Actual Size

I'm home from my wanderings.  My husband emphasized to me that my actual time away was "ELEVEN WHOLE DAYS".  He also has discovered that he is "Only ONE Person!" (not sure what his count was before this).  In my absence, Mount Washmore, the active Laundry-cano in our home, erupted.  I think more than once.  Objects in mirror are closer than they appear:

And no, in case you were going to give my family credit for at least sorting it into these baskets, they didn't.  In fact, it even gets better:  In the laundry room, I have installed one of those plastic grocery bag storage devices you get from Ikea.  I use it to hold orphaned socks until their mates can be located, or I lose the will to search, whichever comes first.  While I was gone, this happened to it:

That's right.  Every single sock that came out of the dryer for eleven days was placed in it.  Which means that my family is unaware that the pairing up of clean socks is a MANUAL PROCESS.  They actually think this device will do it for them.   

I'm calling it Soxidermy.  A realistically preserved, wall-mounted head, made entirely of abandoned hosiery.  Its eyes follow me around the room.  Creepy.

Once I get to the bottom of this, I'll mount an assault on Mount e-mail, the active correspondence-cano.  Then I'll start winding yarn for the KAL.  I don't love this order of operations, but the clean underwear-o-meter went into the red around here sometime last Tuesday, so desperate times call for desperate measures.  We who are about to fluff and fold salute you.
 

Off Grid

I have been teaching at the Madrona Winter Retreat.  You will be pleased to know that Ms. Crazy Pants' assignment (which officially took my stress level to 11)  may actually have established me as an Undiscovered Talent.  Due to the Media Blackout surrounding the event, I'm sorry that I can't tell you anything more, but let me assure you that next year, the bar surrounding "Teacher Talent Night" has been well and truly set.  I hereby challenge all comers for next year:  Bring It.

Please excuse the fact that my posts last week were thin on the ground.  I'm sorry to admit that this week will be more of the same, due to the fact that I'm challenging myself to something really hard.

I'd love to tell you more about it, and in the course of time, I promise that I will.  But for today, MUM's the word.

I'm doing really challenging stuff, at an undisclosed location, which is guaranteed to make me a better knitter, teacher, story-teller, and Friend of the Knitter.  There is NO shortage of things in my life that will keep me humble, and I am learning new lessons almost faster than I can absorb them. 

I'm really far from home, and even the web access here is not a sure thing, so I won't even try to post again till next week.  In the meantime, how about you cats comment about what's going on in your neck o' the woods, and I promise to put them all up as fast as I can?

Next week, I'll tell you about the worst person I ever met in the world of knitting, the most staggering class I ever taught, and weather I can knit a pair of socks in 5 days or not.  What could possibly go wrong?  (Yeah, I said it. Turns out the Knitting Gods already know where to find me.)  Oh, and in case you're wondering, the Queen Bee is done.  Stay Tuned!

Bootstraps

Nothin' ever kept a good woman down for long, and a bad one gets up even faster.

First, let me apologize for my last, possibly whiniest-ever, post.  I appreciate your patience with me while I retreated to a dark corner to lick my wounds.  As a general rule, I don't approve of self-pity, but I guess we all fall prey to it from time to time.  Thanks for not pointing out, Gentle Readers, that ALL of my problems belong to the First World, and are pretty puny compared to what others endure.

Thank you also, to my kind, understanding, and loving Flight Path Mystery Knitalong participants.  Your generosity is making it possible for me to correct my yardage error in the kits without also running out of groceries.  We who are about to snack salute you.

Thanks also to the Universe, for keeping me ever humble, and always introducing lessons to me about the way things are, and the person I am.  I'm rarely happy to receive these lessons when they come, but they are always the ones I remember:

Yesterday I sat down to post my thanks to the KAL knitters for their understanding and kindness.  I was confident in my ability to do this, in spite of having lived in the Seventh Circle of Computer Hell for the last week.  The consequences of having to replace ones Operating System are dire, but I was happily starting to recover from the shock, and put the episode behind me.  And that's when the hard drive crashed.  It literally made the sound you hear when Wile E. Coyote drops off a cliff.  And then the monitor went black and all this code started flying up the screen, just like in The Matrix.  An hour on the phone with Microsoft confirmed my fear:  My hard drive had taken a Dirt Nap. 

Having no computer whatsoever is a lot worse than having lost all your data, so I can now personally attest that everything is relative.  Phillip, it should be noted, is not, um, Hardware-Actuated.  That is to say, he'd rather have a $2000.00 doorstop than take a screwdriver to a sick PC.  And I don't blame him; that sort of adventure is not for the, shall we say, Cerebral Set.  He advised me to leave it alone, permanently, and use his machine until we could save up for a new one for me.

But a friend pointed out to me that hard drives are pretty much the only moving part in a computer, and as such, likely to wear out and need replacement.  The matter-of-fact way she said it made me think "Hey yeah!  It's not like you move to a new house because a lightbulb burns out..."  And with that, the Real Mary, the Take-No-Prisioners, Yes-Of-Course-I'm Gonna-Cut-That-Sweater-With-Scissors Mary jerked out of her self-pity fugue.  I went to the electronics mega-mart.  I spent $70.  And I got out the screwdriver.

It wasn't even hard.  I taught myself how to turn a sock heel, for crying out loud.  Compared to that, Hard Drive Replacement is about as challenging as Donut Eating.  And, as it turns out, even more satisfying.  I'm not ashamed to tell you I feel just a little bit smug about having taken control over the problem.  It made all the other stuff that's been going on seem more manageable, too. 

I am Knitter.  Hear Me Roar.