March 28, 2005

The good news...

Today, I have good news and bad news.
The good news is that my lovely daughter Amanda has returned from her European music adventure, safe, sound and seemingly unharmed. (I think I took a deep breath for the first time in two weeks on Saturday when I laid eyes on her. I don't recommend sending your children far away if you are a nervous or imaginative mother. I have spent the last two weeks mentally writing scenarios in which Amanda met with international disaster involving everything from a handsome but evil young huster named "Michèl" to a kidnapping starring an enormous and vicious mutant albatross with a nest upon the cliffs.)
The bad news?

She'sback

Amanda was apparently only glad to see me for about thirty seconds. Then she made this face at me. (It's good to know I haven't lost my touch and can still continue my life's work of wreaking humiliation and embarrassment on my children no matter how far they travel, how long they are gone or how old they get. I'm not sure if she made this face because I was simply within her personal space, because I was documenting her arrival for the blog or because I had announced my intention to strip search her and check for tattoos. Anybody's guess really.)

The good news is Norma has come over to the dark side and procured herself a spinning wheel. (Welcome Norma, and kiss your remaining closet space goodbye.)
The bad news is that in an enormous sweep of cosmic balancing, on the day that she got herself a lovely Ashford Traditional, mine broke.

Maidens

The little thingie that holds the flyer to the maiden has snapped off. I'm not naming any names, ( cough<megan>cough) but someone was spinning and was wanton and completely reckless with no decent regard for the prized possession of the woman who gave her life something went wrong. I'd imagine that all I need to do is have the aforementioned "thingie" replaced (How do you order a piece that you don't know the name of?). The horror of finding it snapped off with a dangling, disengaged flyer and a limp, lifeless drive band still has me shaken and frail, though the rage has passed with the child in question still in one piece and living with me. (Her room is really, really clean right now).

The good news is that without a spinning wheel I make really good time on my socks.

Sunflowersocks

The bad news is that I have apparently suffered a substantial break with reality and human foot size.

Toosmall

What was I thinking? I mean seriously, I have freakishly small feet and these are way too small for me. The leg is fine, the width is fine and then I just hauled off and made a toe, like... mid foot. It's like I live in an alternate universe where human foot size is variable and stumpy. I'm going to have to yank them back and add some length. Who wants to bet that after that they are too long?

The good news is that I still love the garter vine sweater, and have finished the vast expanse of the back and done a three needle bind off to attach the finished front.

Back

The bad news is that I attached the front to the wrong side so that the freaking armhole runs smack down the front of the thing and I have placed the neck right over my shoulder. (Note: there is no way to just try and figure out a way to make a scoop neck out of the armhole. I thought of that already.)

Whoops

The good news is that the March Break ends tomorrow and I am hoping that having a couple of consecutive hours where some person doesn't clear out the fridge, bug their sister until they make that screaming noise, run the battery down on the phone or say "Mum?" every 47 seconds might allow me to knit something without screwing it up so profoundly that everyone landing on this blog today wonders if I'm smart enough to dress myself in the morning.

The bad news is that a return to my baseline level of attention, concentration and intelligence is probably not enough.

Posted by Stephanie at March 28, 2005 12:25 PM