The Wild Rumpus

Let me tell you this. Over the last few months, as I've trained for the rally and finished a book, I have had one word in my mind to keep me sane and give me something to hold on to, and that word my friends, that word has been "August."

Every time I there was something I wanted to do that wasn't writing a book or riding a bike, I just set it aside with a label on it that said "August." The dust bison, roaming freely through the great hardwood plains of the living room?  August. The garden, so overrun with weeds and plants trampled by undeterred raccoons? August.  Mount Laundry, soaring mighty and high in the bedroom, with cresting whitecaps of socks and underwear at the top threatening to topple and bury the cat... the beautiful meals I wanted to cook, the organized kitchen I love to have, the friends I long to entertain in the back garden - dining under the twinkle lights in the summer evenings... August.

Canoeing.  Hanging with Lou, Getting ready for a new niece or nephew, now just two months away. Cycling around the Island with Joe, and I just got this book and I'm going to make some cool stuff like dilly beans. (How did I not know about dilly beans until I was 45? Where the hell have I been living?)   More than anything else though, I have been looking forward to knitting.  I am so excited that I have to work hard to remember that I'm not on vacation and still have a job. (This is very hard when you're self-employed. It would be easier to apply myself to work if there was someone in the office who didn't want to knit all day and wasn't totally willing to take me to a yarn store.)  Now that August is here, I want to do nothing but knit, and there are so many choices that I'm overwhelmed.  This morning I almost lost my cool and cast on like... nineteen things before I got anything resembling a grip. (I did not, however, get a grip before ordering a rather shocking amount of yarn online, but that's a story for another day.)  I decided that since I have lots of stuff on the go, that the way I'm going to do this is to cast on one thing every time I cast one thing off.  

(For the record, I am not opposed to multiple WIPs in any way, shape or form and believe right down to my little toes that there is no moral virtue in having lots on the needles, or very little. Monogamy is right the heck optional in my knitting and the only reason I'm making any effort to limit projects at all is because I would like to finish a few things sometime before I die, and that's not going to happen if I let my horrendously short attention span be in charge of yarn.)

(Yarn: Regia Nation - Colourway 5399, sadly discontinued. Pattern: My plain one from Knitting Rules, needles 2.25mm. Model: Sam, who would have been less annoyed about modelling if these were for her. They're not.)

Finishing these socks (totally a cheat, they only needed one toe) means that now I can cast on something else. I'm thinking baby sweater. No - wait. Shawl. Or socks. Maybe it should be socks because I finished socks. Hold the phone - a hat. I should totally knit a hat, and by hat I mean cowl. Crap, already knitting a cowl. I'll do mittens. 
Or something.
Anything.
Oh. Man.

No pressure August, but don't let me down.