Trust Me

I rarely think that I know what I'm doing.  It's not that I lack self-esteem.  It's just that I'm something of a realist.  I've lived with me for over four decades now and I've seen the carnage of which I'm capable.  I haven't burned down any orphanages lately nor have I cause a nuclear meltdown...at least to my knowledge.  But, on more than one occasion, I have given my own self pause after some ill-conceived plan goes awry.  

Don't get me wrong.  I enjoy me and think I am quite delightful.  But, I'm not so blinded by my endearing qualities that I can't see my shortcomings.  I goof up a lot.  In fact, I goof up the knitting a lot.

But, sometimes I am rather happily surprised by my own good judgement.  The Maine Morning Mitts spring to mind.  Sure, the thumbs show a marked lack of technical skill and the first one has a bit of an issue with "closure" at the top.  But, I did managed to pull off some rather spectacular feats of planning.  At least by my own standards.

I knew when I purchased my very first ever skeins of Noro that it would be for MMM.  I also suspected that I could squeak a full pair out of one skein.  But, I bought two.  Not because I didn't trust myself, but because it appeared that the striping was going to be different if I didn't work from two skeins.  This may be obvious to the rest of the world, but this sort of thing often escapes me so I'm rather giddy over my making the right call on this one.  In spite of today's afternoon temperatures being somewhat warm, the morning was rather chilly.  So I was able to debut my matching Maine Morning Mitts on an actual Maine Morning in all their weird-thumbed glory.

But, before I did that, I weighed one.  Then I weighed the leftover yarn.  One ounce each.  Exactly.  By gum, I do believe I can make a second pair.  Now, we all know that math and knitting have absolutely nothing to do with one another.  There are a few deluded souls out there who may disagree with me on this, citing things like measuring and gauge.  But, for every example you can come up with, I can counter with a story of how a gauge swatch lied outright.  

Yet, as I was driving to work today, I thought to myself, "Sheepie...these here mitts could stand to be just a bit shorter.  You do, after all, have such small and delicate hooves."  I'm so darned smart.  I shall simply knit a shorter version, one that doesn't come up quite so far on the fingers.  I realize, having said this, that I have probably doomed myself with excessive back-patting.  Any day now, I'll be telling you that I accidentally cut off one of my knitting thumbs or that a yarn thief came in and stole all my Noro.  

But, you'll know the truth, I suppose.  You're kind enough to let it go, though.  Meanwhile, we'll all just sit back and admire my genius.

I also decided to trust myself and hang onto this weekend's appointment with The World's Greatest Stylist.  With finances being somewhat pinched right now following the holidays, the vet bills and the weird way the paychecks came in this past fall, I'd given some thought to canceling it until the next time the school department decided to reward me for my labors.  But, I didn't.  I was really unsure of myself on that one, though.  Was I being a responsible sort of Sheepie?

My decision was confirmed during the last period of the day.  After observing my muddling through a particularly difficult lesson on how to edit a writing piece with a student who was not really inclined to put pen to paper, one of the fifth graders came over to me.  With the most understanding of expressions on his countenance and in a tone that was so very gentle and kind he said:

Isn't it really uncomfortable for you to always have your hair in your eyes like that?

I am going to be going with my instincts more often from this point forward.  Trust me.

SA