So, if you are sort of annoyed because:
1. There are still a lot of people in your office, (47 days until the first day of school) and they don’t. Shut. Up.
2. If yesterday you realized that really, most people driving cars really aren’t being careful about cyclists and that they actually are trying to kill you.
3. that even though these people are trying to kill you…somehow they still believe that it would be wrong for me to haul off and kick their car right after they tried to kill me. (Oh, excuse me, did I bother your enormous steel weapon with my BODY?)
4. That you are having actual real conversations with your husband about how he sort of resents that your opinion that Mike the family hamster probably doesn’t mind growing older on account of he has “a brain the size of a lentil”, and that your husband resents this because he actually believes that the hamster is (and I quote) “Smart, charming and funny” (and by funny he means not that he finds the hamster amusing, but that he believes that the hamster has an actual sense of humour…..)
5. That you have six (6) loads of unfolded but clean laundry on your bed that you have been moving around for 6 days. Each day you put a load on the bed, then bug someone under the age of 16 to fold it until nightfall, then move it to the dresser so you can sleep in your bed, then move it back in the morning and add another load.
That if all of these things are totally bugging the crap out of you and you are starting to think about blender drinks by about 1:20 in the afternoon….then knitting a tiny little pair of bee shoes can totally take the edge off.
I found it impossible to have any concerns more pressing than Bee Shoes while I was making them. Look! Bee shoes!
(knit from mystery stash sock yarn (something woolly and sock weight) pattern from 50 Baby Bootees To Knit. )
Also, I am caught up with adding names and numbers to Knitters Without Borders, so more presents!
Paula sends this wonderful Manos,
Leila W., enjoy!
and Jae has given a copy of the second edition of her fab Zine
“Take back the Knit“. I love this little homespun mag, and this time it’s even better. I’ve got a little piece in there, and there are patterns or pieces from, Robyn, Laura, Birdsong, Jodi, Monika, Missy, Kristin, Ann & Kay, Erin, MK, Julie, and Michael among others. Despite the clear plan for bloggers to take over the world, my good friend and local non-blogging knit-genius Denny managed to get in there too.
Jill C. I hope you love it.
Finally, from me…A copy of The Stich & Bitch Knitters Design Journal that I’ll pop in the mail to Leanne C.
Tune in tomorrow to see if I finish the blanket or knit more little shoes. (I’m trying to be a better person.)
If you can make it to 1:20 before beginning to fantasize about blender drinks, you’re doing admirably well. Sometimes bourbon is a nice add-in to morning coffee. 🙂
And the bee shoes are adorable. I’ve resisted buying the _50 Bootees_ book, but my resolve is weakening.
–Kristen
It sounds like it is time for a trip to Portland where I can soothe you with wine and pasta:) The bee booties are too cute!
Stephanie, knitting more little shoes will definitely make you a better person. . .
Stephanie ~ I finished your 1st book last night (second one on order already from BN.cm) Anyway ~ I loved it I cracked up so many times my DH thought I was losing it. I read him many parts and he too agrees. In fact he has questioned me as to the lack of arriving packages (yarn) and wants to know if am having it sent to my office or to one of my knitting girlfriends. I told him neither I am showing great restraint. SAFF in N.C. is in October!!!!!!!
Keep up the wonderful work!!!!
Best wishes
Betsy
Are you coming to South Florida soon?
Has the baby been born yet? No? You still have time. More time to feel nauseous I suppose, but still time. 😉
Thank God! I thought I was the only one watching the clock for an appropriate happy hour time. The shoes are great. I, too, am knitting a baby blanket and finding it a challenge to keep going. Thinking about my new niece wrapped in it is the ONLY motivation.
Okay, call me a crazy/lazy/odd American, but why not just dump the clothes on the owners’ respective beds and forget about it?
You have a smaller pile on your own bed to move about and you don’t have to wait on the snarky ass teens to grow out of their self-absorption (hey, no matter how great our teens are, they are still teens… I’m speaking as a mother of a snarky ass – although quite a lovely human being – 17 year old daughter) and fold the laundry. Like you really want to wait until they’re 30?
BTW, love the bee booties!
I vote for more little shoes;-)
The bee booties are utterly charming!
I hear ya on the laundry thing. For us the pile gets moved to the computer chair in a tall precarious tower. In the morning, I roll it over and tip it back onto the bed. Though this week with my husband doing nightshifts and sleeping during the day somewhere else (quieter!), I just leave the pile on his side of the bed.
I second roggey’s idea. Put the laundry on the owners bed and let everyone fold their own.
My partner used to cycle in London (the big one, in England) and has seen a cyclist just put his D-lock on his harm and swing it around while cycling. Cars do not come close enough to kill you if you do this. I also understand that banging on their hood with your flat hand makes a helluva racket.
Bee bootees are cute but I never used bootees when F. was little so I don’t know why I’d give any to someone else.
I wish I had 47 days until school. Let’s see…I go back on Aug. 1, students return on Aug. 5th…today is the 21st…I have 10 days left of summer. Bummer!
Still drinking the clover (gak!) and raspberry tea (is it okay if it is mixed with black tea?). Enjoy your summer with a/c!
You being the Knitting Santa is very cool — especially in July!
“Trying to be a better person.” Ummmm….how, Steph? I mean, honestly. How much better do you need to be? You’re funny, artistic, imaginative, socially conscious, giving….need I go on? How much further can you possibly go? Although, Saint Harlot has a nice ring to it. *giggle*
Lurv da bee shoes. Too damn cute.
Have a great day!
Hurray for the wee bee shoes! And hurray for the blender drinks! Hurray for the abstract modernist creative artwork that could be produced by knitting wee bee shoes while consuming blender drinks!
But the biggest hurray is for all the people small enough to wear wee bee shoes. They smile, coo, gurgle, cuddle, don’t talk back, and wear tiny tiny clothes that don’t take much time to fold!
If the booties don’t earn you some karma points, enduring that blanket certainly will. both are definitely worth the baby cuteness that would ensue!
Those are the cutest little booties! I’m thinking Ambrynn’s gonna need a pair of those. And the baby blanket, too.
You actually wait until 1:20 to think about blender drinks?! Wow. Isn’t it amazing what a/c does for a soul!
I purchased a second bookbookbook for a dear friend. Any chance I can get it autographed?
The booties are great. No wonder they took the edge off for you.
I’m right there with you counting the days down. If I’m sitting at my computer, its an open invitation for all the testosterone in my house to talk to me at the same time. What gives? We need to put a countdown clocks on our computers and special activities for the big day.
Tanya
My DH bike commutes to work every day, and although I support him in this endeavor, it also makes me Very.Nervous as we live in a city full of nutso drivers.
And hey, why wait until the afternoon for blender drinks? Smoothies can be very healthy, and you can easily sneak in a little something extra.
p.s. I love the bee booties.
p.p.s I don’t love hamsters.
the bee shoes are killing me. really. i must buy that book (or at least check it out of the library, but i don’t think they’ll have it). i’d probably feel differently if I worked from my home instead of an office, but i don’t want the summer to end and i’m in no rush for the kids to go back to school. again, i’m sure i would be counting down the days if i worked at home, but still…there never seems to be enough time with my kiddies. sigh. bee shoes. wow.
Sounds like my day yesterday 🙂 We all seem to have those. Personally, I have stored laundry IN the dryer when I have run out of moving around room 😉
Love those bee booties!
so, if you are sort of annoyed because of any of a number of things (and don’t get me wrong, they’re all totally valid – especially, imo, the damn hunks of metal that threaten our lives in more ways than one) knitting amazing bee booties is up there and perhaps while we’re doing it, we can take a moment and be grateful that none of us or anyone we love, or anyone that anyone loves for that matter, was killed in the most recent of scare tactics in that beautiful city called london, where my beloved baby sister lives. gimme piles of clean laundry any day. bring on the husband with a soft spot for hamsters’ feelings (i’m on ‘his side’ even though i can hardly stand pets, let alone small ones who need cages that need cleaning!) and for sure bring on the kids in the office (mine are here 365 days a year … call me crazy but they won’t be here forever)
and while we’re at it … bring on the blender drinks!! life is short 🙂
Ya know, my spawn usually have me thinking about blender drinks much earlier than 1:20.
I’ll have to try something like bee shoes.
My mom is visiting and she does the laundry and folds it. (Which is quite lovely). But picking up their piles seems to be beyond their ability. Frankly, I don’t care much whether it is folded. Well, I do care, but that seems to be such a losing battle. I just would like it to be put away. But they often do their own laundry – need a uni to go rowing at 5 a.m. in the morning? Then they do it. My older son taught his college roommate how to do laundry. I was very pleased, but was kind of annoyed at the parents of an only child who hadn’t made a kid do laundry.
Blender drinks seem like a good idea.
Whenever anyone gets on the subject of near-collisions with oblivious motorists, my DH tells of the time he was coming back from a good hot sweaty workout on roller blades – he was passing (going uphill) a car that was waiting to turn left, and the yahoo behind that car swerved aroud to pass on the right. DH managed to squish himself into the 2 inches remaining of the shoulder, meanwhile banging loudly on the windows and body panels and smearing all his oily ishy sweat onto the (prisitnely washed) SUV… He only wishes she would have stopped and gotten angry with him. Perhaps it’s better she didn’t…
My friend Ian used to be a bike messenger in NYC. Ian is also British, with that particular accent that makes “th” sound like “f” and chews all the vowels. Imagining the accent will make this funnier.
Anyway, Ian says, “My second least favorite thing in the world is cars who try to change lanes into me when I’m on my bicycle. My least favorite thing in the world is Volvos who do that, ‘cuz the mirrors don’t come off when you kick ’em.”
Here on the Left Coast we wait until the sun is over the yardarm (round about noon)for beer or, in my case, gin-and-tonics to be socially acceptable. 1:20 is way late! If you’re going to start so early in the day, though, make the drinks weak, and keep knitting booties. Maybe try iced coffee with bourbon! In a blender – yum. I can’t wait to get home and try it.
Please don’t try to be a better person. It would make the rest of us feel bad, and besides, really good people can be so boring. (Ever read Nick Hornby’s “How to Be Good”?)
Ah! Bee shoes! (Charming ones, at that!) Because I am desperately in need of a solution to the clean but unfolded laundry problem, and though my children are (temporarily, I’m sure) enthusiastic about the folding task, their efficiency is somewhat lacking, as is their attention span. Laundry folding, laundry throwing–it’s all a matter of how you look at it, it seems. And I am unable to resolve the problem that situations that are conducive to folding laundry are also conducive to knitting, and sometimes spinning…well, you see the problem.
Those bee booties are just too sweet!
*too busy to comment, as I am running out the door immediately to buy blender, daquiri mix and alcohol, baby booties book and yarn*
those are easily the cutest baby booties i’ve seen this year. maybe ever. *coo*
I really wish I had someone under the age of 16 to nag about folding the laundry. I nag the dog, but he doesn’t even pretend to be interested – he thinks that because he doesn’t wear clothes he’s exempt from laundry folding. Whatever. The bee booties are adorable – maybe you could make a matching hat. My FIL puts kahlua (sp?) in his coffee – you know, coffee flavored liquour, sugar… Just saying.
Okay, first of all… SECOND book? Why didn’t you tell us? Did you tell us? Did I miss it? (I mean, I knew it was in the works, but hadn’t heard about release dates or anything.) Oh, there it is on Amazon! September 1! Eeek!
Secondly, you now have me trying to decide whether my parents would be traumatized to find a bootie pattern book on my birthday list. While my annoyances are slightly different than yours, I am now totally convinced that I must knit bee shoes to get unannoyed.
Thirdly, is it bad that I’m an adult and tend to do the bed/dresser thing with my own clean clothes?
Hey Harlot – you’re everywhere. I just googled “yarn shop thumb area michigan” and your 9/28/04 blog entry was featured in the top ten. Gave me a chuckle. Don’t suppose you know of any yarn shops up in the thumb area of Michigan . . .
The bee booties are the cutest. Try the duck feet. A knitting friend here at work just finished them and they’re too funny.
That laundry-on-the-bed cycle is the story of my life. Only I have no teenagers, it’s just my own laziness. Could you try only washing your own stuff for a week or so, and let the rest of them stink? Might backfire unless you can find a way to keep them out of your office, though. . .
Do you hold up the booties every four rows or so to admire their delightful cuteness, and constantly bug Joe to admire them with you? That’s totally what I would be doing, making my spouse not only look, but say how cute they are. Every four rows.
See now when I was growing up my mom would have just moved those 6 piles of clothing to my bed so that I would be forced to A) put them away, b) move them until I put them away.
Love the little bee shoes, very cute.
Oh my gosh, bee shoes! If ever anything knitting would make you say awwww those are it. Adorable.
Bee shoes, bee shoes, bee shoes…almost makes you forget that laundry, eh? Did you walk around the house paying everyone back by shouting, “Bee shoes! Bee shoes!”? That might have been a good addition to the blender drink…
Want to help me knit three mermaid’s tails? No, I’m not kidding.
Last week I finished First Sock. (Okay, technically it’s a little baggy around the ankles & needs to be entirely reknit. But I’m counting it as complete for now.) At random intervals, the glee overwhelms me & I have to shout “Socks!” So I can understand about the bee shoes … even more so because tonight I’ll finish First Baby Garment. Man, are those wee things satisfying!
Hmm, I can imagine that Mikethehamster is funny. And smart. But CHARMING? I can’t wrap my brain around that one for some reason.
I’m picturing him offering me tea. PipPip and all that.
Did you get hurt? In the incident with the stupid car?
Nice bees. So cute I wish I were having a baby. almost.
My laundry is in a heap IN the laundry basket waiting to be folded. They are so wrinkled. It ALMOST makes me want to iron them.
xoxoxoxo
yes to all of the above, changing bike to simply walking, change hampster to two too many cats, qand leaving out the laundry cuz now that my kids are grown they do it for me and i leave it folded up in the hamper,
but
last week i ordered the yellow and black regia.
thanks for showing me what i could do with it.
great minds think of silly diversions. hehehe
marie in florida
yes to all of the above, changing bike to simply walking, change hampster to two too many cats, qand leaving out the laundry cuz now that my kids are grown they do it for me and i leave it folded up in the hamper,
but
last week i ordered the yellow and black regia.
thanks for showing me what i could do with it.
great minds think of silly diversions. hehehe
marie in florida
yes to all of the above, changing bike to simply walking, change hampster to two too many cats, qand leaving out the laundry cuz now that my kids are grown they do it for me and i leave it folded up in the hamper,
but
last week i ordered the yellow and black regia.
thanks for showing me what i could do with it.
great minds think of silly diversions. hehehe
marie in florida
So, are we going to have a party when it hits $100,000? I think we should. 🙂
#5. Me…only, I sorted the socks out (necessity) and paired them up…and moved the rest of the pile into the guest room…out of sight!
It took me three pairs of baby booties to finally get over it. I chose a kind of fiddly third pair, or I might still be at it. The bee shoes are adorable — can’t blame you in the least!
The bee shoes are absolutely fantastic. Like in totally marvellous. We too have a (not A load, actually, but several loads) load of clean washing that’s travelling around the bedroom and some other rooms. How’s about the kitchen table, from when someone tried to fold them and watch the news at the same time, but got interrupted an then the one-year-old came and tipped the lot over, onto the floor?
I just love the cute little shoes, and can see how they would totally de-stress your life! The laundry can feel like getting something accomplished or a terrible curse, and I empathise with trying to get teenagers to do some work; they start in on it right after they move out. Thanks for the shout on Jae’s ezine; I am looking forward to getting my copies, and proud of her for keeping the print medium fresh and alive.
I just love the cute little shoes, and can see how they would totally de-stress your life! The laundry can feel like getting something accomplished or a terrible curse, and I empathise with trying to get teenagers to do some work; they start in on it right after they move out. Thanks for the shout on Jae’s ezine; I am looking forward to getting my copies, and proud of her for keeping the print medium fresh and alive.
Adorable bee shoes! I pile all my unfolded laundry on our guest bed. Works out great until the in-laws or my parents visit 🙂
Maybe your husband is projecting…maybe he as the only man in a house full of women is relating to the only other male…Mike the Hamster (Flash my husband did this, 5 girl children, and only 1 male, a neutered cat who didn’t care if Flash lived or died)so when your husband says “Mike is charming, intelligent and funny” he is really saying “I am charming , intelligent and funny” and when you say “Mike is a demented fleabag who would be better use as a cat toy” well you get the picture. or I could be speaking bollocks…which is probably more likely.
Hee . . . the “brain is a lentil”/”charming, intelligent, and funny” debate is often played out in my house regarding the cats, only it’s a debate over which cat is MORE charming, intelligent, and funny. We have long since convinced ourselves that they have all these qualities despite their pea-brains.
The bee shoes are utterly charming. Love the photos with the flowers.
Lovely knitting as usual! Cute booties. I found some folded laundry in my room a couple weeks ago and was dumbfounded, but realized my mom was visiting and had done it I suppose out of habit or to be nice. Might I suggest that you use a different holding place for the laundry (not your bed that you sort of need each night), or is this one of those times when a suggestion is not the right thing?
Hamster story – When my husband and I were first married he suggested it might be fun to get a hamster. He brought home 2 females and a male. (apparently he had flunked Biology 101) Inside of a month we had 25 hamsters. Did you know hamsters gestate for 16 DAYS? Holy Cow. They are cute, but they really do have a brain the size of a lentil and they have a disturbing tendency to eat their young. Don’t get any ideas.
They’re so freakin’ adorable! Do you have a recipient in mind, or are they solely for your mental health? Either way, V. cute 🙂
awesome little bee booties!
OMG, will you knit ME some bee shoes? Pweeze?
We are the “Other” kind of bikers in our family (I’m thinking of starting my own motorcycle gang – Chicks With Sticks), but you can still have the occasional problem with cars. My eldest son – the one who does the most riding – almost had someone turn into him at an intersection. He gave the car a good old fashioned kick. When you are wearing heavy motorcycle boots, it tends to get a person’s attention! My husband rides a very noisy Harley Fatboy (that’s the name of the motorcycle – not a comment on my hubby’s girth). If you can’t hear him coming, you must be completely deaf. But I think the deaf could feel the bike coming through the vibration. Makes the whole house vibrate when he starts it in the garage. Stephanie – perhaps you should go “Vrooom, Vroom, Vroom” as you ride your bike! Might not help, but it would certainly be entertaining.
Blender drinks……yum! Count me in!
What cute, cute little bee booties!
Hey, at least you’re not a member of the Australian women’s cycling team (one dead, five injured in car crash while training in Germany this week)
I hear ya about the cars trying to kill cyclists. I love to ride my bike, and after all this time you’d think I’d know better, but I continue to be amazed at the absolute lack of consideration that people in cars give to people on bicycles. Not the least of it is drivers who pass you with little or no room to spare (why yes, I HAVE been run off the road), but I burn with a special kind of anger at the ones who drive up behind you, and then HONK. Because that’s not going to surprise me, make me jump, and potentially steer my bike back out into the road, right into your path.
Although sometimes biking angry gives me a little boost and makes me ride that much harder, I still dream of having a baseball bat and going nuts all over the car. Sure, it’s a dream, because I wouldn’t actually DO it, but it’s quite a lovely dream.
Bah. Hate cars.
you have clean laundry???? …and bitty baby bee shoes…sigh… most kids i know, given the predicament of clean laundry on their beds would sleep ON it, thereby rendering it into a mushed rumpled mess that would earn said laundry a trip, unworn, back into the laundry pile
Those wee bee booties are just right, cute but with enough wit to save them from syrupy sweet cute overload. Yes, #5 exactly! Good to have a new shorthand, so when DH complains that he doesn’t have any clean socks or undershorts in his dresser, I can just nod gravely and say, “Five.” Must remember to go feed my Mr. Washie today — we need a new infusion of clean clothes for the bed.
Thank you, thank you. Reading your post and all these comments let me know that I am not the only one who thinks about busting out the margarita mix and Cuervo for lunch. Although, I have often thought lately that, to really improve my mood, I should share the blender drinks with my CONSTANTLY WHINING 2.5 year old son.
Recently while riding my bike to/from work, I’ve had similar thoughts. I hear cars coming up behind me and wonder, “what if they aim their car for me?” I don’t seriously think it will happen, but I can see how it might be a temptation for a truly depraved individual. Sort of the perfect crime, assuming no one sees them do it.
Maybe cycling to work is not a soothing as I thought it was going to be.
Uggh, motorists make me swear! Did you REALLY kick his car? Good for you.
You ARE a better person. Love the bee shoes, theyre bee-u-tiful.buzzzzzz
at some point (about when my kids were 12/14) i bought 6 laundry baskets.
at first i continued to do the laundry–but as it came out of the dryer, it got sorted into piles.. (one for E, one for B, one for Not-So-DH, one for me, (and often a second for me or not-so-DH) or a ‘family one(towels, sheets)
anyone who wanted folded, smooth clothes could fold them, themselves.(or they could leave the clothes crumpled in the basket)
(not-so-DH objected strenuously to having to fold his own underwear. not long after (well 5 years, but i am slow learner) Not-So-DH became EX.
after about a year, kid had learned to add clothes to laundry baskets (to be washed) to take the basket to basement (why do women get to work in basement?) and eventually to actually operate washer and dryer.
(mother in law was astounded when son B visited at summer house, and on the last day, got up striped the sheets off the bed, washed them and had them hung out to dry (before she got up! and she was an early riser!)
Ex still pretends not to know how to operater a washer or dryer. (a masters degree in english, but he still can’t parse the directions for washing clothes!) but its not my problem.
B used to bike to school-(university) and still bikes to work. i pretend every biker i see is B, and drive very carefully round bikers.. (but i am a speed demon on a hiway!)
I want bee shoes too!
My suggestion: Put the clean laundry on their respective beds and shut the door. Problem solved and you don’t have to look at it. Any dirty laundry must be delivered (or it doesn’t get done). Booties are adorable…must consider making bee socks for big people (i.e. me)! How about we meet halfway at the Falls and compare blender drinks?
Oh my God, my laundry situation is the same way. Worse, the cat pees on it if I leave it in a heap too long and then I have to wash it AGAIN, on hot! Rumor has it you’re coming to Portland Oregon in August. See you then for blender drinks! Oh yeah, by the way, funny to note I also checked out the upcoming school calendar last night. Great minds think alike. 🙂
Is that a brown lentil or a red lentil?
I see you’re going to Winnipeg – could you possibly make a jaunt over to Thunder Bay and visit all the knitters of Northern Ontario? Please please please please please? We have the wonderful Caryll’s Yarns, as well as Threads in Time.
Please please!!
You’ll never run out of places to visit! Reno? I have a Vita Mix, I can REALLY do blender drinks.
Stephanie I love you!!!!! Well not in THAT way! but if you can deal with shifting laundry and dreaming of blender drinks at 1:20, I feel thare is hope yet. What so long??
You make me feel more sane and less alone.
And yes, I used to bike a lot until I married my darling sweetie who lives off a major transportation hub in my area. Just driving out of my neighborhood requires holding one’s breath and uttering a quick prayer. But I used to bike everywhere and have dreamed of pounding more cars than I dare to think about. Can I count them instead of sheep at night — who knows, it just might work.
I haven’t read your book yet but have become addicted to your blog. I will get there eventually.
Someone else posted this, but I reiterate. Put the clothes on the children’s beds. And REFUSE to iron or rewash them when they throw them on the floor and the dog lays on them. Someone else mentioned cat pee, too – works great if they want to go to the mall with their friends and only have dog-hairy, cat-peed-on clothes to wear.
I love the bee shoes. It’s very possible that I need a pair for myself.
Someone’s probably suggested this, but maybe it would be more effective to put the unfolded laundry on the kids’ beds – they can then put it away themselves. Worked for my Mom.
Completely adorable little shoes! I love them!
Did I miss it? or has no-one said “They are the bee’s knees!”????? Or are these only words coming from a woman who also says such-like: “Each to his own taste, said the old woman as she kissed the cow!”? et & And is happy to have a wide, weird verbal source pool?? Just couldn’t resist. Sorry.
Give up on the laundry: you have lost the battle as long as they know you will get tired of looking at it and moving it back and forth and will eventually fold it yourself.
In my house, anyone over the age of 14 can do their own laundry. Anyone 14 and under gets their laundry handed to them in a basket, folded or unfolded as you wish. Then, it’s up to them. My 14 year old lives out of his laundry basket, and I swear I get the same clean clothes back in the wash at the end of the week, unworn. When he turns 15, I’m not sure he’ll be up to the task. I fear I’ll be doing his wash until he’s 40.
This rule excludes husbands, because they expect this service from you and you must comply. I don’t know why this is, it just is. I fully expect my husband to put his own clothes away (I do fold them, as they are taken of the dryer, as I do my own) It’s up to him to move it on and off his side of the bed so he can sleep in it. But the basket just sits there on or beside the bed until all the clothes have been worn and put in the dirty basket.
I hate performing these stupid little chores for perfectly able-bodied people who should be doing it themselves.