What a Life!

For some reason I’ve been in a slump lately. I don’t know if I’m worn out because I have lots of irritating things (such as the one discussed yesterday) or if I’m having a hard time coping with such simple problems because I am simply worn out.

There has been little knitting going on lately. It seems everything I have on the needles I’m either tired of or is too complicated to suffice for mindless knitting, which seems to help me maintain my sanity.

• I finished the front of St. Brigid but have not cast on for the sleeves – I’m kind of tired of that project right now.
• I have a little sweater that needs to be assembled, and while I generally enjoy assembling things, since this is an original design, it simply requires too much thought. I want to experiment with a different type of seam as well as a new edging. Since I did not know if I had enough yarn, I did not swatch, which only adds further drama and complexity.
• I finished my pair of socks for May and June but indecision was in the way of starting a new pair.
• The Charcoal Slog-Along needs some fixing before I continue on. I think the neck in front is too deep and I need to re-work it (my original calculations were perhaps not correct and I did not take into account the added depth due to the short rows at the shoulders). Then I started a sleeve for the same project but after completing half of the increases, I have only a third of the length, so I need to go back and re-work it with a different spacing of the increases. And quite frankly, the Charcoal Slog-Along is so entirely boring that just the monotony alone makes me detest it. I see all these wonderful sweaters that I could knit my husband, but then I fear he may not like them because they are not plain enough. This sweater is stockinette except for the bands on the neckline, sleeve cuffs, and the waistband. All I have to say is, Never again! Either my husband will wear sweaters that were interesting to knit or he will not wear hand-knit sweaters.

I’ve taken some pictures that might be interesting to post, but they are still in my camera. I don’t want to download pictures from my camera if I’m not going to back them up, and my back-up routine is in hiatus due to my having exceeded the memory I was paying for to backup online. I’m too cheap to pay more, and I found some external hard drives that cost about the same as a year’s worth of service for the original amount of space I was using, but I have not set them up yet because that requires thinking. I don’t seem to be very good at thinking right now. That plus my lack of love for my camera right now has removed photography from my list of interesting things to do.

I went though my pictures last night to see if there were any I wanted to enter in the Nebraska State Fair. I did find a handful that I may enter in categories such as Down On the Farm, Candid (preschool children), and Black and White – People – Candid. At first I had no idea what I might enter – I mean, what makes a great photo for a competition? My purpose is photography is usually to capture candid moments of my children in a photojournalistic sort of way (aka memories). But are those types of photos of interest to anyone else?

I have kind of developed my own feel for composition. I really like ideas in the composition articles over at Petteri’s Pontifications. But when I look back through my photos, the inner critic doesn’t have many nice things to say. Photos that I’ve picked out that I may enter include this one, this one, this one or one of the photos in this collage. I have great candids far as getting great expressions on people’s faces, but there’s always something dumb in the background. My photos would come out so much better if my house was immaculate – perfectly tidy – at all times. Having the 50mm/1.8 lens on a digital Rebel would help me get in close and blur the background with the short depth of field (inspired by this article and others over at Petteri’s Pontifications), but I still really should have the background in better order so that it does not ruin my candid shots. When you’re shooting candids, background is not the main concern, but you don’t know how many pictures with perfect expressions on my boys faces I had to pass by due to some stupid toy or other distracting object in the background, which I am sure would affect my score in a photographic competition. Ugh!

I finally did cast on something that fits the bill for mindless yet interesting knitting – a pair of boring 2/2 rib socks for my husband. They would be the epitome of boringness, second only to the Charcoal Slog-Along, except that I’m knitting them toe-up and doing a heel-flap which generally you only do top-down so pondering how exactly I am going to execute that gives me something interesting to ponder while I knit. I had bought the yarn to take one more stab at knitting socks for my husband – none of the others stayed up, but I have since discovered half-twisted rib where I twist the purl stitches and my socks stay up much better when I do that. It’s a tweedy sock yarn, and I fear that he may not like the flecks (not plain enough, you know), but he’s just going to have to get over it. I have about eight inches completed on one sock and am working on the gusset, which is the beginning of the really interesting part.

We are going over to Iowa for Steve’s graduation Saturday morning. He’ll officially be getting his Masters in Agronomy from Iowa State. I am realizing that I do not have a gift for him (other than sitting through a long ceremony with two small children, perhaps?). The sock and sweater I am working on for him will certainly not be done on time. I could make him pie when we get back – Steve loves pie and I have the ingredients to make his favorite – Cherry Pie. I’m feeling like a very lame wife, though. No gift along with a lack of enthusiasm for doing something touristy and staying in a hotel in another state with two small children. The mere thought of it makes me feel tired, but Steve is always complaining that we don’t do anything “fun” anymore. So we’ll be doing “fun” things over in Iowa just for him.

I got my new Vogue Knitting earlier this week and now today my Interweave Knits arrived. I am so wanting to go buy new yarn for a project in one of those magazines so I could knit an interesting project and just follow instructions rather than strain my brain to design something. But I hate to spend money on yarn, especially the kind of yarn they feature in those magazines. I have champagne tastes but find myself on a very tight beer budget. And would knitting a new and interesting project that did not overly tax my mental resources really get me out of this slump? I don’t know, I don’t know…

Right now, though, I need to go do something productive, like tidy the house so I don’t take any more bad pictures…