Being stoic about setbacks

There are so many things not to like about pinkeye. It's stingy, and between that and your eyelid puffing up and drooping and making it harder to see, it's uncomfy even before the goop starts. And it looks horrible, so that what you mostly see when you can see anything is people looking at you and suppressing their gag instincts. It's super contagious, too. You have to wash your hands a lot to keep from sharing the wealth and when your skin is already dry to breaking point that's not exactly a recipe for a good time.

So I was not happy this morning to wake up tired and even more behind on my knitting with a hugely busy day ahead of me (in which, naturally, I will be seeing more people than usual, some of them small and likely to be really grossed out) to find that my right eye is very red and sore. If it's pinkeye it means getting to the doctor (when?) and taking antibiotics (ugh.)

There are a couple of things to be grateful for, though. Like, it could be worse, and I far from alone, as I discovered reading the latest installment of God Stole My Boyfriend. And then there's my hair. It's still hanging in front of my eye... my right eye. So I might not terrify the little children after all.

It's happening again...

I spent the whole weekend procrastinating on my procrastinations. You'd think I'd know by now the best way to get something written is to tell myself I'm not a writer, but a wallpaper-hanger hobbyist. That's much safer than pretending I'm a person who routinely knits 19 things in 20 days.

So last night, while not knitting, I was stealthily reading up on 1930s Hollywood, in a book I bought to help me write a novel that got left by the wayside when I couldn't think of a compelling goal for the main character. This is a little trick my friend Joshua taught me about writing a book: give the main character a goal, then put up a lot of roadblocks to keep him or her from achieving them. The second part of the trick is one I still have to figure out. You know, the compelling goal. It's been about three years but I still hope to think of one some day. And no, reading up on what it was like in Hollywood in the 1930s isn't going to help a bit.

Today I am going to resist that book and let my subconscious get on with the goal problem if that's what it's so excited about, while my fingers take care of the knitting. I'm seven days in to the Knit Frenzy now, and I've only got six things to show for it.

A break for holiday shopping

... and I have some delightful suggestions for the readers on your list. Going Out With A Bang, of course, is a noisy and sometimes messy collection of crime stories from the Ladies' Killing Circle. Blood on the Holly is another excellent choice--this anthology from Crime Writers of Canada was published last year. Both are great reads, with a wide variety of styles and twists, and something by me inside.

Both those links are to Amazon, but I recommend ordering them from The Sleuth of Baker Street in Toronto. The store has signed copies and even better, can call me in to personalize them.

I have a cousin who is particularly brilliant at recommending books I turn out to love, and she mentioned two this week. The first is Can Any Mother Help Me?, letters by women who, from the mid-30s, comprised the Cooperative Correspondence Club to share their support and ideas. The second is The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton. If you haven't so much as looked over Mrs. Beeton's exhaustive book on domestic matters, you should, but the biography sounds fascinating too: she was a Victorian superstar from her early 20s, then died at 28 because Mr. Beeton gave her syphilis. Okay, that sounds like a lot of a downer, but both books are huge on social history, which intrigues me no end.

Reality check

I finished another project, got a good start on two more (one of which included pattern design) and wrote down two patterns yesterday. Also my brain started to turn to mush.

I woke up tired this morning, which is not unusual but is pretty unwelcome considering I still have my cold and cough, and it occurs to me that there are other things I often do at this time of the year, like bake cookies, redecorate the living room, wrap some things, shop for some other things, cook an occasional meal, maybe do some laundry. Man. It's a good thing I'm not inspired to write a story on top of all that.

So I did more precise math than 19 in 20, and figured out that I need to fit 60 hours of knitting into 16 days - about 4 hours a day. I should be able to manage 4 hours a day, right? And still leave some time for other stuff? Not cookie-eating though. I did so much of that yesterday, I could happily never eat another cookie in my LIFE*.

* until it's time to bake the Christmas meringues

Powered by cookies

Seriously, a giant Ziploc bag of home made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (my all time OH WOW everyday cookie) turned up at the house last night. And now that I've typed that, I want some for breakfast.

Before that happened, I figured out how to make a fabulous item that is warm, make-able in less than 4 hours with 1 large ball of wool, and fits a wide range of sizes perfectly. Then the light finally dawned about exactly which stitches will turn into another item I've been obsessing about, too. After that, powered by the cookies, I finished a third item I've been working on for a few days. Tally time: 3 completed projects in the first 2 days of 19 in 20.

I'm on track to do another two items today but... I really, really want to write down the patterns and share them in time for others' holiday knit frenzies. In fact I need to, because otherwise I will forget the niceties of the design. And the words are coming to me the way they do for fiction that just unfolds, which I always take as A Sign. Maybe if I eat a few cookies for extra typing power...

In which I begin to panic

Well, the notion of 19 Things in 20 days is not so improbable when you consider that only 3 of them require as much as 8 hours' work to produce. The trouble is that the entire plan rests on the shoulders of one pattern.

I made it once, and it turned out to make a lovely ladies' cloche, for which I happen to have some felted roses. Unfortunately it was meant for a MAN, and not one remotely likely to wear a cloche with or without roses. So I made it again, with two strands of yarn rather than three, and it's another lovely, if less roomy, cloche. Today's task: giving it one final try with much smaller needles. They do say third time lucky, don't they?

I have made one happy discovery: a tall stockpot makes an excellent yarn caddy. The sides don't flop in and obscure smaller contents, and are smooth enough to make slide stitch markers out by the handful, and no matter how much the yarn jumps it rarely makes it out of the pot. Bonus: it's a constant reminder that I need to take the time to turn the rest of my chicken stock to soup. Maybe between projects 8 and 9?

The calm before the storm

I had a marvelous weekend. Other people were too sick to see me and I had no pressing reasons to leave the house, so I cleared up the disaster room that leads to my 'office' and purged said 'office' of recyclable paper, empty boxes, and yarn - which I then sorted out so I know what I have to work with.

Then I reconsidered my list of what I'm knitting and for whom, no small task, the number of projects now having reached 19. Can I knit 19 things in 20 days? And simultaneously shop and plan and prep for Christmas, a birthday, and a holiday dinner party?

Of course not, which means that of course I will attempt it anyway. And yet I keep being distracted by the Ravelry pattern page, where anything loaded by anyone appears as a new possibility. For example, this, or for the animal lover, this.

It's hard for me to resist these patterns, too... or these. You can see my dilemma.