See Notes:

My latest project management/progress tracking mechanism is to put these dumb little notes all over the place.  Each one represents a task I need to accomplish before deadline, and has been placed conspicuously so that I can't ignore it.

Having lost all perspective, I don't know whether this is Organization or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, nor do I care. 

I am really annoyed by the notes, both because they nag me, and because they occupy visual space that I need for other stuff, such as staring into nothingness.  Nothingness is of no use at all when some dumbass puts little notes all over it and turns it into Somethingness.  I predicted that this would be the case, and I was hoping that getting rid of each little note as I completed the task would be a gratifying and tangible landmark.  This was really brilliant thinking, except for one problem:  There are a bunch of things I forgot to make notes for.  So the first, like, 5 things I did after putting up the dumb little notes did not provide tangible gratification, or increase my visual space.  I'm going to stick with them, though, just to see if putting the notes into the little basket I have labeled "Done!" is going to encourage me as much as I thought.  I'll let you know.

Campbell asked me the other day what I was thinking about and I told him that I was a little worried I would run out of time for my project before getting done.  He told me that he thought I would make it, because I would "Purse Of Beer".  I knew that he meant "Persevere", but somehow the visual of a real live purse filled with beer was WAY more motivating.  If my kid believes in me, who am I to argue?  There's not much wrong in the world that a Purse Of Beer wouldn't cure. 
 

Crank It Up

I'm closing in on the deadline for samples and patterns.  It's in 14 days.  I still have a vest and a half, and a hat to knit, and 3 patterns to reverse-engineer (finished samples and cryptic construction notes are all I have to work from:  NEVER DO THAT!).  Yeah, this calls for some intensity. 

I have been fantasizing about running away to the beach to get my work done.  I am thinking jealously of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, alone in the snowy woods, finishing her last book.  Her descriptions of the absolute solitude are haunting me.  The cacophony of my life stands in sharp contrast.  The closest thing to solitude available to me is the pocket of each night between the Smallies' bedtime and Phillip beginning to nag me that I should turn in because it's getting late.  That works out to about 3 hours:  just enough time to frog the latest disaster, but not knit back to where I should have been.  Or enough time to draw a new chart, but not find all the mistakes in it.  Or enough time to feel bad about not doing laundry, but not enough to convince myself of its priority.  Probably there isn't enough time in the world for that one. 

So what's a girl to do?  My vacation time and bank accounts are both about dry, so the beach runaway dream will have to wait.  I will find the minutes and seconds inside my days in which I can be knitting, thinking, writing and working toward the goal.  And I'll just have to crank it up.  Wish me luck.

Collateral Damage

It all began innocently enough.  I should be paying myself a nickel for every idea that begins with the words "I'll Just..." 
"I'll just turn all these silly little ideas into a book!" 
"I'll just take care of the housework in my spare time!" 
"I'll just reupholster all the living room furniture myself!"

I should know better, but clearly I do not:

"I'll just do a little rolled hem, using that color of green that I really don't like and then I will like it!"
 

Yeah.  This is the view from my lap yesterday morning.  Total Carnage.  The further I got from that Stupid Mallard Green Rolled Hem, the more I hated it.  To make things worse, the cast-on I chose (albeit, hastily - is there any other way?) was keeping the edge from rolling right.  The hurrier I went, the more I hated the innocent bystander that was this poor sweater vest.  I told myself "Time's a wastin and them sweaters don't knit theirselves!  Press on and it'll grow on you!  Deadline's A-Comin!"

I still hated that Stupid Mallard Green Rolled Hem.  It smirked at me; lying there and refusing to roll up in the jaunty way I had envisioned. 

"HA HA: I'm ugly and you don't have time to frog 6 inches of otherwise unoffending border just to get to me!" 

Okay, the mocking tone might have been my imagination, but by this time I did not like anything the sweater had to say to me.  It was time to toughen up and admit the truth to myself:  "You hate this thing, and neither time nor effort is going to endear it to you, so suck it up and fix the problem.  You know what you have to do."

Ever frogged from the bottom up?  If so, you already know what happened.  If not, imagine trying to untie a spider's web and wind it into a perfect center-pull skein.  There are things in this universe that are not meant to work in reverse:  Bananna peels, the digestive tract of a Scottish Terrier, and the IRS are all good example of things that really don't go backwards very well.  Add Stupid Mallard Green Rolled Hem to the list:

Do not be fooled by this picture into thinking it was a simple matter of pulling on one end of the string, like opening a bag of dog food.  It was Ghastly.  Every few stitches had to be cut, and then getting hold of the shrapnel to yank it free was only possible with the aid of tweezers.  It was enough to make me reassess my whole hatred of the Stupid Mallard Green Rolled Hem in the first place.  But having both reached and passed the point of no return (loosely defined as any time scissors make aggressive contact with knitting) there was nothing for it but to press on.

Ultimately, I prevailed.  The Stupid Mallard Green Rolled Hem has been usurped by the Way Less Stupid Mulled Wine Rolled Hem, to wit:

The new and improved version has the added bonus of not sporting the ugly-ass, non-rolling weirdo cast-on problem suffered by its predecessor.  No, this little gem curls up jauntily, proclaiming to all:  "I came.  I Frogged.  I emerged Victorious." 

Now I'll just...