Learn How To Knit

It gets better, sometime, right?

My parked car got hit by a lady swerving to avoid someone else who ran a stop sign a few weeks ago. Her insurance company isn't paying for the damages because she didn't cause the accident. There were 2 recent births and 1 second pregnancy announcement from my friends in the last 2 weeks. Someone under the age of 2 has stopped sleeping through the night. No matter where I am in my menstrual cycle, I feel depressed, irritable, and on edge, and without provocation.

On the upside, my brother-in-law, Grant, came to visit for a few days and we had a pretty good time. We saw the Railbender's play outside at Stapleton, or rather heard them since we were hidden behind a kiosk, while we ate some frou-frou mexican and got blasted on margaritas. Then we went to Lora's pirate-themed 30th birthday party. We ate sushi with Danea, Jason, and Ralph the next night. Mark and Grant went to Water World, and the 4 of us went to Mt Evans where we nearly got into an altercation with a very rude Park Service man (can you believe it?) over the semantics of the "no use" non-fee; apparently if you don't pay, you can't even slow down (not stop) to take a picture, nor can you go around the loop at the top of the road more than once. So he stopped us, gave us some grief and an envelope saying we were using the area and must pay the fee. I'm not above paying the fee, but we weren't exactly using the area. But since he was making us pay, we stopped and climbed to the top, including the Manling. So he and I now have the same number of fourteeners under our belt. The Manling has a very endearing habit lately where he sees a rock, names it , distinctly "ROCK!!", and outs it in his pocket. He will soon have a collection like mine.

We're hearing a lot more speech lately, and I'm starting to think about doing some more potty training. He's more prone to notice he's wet if he's wearing the Bummi's training pants than the Fuzzi Bunz dipes, but not consistently. I'm not pushing it in any way, but am trying to be more consistent myself in getting him to the potty.

I am still working on the Teva Durham Ragmuffin sweater for the Manling, but I am stuck at the neck. I grafted both shoulders instead of only the one, so now I am forced to do the neck on circular needles, which would be ok except I only have 40" needles AND until yesterday I didn't know how to translate pattern-speak from straight to circular. But for my first sweater, and only my 2nd knit piece ever, I think I'm doing alright. I'm not a masochist though: I did omit the patch motif from the pattern - that would have made me nuts. I went to some yarn stores this weekend to take advantage of Labor Day sales and scored some good stuff. I got some orange alpaca for the Manling's next sweater; some variegated black wool to make myself a killer scarf and mitten set or maybe something else; and I found and ordered the alpaca that I will use to make MY first sweater, once again a Teva Durham design, the slinky rib bark tunic which I will be lopping several inches off of. That Loop-D-Loop book is the best! That and Knitting Nature are the reasons I learned how to knit.

I'm hoping that since my summer went to crap on Memorial day that it will stop sucking today, on Labor Day.