Repeating the Same Thing Expecting a Different Result

Something bad? I've set the knitting down because I forgot...again...that I cannot, absolutely cannot do anything when I am knitting lace. Cannot...do...anything... Especially talk on the phone. I'm an idiot. Now, I can continue to rip back row by row for an hour or so until I find where I lost a stitch (I think I forgot a yarn over somewhere back there) OR I can just start over again from the very beginning (45 minutes?). We'll see. This lace is going to be perfect, damn it.

Something indifferent? Another rejection letter in the mail today.

Something good? I have Gift Certificates from Christmas. That means that this afternoon after work I got to go shopping for free. Now that's a good result. :-)

Personal Art History (West-TX Style)

Over the years, Mom has framed many things that I've done for her. So here are a few more "farm pictures." It was kind of fun, walking around our little house that Mom redid this year--new windows, floors, drywall, curtains, paint--looking at my personal art "history."

These generic organic shapes from my freshman year in high school are nice to look at in the bathroom.


I did this sketch of my sister and myself a couple of years ago.


This was a Mother's Day gift my senior year in high school.


Another Mother's Day gift--middle school?


And here's one more of Rox on the cold, hard floor at the parental units' house. It's awfully hard to fit a big dog on such a little square of carpet.

Ignoring the Obvious

Let's just say you were knitting your first lace project. Let's say that you've knit hundreds of other things, that you know how to accomplish almost all stitches with little error, that you consider yourself, well, "experienced." That you've allowed yourself to teach others this fine art of knitting. Let's just assume all of those things are true.

So you're knitting your first lace. No biggie, right? Nothing different here? You know how to follow a chart. You've done this before.

So you've had to rip out the damned thing about a dozen times already. And all of those were, perhaps, your fault, and not the pattern writer's fault. So you cast on one more time--you tell yourself it's the last time--and you knit through the entire chart twice. You look at the little tangled mess you've made between every single row. You can't figure out why it doesn't look right. You keep knitting. And knitting.

You think, gosh, blocking must really make a difference.

And then, when you've finished THE SECOND REPEAT of the chart, you read the instructions in the box below the chart. They say "work each right side row from right to left; work each wrong side row from left to right." Easy enough. Simple enough. Common, even. Should have been obvious.

But it wasn't obvious to you. Oh no. You've worked all the rows right to left. So you say... well we can't repeat what you say here.

Let's say you do all those things. What does that make you? Does it make you a complete idiot? A loser? That word we couldn't repeat earlier?

Well, excuse me now. *Ahem.* I have to cast on some lace. Again.

And the winner is...

According to Random.org, the winner of my Post-Christmas Contest is: Marsha! I'll be getting the package in the mail this week. Congrats!

This was so much fun. I really loved reading everyone's comments, and looking at your pictures of the FOs. I e-mailed each person that I could back. Thanks for leaving your comments. If you haven't looked, you might take a moment to go through the posts.

What wonderful handmade Christmases! Inspiring!

Cold and Dark (But Bright Again!)

Last night, I left work and came home to this. No power at all. I only have electricity--no gas--so I had nothing. I called the power company, and they said that the power had already been out for several hours, and would continue to be out for a while. Apparently we had a little ice-on-the-power-line issue.

You up north people can laugh at me for this, since it was probably nearly thirty degrees outside, but I was so cold. (Roxie was, too; she has very short fur.) I put on three layers of socks. I covered myself with a couple of hand-knit prayer shawls. I got into bed. I ate a sandwich and read.

Texas weather is crazy. CRAZY. Last weekend the weather was in the 70s. According to that article, today's high will be close to 60 and by Friday we'll be back to the 70s again. I really don't understand. Don't we get seasons here? I seem to remember seasons--maybe. I've lived here my whole life. Maybe I imagined them. Maybe I've read too many books. But 70 in the winter and 100 in the summer? And a dozen below freezing days? Doesn't this seem a bit odd to you?

And after 8:00, the power did come back on. So I got out of cleaning up for another day.



But you know what? After listing to the news this morning, I am so grateful to live in a country where the power comes right back on, where I can complain about this little outage.

Alone Again

I am home in my messy little apartment (the last two weeks have been a whirlwind!), so I eat bad food, wash dishes, put things away, cuddle with Roxie, and sit down to write.

And I am touched by the words of inventor Nikola Tesla that I hear on NPR this evening: "Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born." (Here's the link for the full quote.)

Good to remember, as I begin this new year, this 2009. I will try to be open to any ideas that are born to me.



P.S. Another rejection letter came today. I am happy about this. I can send that magazine a different story.

Happy New Year from West Texas!

P.S. I love all the Christmas stories!



I'm continuing Christmas at my step-father and mother's home in West Texas. When I was school-age I'd spend the majority of my year out here. It's nice to have a place that goes back almost as far as you do. Here, my sister and I went to school, but also: sculpted two horses out of dirt that we "rode," actually did ride our bicycles up and down the dirt road, crafted quietly in the house, screamed and ran outside like wild children, watched the cotton bowl up and get harvested, picked five acres of asparagus, dropped okra seeds into little ruts while perched on the back of the tractor, filled buckets with glass and old bailing wire, dug post holes, stretched fences, bottle-fed baby goats, moved adult goats, and learned to drive. And then we drove away.

But sometimes, we come back, and we are happy here. I am happy here, today. I had a lot of little clever things to say (I am always so clever before I actually sit down to blog...), but I think I'd rather just leave with some pictures of the farm. Here's where I've been since New Year's Eve. I've been knitting on the orange sock you'll see, just some monkeys and also on an Elm Row scarf which is lace, so currently just looks like a messy jumble. Also, I brought my new sewing machine and Mom and I have done some cooking. But a lot of our time we've spent behind the house, in the empty cotton field (no cotton this time of year!), walking Roxie and my parents' two beagles (Snoopy and Odie).

Roxie kept Mom company during her nap.


The road in front that Rox isn't allowed to really walk along because she thinks chasing cars is divine.


The Beagleboys.


Orange monkey.


This is how hard the wind was blowing--30 miles per hour today. (And it was 70 degrees, too!)


Our house from the cotton field.