Grumpily, She Said...

I started a pair of mitts over the weekend. They did not go well. The yarn I chose was really much too thick for the pattern and the resulting cuff would have fit the average linebacker nicely. But not Sheepie.

I frogged and tried to finagle something of my own design since I'd already wound the yarn. The very idea of digging around for something else made my brain hurt. Yes. I am that fragile.

The second attempt was a bit on the small side, but not bad. However, the thumb gusset situation quickly got out of hand and I decided that I wasn't so fragile that I could live with great, gaping holes in my gussets. There was more in the way of frogging and a third attempt has been undertaken.

This frustrated me. "I should have something nearing the finish line by now," I said grumpily.

This was a puzzling reaction. I long ago came to accept my knitting cycles. Sometimes I knit like a madwoman and crank out projects on a weekly basis. Other times, I can go for months without anything to show for my sporadic string wrangling. It's not a big deal. Fiber is my hobby. I don't knit for a living. There have been no ransom notes delivered to my door demanding socks in exchange for hostages. I am not locked in a room and expected to spin straw into gold.

If any of these situations should ever come to pass, then woe be to (insert name of fiber-dependent person here). It won't end well. I am not what you could call a dependable sort of knitter.

Now I was frustrated and puzzled. The clinical term for this state is "Fruzzled," but I don't expect you to remember that. You have my word that the quiz at the end will be open book. Promise.

It wasn't until this morning that I figured it out. I stumbled around until it was time for the daily commute and left still not sure if I'd remembered everything I was supposed to have with me for school. I entered the building and was greeted by a colleague who I felt was exhibiting far too much cheer given where we were at that moment. I said grumpily:

We aren't supposed to be here. We are supposed to be in two days of workshops with snacks and knitting time like we've done every year up to this one.

And there it was. My reason for being Fruzzled. Normally, the two days before the Thanksgiving break are spent at the high school engrossed our district's annual Fall Forum. I always have a book on the ipod and a knitting project in the bag. I generally fail to finish the book, but usually make amazing progress on the knitting. This year? Not so much.

The Fall Forum is now The Winter Forum and will be held over the two days before the winter break. No knitting time for me this year, not in November. But the brain isn't quite done processing this.

I'm no longer Fruzzled, but still grumpy. Two days isn't a very long time to wait until vacation, but it seems like forever once you recall those happy days spent dozing in workshops. By the time I got home, I needed a long, hot bath.

I thought this might make things less grumpy because hot baths usually have that effect. However, I could hear suspicious sounds from the living room all during my soak and the cats were nowhere in my line of vision. I wasn't all that surprised when I emerged and found myself having to say grumpily:

OH MY GOD!! Which of you typed LLLLLLLLLLLLL into the search engine on the computer? Was it the same cat who changed my homepage and tried to shut down? And who pulled the 38,000+ word document out of the dock, deleted all my text and replaced it with another series of L's?

There were a few other things said but we don't need to dwell on them. It's enough to know that they were said grumpily and with a great deal of Fruzzle.

SA