Run to the Hills

Pictures later. Other content later. Comments on comments later. I promise you, all three of you, my faithful readers. Especially you, Batty, because you rock. I just have to get this out.

I've been having a time of it, as they say. Irritable and finally falling under the wave of seasonal depression I'd been surfing, I walked over to the fridge to grab a Coke. There's a terribly convoluted story about my desire to simply drink a can of Coke this week, and the conspiracy, possibly global or at least federal, to keep me from doing so. I can't go into it now, in case they're listening. You know. Them.

I thought at least I'd be safe at home. I changed out of my work clothes and shuffled downstairs. "Curious," I thought. "Why are there frozen cans of soda on the counter?" The drink fridge started taking its job a wee bit too seriously, and it froze everything. You know what happens to bottles of Pellegrino when they get too cold? They explode into beautiful, organic sculptures of ice and emerald green glass. At least Accountant Boy got to it and adjusted the temperature setting before anything sticky blew up.

I sat down with a slushy Coke and my knitting. You know how I thought Bella was a tad too small? It's more than a tad too small. I'm going to have to take it all apart, even the sleeve. It has to become something else, because I'm not going to have enough yarn to make the larger size with it. I've been working on it since January 5th, and I'm not saying all of that effort was wasted because I learned a few things about the pattern that I can apply when I reknit it in another yarn, but it still stings.

"It's not that bad, and you're going to the gym, right? Maybe it'll fit in a couple of months."

"Only if I get three inches shorter and my ribcage shrinks. You know, if the actual size of my skeleton gets smaller." I tugged on it for a few moments more. "You really think it's not too far off the right size?"

"What's it supposed to look like?"

"Here's the picture."

"It's supposed to look like THAT??? Yeah, it's too small. I'm sorry, honey."

"Now I'm not going to have my new sweater to wear to the yarn expo!"

"What about your green sweater? That's my favorite thing that you've knit. Why can't you wear that?"

And it seemed silly to say, "Because there will be three dozen women roaming the market floor in the Simple Knitted Bodice, and I'll feel like a lemming!" So I just sighed and didn't say anything.

And THEN I did something really stupid. I picked up the Starsky I'd been knitting, and I couldn't quite figure out which row I was on because it had been a few months, and I couldn't tell that I'd chosen incorrectly until four rows later, and it's a pattern where both the right and wrong sides have front- and back-cross cables, making it very difficult to tink, and I've screwed it up but good, I tell you.

I realized that I either don't like or have screwed up everything I have on needles, and I'm thinking I should frog everything and start fresh as soon as I get home. Drastic? Maybe. Or maybe it will be liberating, a hearty press of the big reset button. I'll let you know.