More Lessons from Knitting

I do hate to go on and on about the zen of knitting, but I learned another valuable lesson from my #10 needles today.

The scarf I've been working on was very near completion late this afternoon. Grayson and I had been out and about, visiting a friend and doing some shopping for totally unnecessary stuff like games. And we came home and settled in for an hour or so of mindless funny animal videos and knitting.

Well, once again, television and knitting don't mix, and I dropped a big ol' stitch that left a monstrous hole in my scarf. I tried to think of some way to pick up the damage, but there was nothing for it but to unravel back to that point... again. As before, the unraveling is easy... getting the damned yarn back on the needles was hard. So hard, in fact, that I completely lost my temper, threw one of the needles across the room, wadded up the scarf and yarn and stuffed them behind the sofa and stomped off to the kitchen to make noise at the sink.

After a while Grayson came in and said "does someone need a hug?" Well, I nearly took the poor little kid's head off, snapping "NO!" And then I felt bad and apologized and he came in and gave me that hug, which it turns out I really did need. I told him I was frustrated because I'd worked so hard on the stinking scarf and now I couldn't finish it because I couldn't find all the loops. And I was afraid I woud lose my temper with it and end up pulling it all out or throwing it away in a fit of rage because I'm a bad, baaaaad person who loses her temper too much.

"I don't think you're a bad person," he told me. And then I nearly burst into tears and didn't know if I was laughing or crying. "I'm behaving badly," I told him. "I'm sorry. I would be mad at you if you acted this way just because you were frustrated. I'd make you go to your room until you could behave. "

There was a moment while Grayson looked at me with his eyebrows raised. And then he said "Doooooo you want me to send you to your room?" And I just had to laugh and hold him and say no, no matter how much I deserved it, I didn't want him to send me to my room. I needed to just be patient and act like a grown up and fix my knitting.

So I did. I sat down with one of my smallest needles and very very slowly and patiently picked up almost all of the loops and managed to get the scarf back onto the needle. Then I proceeded to knit it back up (I'd only lost one stitch) and bind it off and now it's finished. It was a huge pain in the ass, but it's done and tomorrow I'll wear it to work, even if it's 65 degrees outside.

And the lesson? Don't behave badly. It doesn't make you feel any better and really only makes you feel worse. And if you do behave badly, it doesn't mean everything about you is bad. And finally... sometimes just going to your room until you can behave yourself really does fix things.

Despite the many setbacks, I actually really enjoy knitting. I ordered a book that's supposed to teach me, in slow, easy pictures, everything I ever need to know about knitting. So I can do more than just scarves... even though I'm not even very good at those just yet. So even if it leads to more flying needles and fits of rage, I'm going to spool out just enough more yarn to hang myself with....

In other news...

I did go to the gym this weekend... twice! On Saturday I ran the track with Grayson and then did a full hour's work-out in the weight room. Then Sunday I went back and swam with G for 45 minutes.

I did not take down my Christmas lights or clean up the remaining post-holiday clutter from my living room. Really. There's only so much a woman can be expected to accomplish in one three-day weekend.