side, for hangers; that will be the perfect place to keep my skirt hanger with the sheaf of art papers that I’ve been collecting and lugging around for the past ten years.

I also found a glass-fronted bookcase with linen-fold panels in the bottom of the doors. That will be next, if nobody else grabs it first. [If they do, it will be because it belongs in their duplex.] And another wardrobe, not as pretty on the outside but very cleverly fitted on the inside. And then possibly a buffet; he also has a small hutch that would look good in the kitchen. Not the huge Welsh dresser that I’ve been coveting for years, but something proportionate to my new home.

I can see myself buying three or four pieces a year, without wrecking my budget. And in a couple of years I will be out of debt, with a houseful of lovely old bookcases and cabinets, and no more of this knock-together stuff from the big box stores.

I picked up a copy of ClothPaperScissors: Studios Monday night and read it while eating my lunch yesterday. It’s an Interweave special publication; Barnes & Noble didn’t have it, but Borders did. Lots of neat ideas for organizing one’s workspace, some of them quite economical. One of the artist biographies was of Charlotte Lyons, whose blog I’ve been reading for a few months.

Every spring I get the urge to tidy and feather my nest. In part because that’s where Sarah Ban Breathnach’s books wander off to, this time of year. And in part because of the home dec blogs that I read. Especially this one. I’m even compiling a list of music that will play when you read the blog; still very much a work in progress, that.

No, I haven’t forgotten the spinning wheel; it's just been pushed back few weeks. And yes, I’m a little distractible. [Not only Oh Look Shiny, but Oh Look Antique! Hey, I married the children’s father, and he’s eleven and a half years older than me!]

Need more proof? Here’s the refurbished heel on Anastasia.



Lots of happy knitting yesterday. And it fits ever so much better than the afterthought heel. My new Addi Lace 00 [birthday gift!!!] is making quick work of the re-knitting. Unfortunately, it doesn’t keep me from dropping the odd stitch now and then.



I had nearly incorporated all the yarn from the afterthought heel and was almost ready to take up the other sock, when I realized that one of the wide bands was noticeably narrower than its neighbors. I found the place where I had worked one too many K2tog’s, and then I found the dropped stitch. Thankfully, this is a yarn that stands up to repeated frogging.

Here’s a beauty shot of the crème brulée that I enjoyed for dessert on Monday, when our office manager took the admin team to lunch for Administrative Professionals Day [she was out of town on business the preceding week].



Today is the end of an era; tomorrow I start riding the train. Balancing the loss of control over my commute is the anticipation of two extra hours of knitting, guilt-free, every day.

Birthday Bash

This is how I frequently feel after three hours with my whole tribe. I just want somebody to put me down and let me take a nap.



But not on Saturday night. I had so much fun! [That's Fourthborn standing next to LittleBit and a squirming BittyBubba.] Firstborn got this cake at Costco; it had a strawberry cream filling between the layers and was just delicious.



My shots of the hostesses [Firstborn and Secondborn] came out all blurry. But here is a nice one of Fourthborn’s Fiancé.



He’s usually smiling and telling outrageous stories about his extended family. [Proving once again that Heaven has a sense of humor. God sent me to my quiet but immensely talented family; He sent Fiancé to leaven a tribe of rednecks.]

This is a better picture of LittleBit and BittyBubba. [She disagrees.]



That's my friend L on the right, and my friend C from work is lurking behind LittleBit’s head.

The infamous Piddling Cup. Thankfully we noticed that it was leaking before somebody took it out into the living room.



Here are the little kids, chowing down. And their parents. By the window, J, married to J who is on the right in the yellow. She’s my best friend’s daughter and Secondborn’s best friend. To her left is another J, whom 1BDH jokingly refers to as his other wife. [And some days, as his next one.] Back in the corner is 2BDH, in the hat. BittyBit is tugging on his pant leg. Two of the kids are also J’s. And the twins, off-camera, are S & K. I didn’t catch 1BDH or his sister and her husband on camera, but they were there.



I think this is only the second real birthday party I’ve had. The first was when I was eight, before we moved to Boise. There were family parties every year, of course, and the year that I turned 16, Easter fell on the same weekend, and my best friend from high school was with us at my sister’s in Seattle.

[I don’t know if this will show up properly. Here goes.]



This was fun. And Middlest, honey, I know you were here in spirit.

Today’s agenda? Well-woman and mammogram. And knitting, lots of knitting. I went to bed early last night and woke up at 2:30 this morning. Can’t seem to go back to sleep, but maybe there will be a nap this afternoon? I am fasting for the bloodwork, so it sounds like the 1812 Overture in the vicinity of my navel. I wouldn’t exactly kill for chocolate, but I might bruise somebody impressively.

What I Did at Work on Friday; What I Saw on Friday Night

This is all the scanning that I did last Friday. Just a hair over two reams of paper went through my hands that day.



I put a magazine on top of the stack in case there was any identifying information on the top sheet. And I pulled a tablespoon and a half of staples out of just one envelope’s contents. Took me over 15 minutes to do so; there must have been a hundred of them.



Look who I would have seen, if I had been here on Thursday night. I loved her on “One Day at a Time” when I was not much more than a kid myself.



My work-LYS is in an old house on a quiet culdesac in a gentrifying neighborhood. These are some of the neighboring businesses.



I wasn’t sure if I would get anything, as I snapped these near dusk. I want to go back some morning and take them in morning light. The colors on each house are just lovely!



And a fountain between two of them.



I wonder if they all repainted at approximately the same time, because some of the accent colors on one house resemble the main colors on other houses.

Here’s a link to the Shabby Sheep, with better pictures than I am currently capable of taking.

I finally, finally won a pair of cordovan? or maybe oxblood? [deep red with black overtones] clogs on eBay; with postage, I will pay just about one-third of the retail price. Woohoo! Note: these are almost certainly not *real* cordovan, which I just learned is made from the south end of a northbound horse. And which is almost impermeable to water, and thus more expensive than I could afford. So I will not be tiptoeing through the tulips in these clogs, especially right after it rains.

The video of my birthday serenade at LittleBit’s restaurant is still not up on YouTube. Ahem!

And I finished [Almost] Cozy yesterday, but I need to clear a space in my room so I can block it, and that’s not happening before work today. I’m knitting away on Anastasia once again and am nearly done with the increases for the toe-up heel. Wonder where I put my directions for that heel turning?

So Maybe They’re Not *All* Dead? And I’m Smarter than Holly Golightly

Thursday morning, I had one of those moments when I was momentarily Not Invisible. [Yes, they are rare enough to be eminently blog-worthy.] And the “wonder of it all” ~ to borrow a phrase from Brother Eric ~ is that he was a middle-aged white boy.

“We have learned by sad experience” ~ to borrow from a different brother, Brother Joseph this time ~ that middle-aged white boys in Texas are almost invariably fixated on very-much-younger blondes. Not always, but often enough to be statistically significant. [This has been well-documented in the annals of Cellphone Hissyfits Today, one of the most esteemed psychology journals of our time.]

It was a little weird to look up and greet the gentleman at my desk and see that flicker of “hello there” in his eyes, and answer back with my own. I grinned all morning.

Yeah, I need to get out more. And I need to *go* out more. But that requires initiative on somebody else’s part, and we all know that I have no control over that.

On to another topic. Do you have any idea how long it takes to unwrap seven DVD’s? I downloaded and upgraded my McAfee subscription while I did so. Sat down on the couch with my fashionably late breakfast [some six-grain cereal nuked in apple juice] and “Shall We Dance”.

I’m not excessively fond of either J-Lo or Richard Gere, though I adore Susan Sarandon and Stanley Tucci. I was pleased to see that the trailer features the Japanese original, which I rented several years ago and adored. [Brother Sushi owns both versions; he is a man of catholic tastes.] I was amazed at how much I enjoyed the American version. I like how the husband and wife obviously love each other after 19 years of marriage; call me sentimental if you will, but faithfulness is something that I notice. And approve of.

You also know how much I hate-loathe-and-despise the F-word. And I have to warn you that it is used, *once*, in this movie, yet was easily the best use of said word in any movie I have ever seen that contained it. [I, umm, actually laughed. Hooted, really. I’ll go sit in the corner now.] I was far more upset by the gratuitous use of the Lord’s name in vain. That just flat infuriates me.

So, overall a surprisingly good movie. It is respectful of marriage and fidelity. And even the minor characters get to grow.

I won a Williams-Sonoma cookbook on eBay yesterday. I’m bidding on another pair of clogs. I have been trying to win a pair in this particular color for about a year and a half.

As for Ms. Golightly? Well, I’m definitely a better knitter, and I’ve never stolen anything from a five and dime. I hope, oh I so devoutly hope, that when Real Love comes a-knockin’ on my door, that I’m smart enough to figure it out before I find myself standing in an alley with a wet cat and without my knitting.

*exasperated snort*

I found a pair of walking shoes that fits.



And I also bought these.



Would somebody please explain to me what it means, that I bought girly shoes. I have worn clogs, and only clogs, for eight years, ever since I had the second surgeries for ingrown toenails. I wore them to Secondborn’s wedding; I wore them to her big sister’s wedding as well. They’re not foofy and feminine, but they are comfortable, and they prevent further problems with my feet.

I called Brother Sushi. He finds this as inexplicable as I do. Is it some weird culmination of the eye-sparking on Thursday, and the verbal sparring on Friday night, and two romantic movies in one day? Have what are left of my hormones, run amok on me? Is it the pheromonal equivalent of the Gulf Stream, bearing who-knows-what to me in the immediate future? Is it simply the recent full moon, or the tornadoes?

Because I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto. Not with these shoes.



Putting on my turn signal for another change of topic. Had a blast at my birthday bash! Quite a few of my favorite people were able to make it. We had cake and punch first, and then we headed over to LittleBit’s restaurant. Yes, I had to stand and wave the dinner napkin and shout “Ole! Ole!” when the restaurant staff serenaded me. It’s been videotaped. Twice. Once it’s been YouTube’d, I’ll put in a link.

I think I will eat my leftover tortilla soup for breakfast. Just because I can. And I’ll save the pictures of the birthday bash, and the birthday loot, for another post.

But first, eine kleine yarn-musik.



More turquoise. And all the new stuff that’s on its way from KnitPicks, is one shade of teal or another. Turquoise, yes. Teal, yes. But not blue per se. I am not being sucked over to the dark side!

“What is a niddy noddy?” she asks.

This. We wants one. Girls, do you remember the windmill-looking contraption on top of my old spinning wheel? It was a skein winder, and it served the same function.

Another link ~ this time about energy and healing; interesting juxtaposition between this and one of Dr. Wally's columns about energy management v. time management. I wonder what Heaven is trying to teach me? This is a link to Dr. Gardner’s first article. Not much meat in his second one, but definitely an interesting array of facts. And I am looking forward to next week’s article.

If you know the movie “Chocolat”, you may remember the scene where the mayor of the town is discovered in the shop window, sheepishly rolling around in the bonbons. Yesterday was a little like that; just substitute yarn, books, and DVD’s for the truffles.

I am one of those women who could shop till she drops. In the Generic Years, I shopped to feed my tribe [Cost Cutter brand at Kroger], clothe my tribe [thrift shops and hand-me-downs; we “have often depended upon the kindness of strangers”], and entertain my tribe [Half Price Books, anybody?] For most of my adult life, I have been too poor to fall into debt; my excellent premarital credit rating vanished, as Elizabeth Zimmermann once said about something else, like piddle into the sand. At the time of the divorce I had miraculously not acquired my husband's credit rating; I wonder if one of my guardian angels was a CPA when he lived on earth?

About seven years ago, shortly before my gall bladder staged an insurrection, I succumbed to the blandishments of a major bank and acquired a credit card. On the one hand, it was good, because when I needed surgery the co-payment was $75, and I didn’t have it. And when I interviewed for my current job, I bought my interview suit. I had not had a suit in 20 years; you don’t need one if you’re milking goats twice a day and feeding the chickens.

And I did some shopping, and when things were really tight I put the rent on plastic, and before you can say Oh Denver Mint, What Have I Done? I had maxed [sp?] out the card. At which point I took out a line of credit from my credit union at work and paid it off. Life was manageable until the children’s father was out of work for over a year, and instead of telling the girls “sorry, we can’t afford it”, I put a year’s worth of child support on my born-again credit card. Which is why I did skincare and makeup for a little over three years; I had no interest in a pink Cadillac, I just wanted to be solvent.

We are getting there, slowly but surely. I paid off the credit card in 2006, largely because the bank cut me a good deal of slack on the interest and late charges. But it’s paid off, and the budget has recovered from last year’s tax bite because of the forgiven portion of my debt, and I am nibbling away on my line of credit balance, and my car is nearly half paid for. If you compare my 401K balance to my debt, I am in the black. If we are talking cash flow, then I have two or three more years of debt reduction.

The upcoming move is a Godsend. I will have a cozy nest, and a studio, and a minuscule garden. I will have two hours on the train, five days a week. I will have quiet neighbors [not that there’s anything wrong with the current ones, but none of my new ones will be overhead]. I will be walking distance from the museum district and my second favorite yarn shop. And I will be saving a minimum of $300 a month, more when I know enough about gardening to put up all my produce. Some of that will go into savings; some will go to charity [see the new list at left]; most of it will go into debt reduction. When the car is paid off, I will roll that payment into the line of credit, and once that’s paid off, into my savings account at the credit union, which is paying me considerably higher interest than you can get at your bank.

I don’t mind all the niggling economies, because I have my goals firmly in sight. I don’t mind knitting from my stash, because there’s good stuff in there. I don’t mind not buying a lot of new clothing [though I do so love finding something to clothe my spirit, on sale at 70% off!]. I truly have enough for my needs, and more than a few of my wants.

Nevertheless, it is fun to have a cash bonus once a year, and to go a little nutsy with it. What did I buy?

1. All four volumes of Barbara Walker’s stitch dictionaries. I have been wanting these books for 20 years.
2. Two more cookbooks, one from Amazon and one from the sale rack at Borders.
3. Seven DVD’s, bought when I noticed, really noticed, the poster in the window at Borders while I was knitting between dinner and game night. “Breakfast at Tiffany's”, “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”, “Roman Holiday”, “Sabrina” [the Bogie version; I have the Harrison Ford remake on VHS], “Sense and Sensibility” [Emma Thompson version]; “Shall We Dance” [American version, which I have yet to watch, and not the lovely, lyrical Japanese original]; and “Waking Ned Devine”.
4. A book on the connection between textile history and women’s history, over the millenia. I’ll let you know what I think.
5. A skein of Colinette handpainted 100% silk lace yarn, to be photographed once I receive:
6. Two skeins of Gloss Sock yarn, thirteen skeins of Gloss Lace in two colors, and my first Options needle, with accessories.

So, yeah, a serious falling-down in the textile department, and Not One Drop of guilt.

In other news, the game night was a success. When I went to work yesterday morning, it looked like there would just be four of us, but we ended up with eight or more. A good part of the evening was spent entering one another’s phone numbers into cell phones. I am so glad that I’ve started doing this. [It’s Brother Sushi's fault; remind me to give him an extra hug, next time I see him.]

And now if you will all excuse me, I want to rustle up some grub. And then I want to curl up on the couch with my knitting and one of the new movies. I’m about halfway done with the eighth ball of yarn on [Almost] Cozy. When I finish this ball, I will stand up and wrap the stole around me to see if it’s long enough, or if I need to wind up a ninth.

I am planning to pick up a pair of inexpensive walking shoes today, and maybe my train pass for May. And a few groceries, and then I will be done shopping until it’s time to fill the fridge again.

Tonight is the birthday party that my family is throwing for me. No promises, but there may even be pictures tomorrow.

Sariah and Nephi and the Cranky Brothers

In our church, we are encouraged to liken the scriptures unto ourselves; in other words, we are to apply the stories and principles to our own lives.

I was listening to my Book of Mormon on CD in the car yesterday morning. It’s early days in First Nephi. Lehi has been listening to the Lord, and he sends his boys back to Jerusalem to get a record which is part family history and part scripture. The head of the family is a man named Laban, who appears to have both ecclesiastical power and political power. He certainly has servants and others to do his bidding. The sons draw straws, and Laman [the oldest brother, and rather full of himself] either wins or loses, depending upon your point of view. At any rate, he’s the one who gets to ask Laban if they can pretty-please have the records. And Laban basically tells them “not only no...” and calls them robbers and chases them out of his house on pain of death.

They regroup in the wilderness outside of town. Laman is mad. And a bully. And a coward. He wants to go back to their father and make excuses. Nephi says, “Hey, we left all of our nice stuff at home. Maybe we can trade it to Laban for the records. He can’t call us robbers if we offer him something valuable in return.”

They go back to the house and get the family treasures and take it all to Laban. He tells them, “No, I am not giving you the records, but I am keeping this nice stuff.” And he sends his servants after them to kill them.

Laman and the second son, Lemuel, are royally peeved at this treatment. And once they catch their breath, they take their anger out on Nephi and the other brother, Sam. Nephi tells them that they are *not* going back to Dad and Mom in the wilderness without the records. And he’s going to go get them. Which he does. In the course of which he is told by the Lord to take Laban’s life. This might be the only record we have of Nephi having a [brief and respectful] difference of opinion with the Lord.

I was thinking how ironic it was that the man required to take Laban’s life is the one least likely to enjoy doing so. Laman and Lemuel seem to dote on threats, intimidation, and physical violence. They seem to have entirely missed the point that while they are forevermore breathing out strife and threatenings, their younger brother is the only one among them who has actually killed another human being. They mistake his humility and meekness for weakness. And it probably doesn’t occur to either of them that if he had to, he could take them out as quickly and efficiently as he disposed of Laban.

Now, shortly after Nephi and his brothers return to Lehi and Sariah in the wilderness outside Jerusalem, Lehi sends the boys back to get wives. [I love how God makes them eat their spinach first, before they get dessert.] There is remarkably little bickering on that trip until they are nearly back to camp.

I also wonder if God sent Nephi to dispatch Laban in order to maximize the time available for Laman to get his mind and heart right. Maybe it saved Laman and Lemuel from an even more rapid descent into apostasy.

Our Sunday School teacher commented on something that Nephi’s brother Jacob said near the end of his own record, that they were a solemn people. Yes, I think you would be solemn if a major portion of your life story was taken up by a family rift where the oldest brothers were determined to become the only brothers, and where you not only had to keep yourself and your dependents out of harm’s way but keep your heart free from bitterness. Not to mention teaching your children to hate the sin and love the sinner [from a safe distance].

We’ve had a bit of that in this tribe, and the healing is slow.

I also thought about the mother, Sariah, complaining to her husband that their sons have been lost. She accuses him of being a visionary man. He replies that if he had not seen a vision of the coming destruction of Jerusalem [the Babylonian captivity], they would all perish like their friends and neighbors are going to do. What I would think or say if the Almighty sent my five precious daughters on an errand that put their lives in danger? I definitely think that He would be hearing about it from me! Nephi records not only her doubts and fears, but her later testimony that Lehi is indeed inspired, and a prophet.

I’ve also thought about Emma Smith and all that she was required to pass through. She was an educated woman, a school teacher, married to a man who at one point could barely construct a coherent written sentence but in a few short years learned Hebrew and other Biblical languages. [I know from my own experience what Heaven can do with a willing heart and mind. The talents I have, which are considerable, are not something I dug up on my own. They are gifts of the Spirit, and meant to help me serve others. I love the Parable of theTalents; it makes me grin, instead of squirm like so many of the others do.]

I think of these two good women and their difficult lives, and I compare my own experiences to theirs. Sariah’s family split into two camps, and eventually the descendents of two of her sons killed off the descendants of her other four sons. Emma struggled with poverty and heartache for much of her adult life. How do children raised in the same home come out so differently? And why is there such a natural tendency for them to pick on one another, if not to the point of bloodshed? How is it that two men [Joseph Smith and my children’s father] can both have such difficulty supporting their families, but one leaves a legacy of hard work and inspiration that, like Daniel’s vision of the stone cut out of the mountain without hands, is filling the earth with one small act of goodness after another. Whereas the other exemplifies a phrase found so often in the Book of Mormon: he is dwindling in unbelief. His shining contributions to life are our daughters and his early involvement as their father. For that, I forgive him much of the frustration and futility of the past twenty years.

His side of the family is infected by a predisposition toward get-rich-quick schemes [and I have distilled self-righteousness to a potency that any homeopath would envy, and passed it on to some of our children]. One of the great puzzles of my life is how a man so intelligent and educated can have such great difficulty supporting himself and his family. There is something going on here that I am missing. So I have had many opportunities to ponder the difference between a visionary man and a dreamer. And I definitely want to have a nice sit-down with Sariah and Emma when I get on the other side.

I watched August Rush last night. Lovely movie! We had a storm that knocked out the power about 20 minutes from the end of it, and just when I was wondering if I’d have to sleep sitting up all night, the lights went back on. I finished the movie, had a nice little happy weep, plugged in my CPAP, and slept better than I have in a week or two. I’m planning to watch it again tonight. And I need to bake brownies for tomorrow’s game night.

Lots of knitting yesterday. I’m hoping for more today.

[Postscript to the child who commented on a previous post: you’re not mentally unstable; you’re tender-hearted. If weeping when moved by the Spirit is a sign of instability, then you girls had better take up a collection for your mother. I want my strait-jacket to be red, if you please.]

Random Acts of Synapse Firing

Had a nice exchange of emails with my friend Wanda recently. She who is married to the equally talented Ed. We discussed the sad fact that there are not hours enough in the day to do everything that we want, and that I am not the only person who wishes that he were able to work his gifts upon wood and provide us with niddy noddies.

I told her:
I understand that conflict between where your heart and hands want to go, creatively, and what pays the bills. This is why I work in an office and do not confuse my job with my passion(s). And it is why I will probably never have a “career”. I get a lot of satisfaction from a job well done, and I’m thankful that my parents taught me to give good value for what I’m paid. But the best moments of my workday are often those that I spend sitting in the break room with my knitting, visiting with coworkers who have come in for another cup of coffee or something from the snack machines. *That* is where I live.

Dad had a Shopsmith [ginormous table saw] and a workroom that he built on the back of our carport. In fact, he turned the carport into an enclosed garage, did almost all of the repairs on the washing machines in the laundromat that he owned, and grew roses along the driveway. Mom was a skilled needlewoman but not as prolific as I am. And I have inherited both loves. Dad taught me a bit about whittling when I was 10 or 12, and I wished that I could have inherited his shop when he passed.

When I have a house of my own, I want a shop out in back, where I can build shelves for my studio and bookcases and window seats and all that good stuff. I love the feel and smell of wood. It’s a slower medium than fiber; it’s at times like this that I wish we lived to the great age of the Biblical patriarchs and their families. Can you imagine how many FO’s we’d accumulate on Ravelry if we lived to be Methuselah’s age? Flickr would crash, that's for sure!

And I told her:
I know what you mean about piles of paperwork instead of files. For someone as organized as I am when I’m at work, the disarray at home is frequently disheartening. Our office went paperless about a year and a half ago, and I only recently connected the dots and realized that I could do the same here at home. That will require the purchase of a scanner, which is not high on my list of priorities at the moment.

Here is a link to an article that brought happy tears to my eyes. And another one that made me look at myself and cringe. And because of my comment on one of his articles, I have a new knitting friend. [Hi, Kristen!]

I just got my report for the week from Sitemeter. A hair over 11,000 hits, and over 13,000 page views. I think this time last year we were creeping up on 2,000 hits. I wonder if there’s a way to check? It seems that there is: 234 total visits for the month of April 2007; 709 so far this month. It doesn’t give me the cumulative total as of last April, but I’d only been blogging since late July 2006, so it couldn’t have been much.

Wow. Thanks, y’all. It astounds me that roughly thirty people read this blog on a daily basis. Most of you between 8:00am and 4:00pm, with another bubble at 7:00pm. I have this little vision of knitbloggers huddled around their keyboards, typing with one hand and a bowl of ramen noodles in the other.

Today at work I will be able to print off my pay stub for this Friday. And I will get to see how much damage Uncle Sugar has inflicted upon my deliciously generous bonus. I have a tithing envelope, and I have my checkbook, and I have stamps. I will write out that check before monkey mind starts howling about all the neat stuff we could have if I didn’t pay the tithing on that extra cash. Or on any of it, for that matter. The ward clerk will no doubt be amused to open an envelope with a Happy Birthday stamp and a two-cent stamp on it. But hey, sometimes I just have to concede that I serve as comic relief in our ward.

I spliced the last two small balls of Denim Silk together and have joined them to the working yarn for [Almost] Cozy. Which leaves one more ball and two intact skeins and a really itchy case of finish-itis. We are going to be crazy-busy at work today, as the primary scanning operator is taking a field trip with her kid’s class. So my backup and I will be doing all the scanning. Fortunately, I can do a lot of it from my desk between phone calls. But I am praying for a day of light mail volume, and not the deluge which I suspect awaits us after two days of not-much-mail.

I think it’s safe to assume that blatant chocolate abuse and vast quantities of cherry Coke are both on the agenda today.

Time to forage some breakfast and sneak in a little knitting before I hit the road.