novamade

obsessions, healthy and otherwise

Is it just me, or is it easy to catch a little bit of crazy without realizing it?  Just me?

So you know how I "like" (or obsess over, you pick) Pushing Daisies?  Apparently, the show has been picked up for the rest of the season.  To celebrate, I have instituted "Pie hole Wednesdays" (I know this is a Thursday post; but, the pie was made while watching Pushing Daisies...on Wednesday, as it were).  Leslie has her "cookie of the week", and so, I will have my pie...sure I am more of a cake person, but Ned is a pie maker and not a cake baker, so there you are.  First pie (which, truth be told, isn't really a pie at all)...

Chocolate Chip Pie.  Humongous chocolate chip cookie baked in a pie pan?  You betcha.  I encourage you to catch a little of the crazy and make the (pseudo) pie too, seriously (4 fork rating, people!!).

And then there is the single sock thing.  When Megan started the whole movement during the summer, my initial reaction was, "now that is a bandwagon I can hitch a ride on..."  But here is the thing...socks, they really are meant to be worn in pairs. 

My sushi sock roll post told you about the socks that I had waiting for mates and how I was going to try and finish them by the end of November (right...) .... However, I failed to mention the likely obstacles to achieving this goal (I mean real obstacles, my inherent laziness doesn't count).  So yes, one obstacle that was not addressed... a sock I had not (at the time) started.  A sock for someone else who would probably like to see the sock sooner rather than later.  Well, I started it.

I really like the pattern, horseshoe cables and eyelets...in Shibui sock yarn (which isn't pooling at all, Ashley...it's striping, in a serendipitously engaging way--given the spiraling eyelets--or am I just telling myself that?  Is it pooling in some obvious way that I am blind too?  If it is, someone please say something.).

And then, yes, there are these...

impasse. stalemate. plateau. defeat.

When I was 6 years old, my dad told me that I had a defeatist's attitude.  Being 6, I had no idea what it meant.  Luckily, he reminded me of my personality quirk often enough throughout my childhood that I eventually looked it up.  Over the years, I have developed an "any job that's worth doing can be done" attitude.  But really, I think it's overcompensation for being, truthfully, a deafeatist. 

I do have to say that I am embarassed that my current state of defeat has been brought about by the simplest of sweaters.  It's not the knitting, it's not the seaming...no.  It's the weaving in of ends.  I know.  There is a cautionary story there, amongst all my unwoven yarn ends...but that is a story for another time. 

After the sweater (which I am now dubbing the "soy un perdedor" sweater) brought my spirits low (though your loser-knits comments did help lift my spirits...you guys are funny--and nice, thanks for the positive feedback on the new home!), I quickly thought of a fun activity to combat my feelings of failure.  I wound some yarn.  Ashley shot some holes in my Shibui-love armor, but you have to appreciate friends that keep it real.  We will see what happens with the above--which acutally has an intended purpose).

Dedicated yarn is fun to wind, expectation and all that.  But winding yarn with no intent?  It's almost scandalous!  I wound yarn with no purpose--winding for winding's sake.  I rarely do this.  I have strong feelings about winding yarn only after the yarn has been assigned to a specific project that I plan on starting as soon as the cake comes off the winder.  But what can I say?  Sometimes you just have to throw caution to the wind.

The winding got me giddy and smile-y.  It was a great day.  And then...and then, Special K and I had to say farewell to an old friend.

Some call it a crib, we called it the "kiddie cage".  It was a great thing, this open air contraption of containment.  Until Little Sir decided that it was a jungle gym.  Sweet kid with a sweet face, yes.  Daredevil?  Definately.  What does one do with an 18 month old who thinks cribs are for climbing and WWE mini-demonstrations (we are not part of the RAW fan nation or any other wrestling nation for that matter, but we have no idea what else to call the rag tag bouncing about that went on in the cage)? 

Apparently, one prepares for sleepless nights filled with futility and exhaustion in trying to bargain with an 18 month old who does not possess bargaining skills of any sort.  Or maybe we are just stupid, perhaps he has no interest in bargaining away his freedom.  Actually, I totally get it.  Ah, defeat, I know you well.  Well, at least it's a nice blank canvas (though I like Julia's blank canvas better), that toddler bed.

And since I don't want the image that you leave my "house" with to be my kid's new bed...

And don't forget, Pushing Daisies is on tonight, people.  If you smell pie baking, move on.

i only got the albatross

Oh, but how I wish I had choc-ices.*  But it's just the albatross.  "Albatross!  Albatross!  Albatross!"  Pomotamus, thy name is Albatross.

This first sock took some doing.  It's not the pattern, it's me.  All me.  The pattern is well-written, the chart readable and understandable. It just took me a while to accept that I had to focus on the pattern and learn it before doing other things (watching telerotvision, listening to audiobooks, hanging out with Little Sir--he does not like to share his hang out time with knitting, go figure). 

And as much as I hate to rip, I am surprised that I finished the first sock at all (I ripped 3 times.  THREE TIMES!).  I think perhaps the fear of running out of yarn spurred me on too, "will I have enough?"  Or, "will I fall short?  What will I do if I don't have enough?!"  Maybe it was this living on the edge (heh.) that provided motivation for finishing the first sock.

Because really, I was so excited to finish it, I cast on right away for a second sock.

Yeah.

Viva la revolución!

*Am I the only one who walks around quoting Monty Python?