fiber funny

One of my yarn shop pals brought this to my attention. Not everyone understands the appeal of knitting and crocheting and what it does for people like me. Yes, it's just string and a hook or some pointy sticks. Yes, I could go pay $5 for some sweater that everybody else got from the big box super-retailer. But, I do enjoy taking a length of string and making it into something else. I'm trying to use up my current yarn stash to get rid of the cheap stuff I bought as a newb who didn't know better. I couldn't imagine paying $5 for a ball or skein of yarn, much less a sweater's worth of it at that price. Now - I get it. I understand the pull of nicer yarn, and want to upgrade my stash. So, I found myself involved with a blanket project group, and now have several squares crafted of acrylic yarn awaiting my next trip to the post office. It's a win-win, in that I deplete the stash and the yarn gets put to good use and blesses some other folks. Yes, I got the yarn with the intention of making things for specific people out of it. However, if in the time since 2005 when I figured out the crochet hook, and 2007 when someone helped me learn the knitting needles, I have not found the first end of those skeins and made those intended projects - it is time for the yarn to be elsewhere.
Which leads me to this: the nicer yarn is apparently addicting. Someone related the addiction to something non-knitters could probably understand a little better. So here you go, The Yarn/Drug Compendium.

ABC's of Feisty

• Age: 35
• Bed size: queen
• Chore I dislike: cleaning the fridge
  
• Dogs: none
  
• Essential start to your day: No talking till I've had my coffee - cream & sugar.
  
• Favorite color: blue
• Gold or silver: gold
• Height: 5’ 4"
• Instruments that you can play: none - former Euphonium/Baritone horn player
  
• Job title: wife, mom, & book slinger
  
• Kids: Oldest, 18. Beast, 16. Clone, 9. Blur, 1
  
• Live: North Florida. And no, it is NOT Georgia.
  
• Mom’s name: Mom
  
• Nicknames: Several, including some unprintable words.
  
• Overnight hospital stays: four - something about spawning.
  
• Pet peeve: I'm deathly allergic to B.S. & stupidity.
  
• Quote from a movie: Hakuna Matata? Heck, I don't watch many movies, much less remember them enough to quote them.
• Righty or lefty: Righty
• Sibling: #4 of 6 for dad. #1 of 3 for mom.
  
• Time you wake up: at the last possible minute.
  
• Urban or Rural: somewhere in between.
  
• Vegetables: I don't eat enough of them.
  
• What makes you run late: anything and everything. Kids, my own A.D.D., I'm better about being on time.
  
• X-rays: dental, wrist, full spinal
  
• Yummy food you make: cookies, pork chops in sour cream, rubber chicken
  
• Zoo favorite animal: the ones behind the safety of walls and gates.
  

Parenting PSA

Do not act as a helicopter hovering, or a lawnmower to plow down obstacles for your children. You will assuredly end up with full sized ninnies who can't handle the simplest of things when they get remotely unpleasant. If the worst you can handle is a frown, the failure rests with those who did not raise you to learn how to put on the big pants and deal with it.

A few people who criticized my parenting in the past can suck dirt off my shoes. Because the approach I took with my kids is reflecting as such that my kids can handle life in general, and function independently of me and even go so far as to help other people. So my insistence that the boys learn to cook and do laundry is not selfish and lazy on my part. True, I may have had selfish and lazy intentions because I was tired of doing so much for so many capable beings, but at the same time, I've long held that it's a life skill they must learn anyway. I have other interests that I want to develop. I don't want my daughter-in-law to hate me because I failed to teach her husband the basics. I needed to have my own hobbies and life away from my children so that when they grow up, move out into the world and have lives and families of their own, I am not that meddlesome MIL who drives a wedge somewhere it doesn't belong. I don't want my grandchildren living across the country because I'm a pest. If they're that far away, at least it ought to be due to jobs or something else more worthwhile than evading an intruding old woman. If I must invade their territory, I at least hope to be helpful, and maybe entertaining while there.