Don't Quit Your Day Job

Happy New Year, Gentle Readers.  A big announcement:

I quit my day job.

After 14 years, I have resigned my post at the hospital.  Packed up my fish and left.  Didn't let the door hit me.  Said my farewells and didn't even cry.  Much.

Turns out that even I have my limits; notably juggling my family, my knitting, my writing, and my full time employment left me ragged around the edges.  Turns out that for me, "multitasking" means "doing more than one thing at a time badly". 

So while certain challenges lay before me, I am confident that I've made the proper decision.  And of course, I have Big Plans:

Institute Minimum Household Sanitation Thresholds

Find out where the Grocery Store is

Learn to Cook

Find out what the pets do all day

Go for a walk

Knit

Be waiting for the Smallies when they come home from school.

And this is just the preliminary list of Big Plans.  If things go well, I'm also going to look into getting a social life.  Well, at least find some like-minded knitters to hang out with.

The run-up to my big exit from the rat race has been intense.  When things start going down hill, it really does get faster at the bottom.  Job 1 as soon as I was free of the day job was to assemble and ship the Wisteria kits for Madrona:
 

Behold the glory of the handpainted Wisteria Yarn!  I got to ask especially for the yarn attributes I wanted for this project.  I got to specify the color palette.  I got to confer with the yarn artist.  And then I got to bring home this huge hurkin' pile of beauty to make the kits from!  How's that for a knitters' Dream Come True?  My Madrona students are SO going to love this. 

As for the actual kit-making, I had lovely assistants:

Lookit how Helpy they all are!  We assembled all the kits together, right here on the dining room table.  I asked them if they thought this would make us a Close-Knit family.  Three pairs of eyes rolled skyward, and the dog groaned.

So the kits are mailed, and I can breathe for a little bit.  Thing the Next will be the Catkins project.

And yes, Clementine is adjusting to the new scenery, as well.

Pardon Me While I Triangulate

It could be charitably understated that my relationship with direction is casual.  I think that geographical sense must be located in the same group of brain cells as mathematical abilities.  Or as I often put it: "In my other purse".  

The last time I was in a new town, there was exactly ONE turn between my hotel and the yarn shop where I was teaching.  Drove right past it.  Kept on driving for a really long time before the dawning of a sense that Something Was Wrong.  That's ONE turn, Gentle Readers.  Fifteen minutes late to my own class.  Understanding students notwithstanding, it was really embarrassing.  Really?  You're going to teach me to cut my sweater in half, but you can't manage to hang a left? 

My children, with help from their clever and resourceful father, chose a really perfect Christmas present for me this year.  Meet my new best pal, "Tom":

The best thing about this present is how it shows that my family, addition to sympathy for my directional impairment, have offered me actual help.  It's like having a little tangible bit of their love and support with me, even when I'm far from home.  And increases my chances of turning left appropriately in an exponential way.

In unrelated happy news, I promised to let my sock-loving friends know when my new Magic Carpet pattern is available, and today's the day!  Go Here, snap up one of these adorable kits, and have yourself a little Post-Christmas/Pre-New Year hoot.  The yarn and pattern are available there exclusively, so when they're gone, they're gone.  The kits even include the needles, so you have no excuse not to start knitting immediately, and when you're done (which will be before you know it), you can smugly congratulate yourself on having completed something really special, and on supporting an independent, woman-owned business.

And if anybody needs me, I'll be over here, triangulating.
 

God Bless Us, Every One

I'm giving thanks today for my many blessings, among which I count you, Gentle Readers.  Thank you for your inspiration, encouragement, straightforwardness, loyalty, and patience.  Few knitters have the honor of friends like you, and I hope you know what your readership means to me.

Other blessings I am counting today include, but shall not be limited to the following:

Charts:    Can you imagine what would happen to me if all my patterns had to be written like this: "Row 1; work 3 red, 4 black, 7 red, 2 black..."?  That way lay certain madness.  To the inventer of graph paper, my Undying Gratitude.

Steeks:    Without which, I would have substantially less fun, and no one-woman crusade to spread the message to knitters. 

Yarn:        Just have to say it out loud - can't get enough of the stuff.  To the people engaged in growing it, spinning it, dyeing it and selling it, Many Thanks Indeed.

Needles:    Pointy, blunt, wooden, steel, circular, not, we love them all.  The clever souls who (continue to) invent better mousetraps for us deserve our deep and abiding thankfulness.

Stitch Markers:    Even though I make my own (lightbulb! I should make a tutorial for that!), I feel obliged to thank the intrepid knitter who devised the method of their use.  For this help, O knitter of old, whomever you are, Thank You Thank You Thank You.

Blue Painters Tape:    Okay, this might not be the first thing you think of in the realm of knitting stuff you love, but for me, it's a crucial chart-following implement.  Doesn't stick to paper charts.  Lasts longer than a sticky-note.  Costs little.  Also good for painting things, or so I'm lead to understand.

Sheep:    Because I Really. Love. Wool.

Knitting Books:    Where would the great chefs of our time be without recipes to inspire them?  Where would we knitters be without Elizabeth, and Clara, and Stephanie?  Knitting is a world in which there is room for everyone's idea. 

The Person Who Taught Us To Knit:    Thank you, Mom.  Even if you were only trying to find some way to occupy me and gain a moment's peace, Thank you.  Sitting close to someone you care about as they haltingly cause the string to loop around the sticks is a gift given to a blessed few.  My fondest wish for you, Gentle Readers, is that you will love someone enough to teach them to knit. 

Best wishes to you all for Peace, Love, and Yarn.