Holiday knitting

When I was in Mystic, Connecticut, a couple weeks ago, I saw a sample of The Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief knitted up in sock-weight yarn (the pattern specifies a DK-weight yarn). The ruby-red sock yarn I purchased that day was so soft and pretty that I decided it would make an equally lovely kerchief. My mother really loved the color of the yarn (by Other Kingdom, a dyer I cannot find on the Web!) so this is a Christmas present for her. She looks terrific in this shade of red.

My mother doesn't read my blog, so no worries about her finding out. :)

It's a very enjoyable knit with lots of stockinette broken up with rows of eyelet, an easy pattern to remember, and something I can work on in front of the television or while waiting for an appointment. I figure I'll have this "wrapped up" by the weekend so I can move on to my next gift knit.

So far in my gift knitting, I've finished two cowls, two earflap hats (stranded colorwork), one and a half socks, and a hot water bottle cozy. Just a couple more things and then I can move on to some selfish knitting. ;-)

This week has been a trying one, professionally and personally. Professionally it has been a week of rejection after rejection, then having people (mostly PR) play bait-and-switch with me. Frustrating!

And maybe because of the cold and darkness, my temper is running a lot hotter than normal, esp. with my family. Last week I "bragged" about my son. Well this week he came home with some pretty bad lab/test grades in science, math, and social studies. I was really angry about the social studies grade because he had brought home a two-sided study sheet but insisted and argued with me that the test would only be on the first side. I kept telling him, "Let's just learn the facts on the second side," but he wouldn't have any of it. You can guess what happened ... the test included all the facts he didn't study on the second side. When I asked him what kind of grade he's expecting, he tried to put a positive spin on it by saying, "I'm sure I didn't get an F." I told him I wasn't going to be very happy with a D or a C, either.

Then yesterday O had a half day. The town was giving out free flu shots after school, so I told O I would walk up to school to pick him up and we'd walk over to the town hall. The walk to school isn't bad at all; it's just a mile down the bike trail and a cut through the woods. However it was bitterly cold and windy, and the trail was covered in ice, which made it hard for me to walk. I get up to the school and O comes bounding up to me with his backpack ... and no coat.

"I left it at home," he said.

I was pretty ripped because there was no way he would be able to walk home in that cold in just a t-shirt and flimsy sweatshirt. Sure enough, on the short walk over to the town hall, O complained about the wind, that his ears were hurting, that his throat ...

Oy! Enough already!

We ended up popping over to a new pizza place in town to kill some time. Since my husband and I had an appointment at school later on that evening, the plan was we'd hang out in town until DH could pick us up. However, I was sitting there in the warm restaurant, I started wondering if I'd turned the iron off in my sewing room. I'd sewed a holiday table runner that morning (seen above in photo) and I couldn't remember switching the iron off. So I told O he'd have to wait at the library until his father could pick him up. There was no way I could sit around for two hours wondering if my house was in flames. Cue more whining.

The walk home was even colder (and longer because I was walking home from town). All that worry for naught: the iron was off. Then I started getting texts from O complaining about being bored so I told him to read a book and leave me alone, and my husband was being difficult ... argh. I know the common belief is that women are difficult to live with, but in this house, it's the male species! I ended up blockading myself in the bedroom with my hot water bottle and a novel to avoid the two of them.

OK, moving on. We ended the evening with an appointment with O's math teacher, who was generally positive about O but agreed he could use an extra push at home. The good news is that his teacher said he'll recommend O to move into the highest level math class next year because of his grades and MCAS scores. The bad news is that we've got to play some hardball with O because it's clear he hasn't been working as hard as he should be. We are very generous with him because he's a good kid, but we have an understanding his #1 job is schoolwork and when he doesn't perform to his abilities, he gets things taken away from him ... like his iPad.

I was hoping the week would end on a good note, but I have a feeling it's going to get worse before it gets better.