Aaaaaaahhhhhhh

Penelope

I took the last sock with me to the park yesterday. I'm past the heel, so it's half stockinette, half leaf pattern, and fairly quick. At the end of the day, though, I looked down and instead of seeing a wee pattern of three yos making up the base of a leaf, there was one rather large one. I was six rows past the problem.

I looked at it. I held it up to my foot -- where would that mistake fall? I wondered -- rip or go on? I asked a knitting friend, who said, quite reasonably, that it depended on my level of perfectionism.

And I put it away for the afternoon.

This morning, I woke up and realized I was going to rip it back and redo it. I was also going to rip back something else I've been working on, and redo that. Why on earth am I making such a big deal of the string and sticks, when everyone knows I'm no expert on them and no matter how many times I rip things back, there are going to be mistakes -- generally mistakes any competent 11 year old with a basic grasp of mathematics wouldn't have problems with?

Part of it is the Penelope thing. I'm not in a terrible hurry to get these things done, although having them done is nice, because then I can cast on for more things to rip out. Part of it is the enjoyment of doing, and if a thing is worth doing, well, it's worth doing enough to have knit ten of the thing. Part of it is that so little in my life feels do-overable now that having something that putting ten more minutes of concentrated effort into can turn it around? Well, that's worth something.

So I have something more than our slightly cheesy hometown parade (yes! We are the only small town in existence, let us celebrate us) to look forward to today.

Happy fourth of July, everyone who's celebrating. I remember years of debate with my parents who were/are pretty much "Love it or leave it" people -- and isn't that an odd approach to take to patriotism -- about how I could passionately love my country in all its contradictions and still be heartbroken at the many ways it fell short of its promise. May I always feel this way, and try to find ways to be a good and working for the good citizen of it.

Feels like Summer

Although our recent heat wave is over and we're back to the Weather Worth Paying For here in Houses Are Insanely Priced (Still), CA, I'm feeling summer nibbling around our household's edges. Barbecues sound good. Felafel is making a return to the menu. The kids are starting to ask if local watermelons are in yet. At night, enough sunlight comes in around the edges of the little ones' blinds that bedtime is starting to seem arbitrary and for the convenience of the grownups. Of course, that's utterly true. . .

At any rate, we're also fortunate to have as friends a family who love to take their friends kayaking. So last weekend, the younger three Things and I met them at the American River. Good times were had by all, and Thing 3 asked, "Can we get one of those boats?" I think more experience is a good idea first.

Here's my son being ferried across some rapids by friend Mike:


And now his big sister:


The baby offered to paddle me around a stream for a while, so I let her:


It's been a long time since I've had that much fun. Also, these friends are pretty much the parents I want to be, so being around them is a combination of fun, relaxing like a spa, and inspiring. Good day.

I may have announced before that I'm changing beehive types again. The top-bars are interesting, and I am delighted with their cost basis, but managing bees in them is a higher-input job than I'm willing to do. So I drove out to a beekeeping factory and got a whole whack of woodenware. My nephews and my kids nailed most of them together yesterday. Hopefully all of the boxes (called "deeps" and "mediums") will get painted today, and we'll move the bees Friday. By "we," I mean me, Thing 2, now the proud owner of a child-sized suite, and whoever else I can rope into helping. It's going to be a tough day, I think.


Work has me over a barrel, but slacking on schoolwork is helping a little bit. Yesterday, with the company of my sister, her children, and some of mine, I ran for 45 minutes. Who would have thunk it? Apparently I run well in company. And I got past one repeat on the sock!


So now there's just those pesky sleeves, more grading of many papers, some housework, and 1 7/8th socks between me and the Kauni cardigan. Seems totally doable.

Some day.