All Over But the Finishin'

Finally!



I refused to go to bed last night until I'd finished the stupid baby blanket. Now all I need to do is weave in the ends, and it's done. Thank goodness. Now comes the fun part -- choosing what to do next.

Since yesterday was Monday, I headed over to the store to knit with the girls. This week, I was repeatedly poked in the head with a metal needle from one side and got constant demands to fix a project from the other.

There were three girls this week. Miss H is *so close* to finishing her bag -- but we'll need one more skein. Miss C spent the entire time pouting and moaning about her scarf. She's sick of it. It's pink, and she now officially hates pink. But her mom won't let her start something else until she finishes the scarf. She's so close -- but instead of following my advice and just getting to work on it so she'll be able to finish it and start on that bag she's been talking about forever, she spent most of the time pouting and not knitting. And Miss A (I think I should just start referring to her as Taz because she often reminds me of the Tazmanian Devil on the old Bugs Bunny cartoons -- she's just all over the place, a tornado of activity) picked up the stitches and began working in the round on her bag. She's already said that she doesn't like pink and purple (the colors in her yarn), but she hasn't specifically said that she's sick of working on her bag. She may have decided to make it smaller than originally planned, but at least she hasn't thrown it aside and refused to work on it. She did, however, buy more yarn to make felted potholders for her dad, so who knows what will happen next week.

Afterwards, Miss H and I went out to the Chinese buffet for dinner. Not only did I have a blast (because Miss H is a great kid -- and she's kinda like the little sister I never had) but it was way better than having dinner at home by myself.

When I got home, there was a package from Mom waiting for me. She knit me a scarf!



This is Mom's third scarf! Doesn't it look great? I called her to thank her (in fact, I was talking with her on my hands-free while I took this picture), and she told me that when she was finishing it, she realized that she remembered how to bind off -- and she didn't even have to look it up. She's having so much fun knitting -- and I couldn't be happier. Next lesson: purling. I told her that her next scarf should be a k1 p1 rib -- and I sent her off to Hobby Lobby, where their Yarn Bee yarns are 1/2-off this week.

After talking to Mom, I got to work on the blanket while flipping between the hockey game and The Apprentice. I've gotta tell you -- it was nice to control the remote. Once I finished the blanket, I ended up sitting in my office writing for a while (since I'm at my most creative late at night -- which is why I worked on my big college term paper nightly between 10pm and 4 am). Then I did some reading.

Even then, I couldn't get to sleep. I think there were a number of reasons:

1) I'm not used to sleeping alone anymore. When Paul's gone, so is my built-in heater. And it didn't help that it's been so windy lately that it sounded like the house was going to blow apart.
2) I may have had a teensy bit too much caffeine yesterday.
3) And I couldn't stop thinking about an issue on the site -- and I was trying to solve it in my head.

The result -- I got next to no sleep, which means that I'll need even more caffeine today. It's an endless cycle.

(And now for a shameless plug...)
Speaking of the site, we're running a little contest to choose the stories for our very first print collection. I'm hoping to have as many people involved in the process as possible -- so if you've got a few minutes, please visit NightsAndWeekends.com, and vote for the best stories (and if some of those stories happen to be mine, I won't complain...). And while you're at it, sign up for the newsletter. This week, I'm drawing the names of the winners in our latest giveaway -- and I've got another giveaway starting on Friday.