Timing. We have it.

The tree is down. It’s down two days early for us – I like to do it on the twelfth day of Christmas, but this year I’ll be doing something different. Joe and I are leaving in the morning for Central America – Costa Rica, to be precise, and we are excited and nervous and a little flipped out.  Here. Let’s look at Joe’s (finally – man his feet are big) finished Christmas socks to relax.

joessocks 2016-01-04

(The yarn is Into The Whirled’s Pakokku sock yarn in Cardamom, and the pattern is mine. Coming soon. Random black scraps from the stash for cuff, heel and toe.)

joessocks2 2016-01-04

I feel guilty about going somehow, I always do when I get something nice, but I’m working very hard to get over it.  Joe and I skipped the honeymoon when we got married a few years back (it seemed silly – we’d been together so long) and before this we’ve always travelled with the ladies, or me with my mum, or him with his.  (We are very charming that way.)  Between this excuse and that, and money and children and …. we realized two weeks ago that we’re always putting it off. Saying we’re going to travel, saying we’re going to see everything together, but we never do. The timing is always bad, it seems.  There’s always a reason we can’t go. My work, his work… the travel fund sits there, and we don’t spend it.  Two weeks ago we were working our way through Christmas stuff, and Joe said something like “*&%$ it. Let’s just go.”

I looked at my calendar, he looked at his, and lo and behold we each had exactly 7 days free. At the same time. I think I said something like “We can’t. That’s crazy.” and Joe said something like “Steph, we haven’t been away together on a trip – just the two of us, since we went to Hawaii for the weekend 17 years ago.  It’s not crazy. It’s the opposite of crazy.”

I took a deep  breath then, because I am sort of a little bit not good at making plans quickly like that (if by a little bit not good at it you understand that I mean I am not good at it the way that toddlers are bad at accounting) and we booked it. We got online that exact minute, and we booked it. Right then. Right there. Then we got our shots, and said nothing to nobody (because it all seemed so wild) and then about a week ago we told the family. We told them sheepishly, feeling guilty about the decadence, wondering what they would say.  They all said “Good for you.” My mum even pointed out that now is the time. The ladies are all big enough to be left, all on their own, and we have no grandchildren (yet, they can  all hold off on that for a while as far as we’re concerned) and if not now… when?

So, tomorrow we’ll fly far away, and see new things, and I don’t know what it will be like, but I promise to tell you all about it. I’ve packed all my things, and the only decisions left to make are ones about yarn.  I’m looking forward to sun and sand and rainforests and volcanoes and monkeys (and I am pretending the spiders aren’t as big as Hondas in Costa Rica) … but the knitting. Oh, there will be knitting.

I’ve got a skein of sock yarn, and…. well.  After that, the world is my oyster. What should I take?