The point of balance is exactly what I've been seeking the last three weeks, trying to balance out all the time that I've been away from the family by having tons of time with them, and trying to seek that point of balance before (rather frankly) I leave them again. Between the cabin in the woods and the tours and the wool events and a thousand other things, I have found that being a writer- and the huge amounts of privacy needed to be a writer (combined with the public stuff) is not exactly conducive to family life, being that families thrive on the opposite.
Finding that balance has been challenging for all parties. Joe had been asking me to make the family a priority for a couple of weeks for a while - to not share me for a while, and though it was hard for me to see through the neverending haze of the work that is supporting this family, I started to understand that no matter how much everybody needed me to work, they also needed me, and it was never going to balance itself out if we didn't take the time to balance it on purpose, and this last little while, that's exactly what we did.
As I'm sure you noticed, towards the end there I didn't even blog - although the last couple of days were due to the fact that I got a humdinger of a cold as soon as we got back. (All that vacation can wear you out. Joe's got it too now. The girls don't. There's a lesson in that.) We had a blast. Whole days without either Joe or I worrying about work or doing work, whole days without conversations being interrupted by anything other than the kids... whole conversations and days with the kids.... and the knitting? True vacations are wicked good for the knitting. Socks got knit in the car on the way to Massachusetts, socks got knit in Boston while we saw the sights and visited with Joe's Aunt, Uncle and cousins (they were wonderful hosts) and socks got knit on a very fun day in Provincetown.
I may even have found some sock friendly Carnival Revellers to hold a sock.
(The beard and moustache with the sparkly gown is hysterical to me, as is the willingness of just about everyone to hold a sock without any sort of an explanation. ) We went for a fabulous ride on the Cape Cod Rail Trail.
We stopped and played at the beach a little.
(The truth is out now. I have Fred Flintstones feet. Short and wide.) We rode and rode, the whole lot of us.
And we ended the day the way we know how. Joe's Stella, Ken's Bass Ale and sweater in progress.. my sock and Sam Adams Summer ale. (When in Rome...) I finished that sock in the car...
But here's a better picture.
It's a pattern of my own devising, and I'm going to knit the other one after I write down what I did so I can do it again. (Yarn is Sanguine Gryphon's little traveller, which seemed really appropriate.)
The blue trekking ones were finished too...
Trekking 108, my plain vanilla sock pattern.
and I even started a new project, even though I promised myself that I would absolutely finish the other socks first.
I am worthless and weak. That's the Josephine Top from Interweave Knits Summer 2007, done in a yarn I've been wanting to use for a while. It's the SWTC Pure 100% soysilk, and as someone who eats a lot of soy, I was really curious about knitting with it. It's soft and reminiscent of cotton, in the way that it's a limp fibre, almost flaccid. It's a tiny bit splitty on the needles, but I think that I could get around that if I used a slightly sharper needle, which I totally can't be bothered to do, so how splitty can it be, really. It's got gorgeous stitch definition and I think the lack of body is going to work for this project.
It's going really fast, which means that I'm not really cheating on the socks. I'm just... on a break. Yeah. That's it. Besides, I can't really knit the other socks until I finish the pattern, which I didn't so I can't. Besides it was a vacation and you can knit what you want on a vacation... and besides, now that I've started I should finish or now it'll just be another UFO (Un Finished Object) lying around the house and trying to avoid that was the whole idea anyway, so If I put this down then I'm just being hypocritical. For sure. I have to knit this. It's morally important.
(Ps. A whole bunch of you asked, so in the interest of not replying to you all individually, which I'm sorry for, but a couple of weeks off makes the inbox a place crazier than a kindergarten yard growing candy trees... No, the Baby Yours and Baby Mine patterns are not going to be made available in the future... they are available now. Here, and Here. Sorry. Forgot to mention. Also, Yes. Really. The first and second sizes of each of them can be made with one skein of STR medium weight, should it reside in your stash... and Sorry, No, those are vintage buttons from my bin and I can't tell you where to get them. In addition, Yes, Baby Mine does have the same lace as my Lenore sock pattern, and yes, that sock pattern will be available from Blue Moon soon, it was a sock club pattern so it has to do its time as an exclusive before it can be released to the general public. Yes, that will be in October, which is soon. Did I miss anything?)