Mood Swings

Published on by Jane

It’s just August. There’s no other explanation. All is well, and then all is not. I’m in no mood for any of it, and then I can take whatever comes my way. The weather is thick and the air is sour, then it thins and sweetens, and I throw open the windows and inhale till I am about to burst. Up, down … sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug. Where is that Mary-Chapin Carpenter CD?

I finished my test pair of Tilt and Whirl socks, down to the last little kitchener-ed toe. Have I mentioned how much I love Nona for posting her Kitchener Epiphany? Simple, effective, brilliant.

So now I would like to move on. I have socks on the needles — beautiful blue-purple socks, socks I want to finish soon. I’m working on more sock designs, too. I have scarves — two interesting scarves. However. But. I have some new yarn, and I want to start something. Starting a new project will satisfy me in ways that I’m not sure I can explain. It’s complicated.

It’s August, the hardest month of the whole year for me. Work is a non-stop roller-coaster ride from the 1st right through Labor Day, and this year it already promises to be the biggest, fastest, scariest ride ever. My days off are spent recovering from the intensity of the store, but anything I plan do out in the world will throw me into the middle of the fray, the craziness of August in a beach resort full of people with too much money to spend and not enough common sense or courtesy.

So I figure out ways to stay home and make my place a small sanctuary, if only for those two precious days each week when I do not have to be in the middle of everything, riding the roller-coaster. Here at home it is silent, unless I add noise. I don’t even have a CD player at the moment (so Mary-Chapin Carpenter must be heard in the car). I watch less television than usual, because even that is too much sometimes. When the AC is on it’s loud, but at least it’s white noise, and that’s good.

Wow, I make it sound like I’m under siege. That’s not the case. I’m stretched thin by necessity and circumstance, and I need to preserve the bits of peace and quiet that I do get to have, so I hibernate with my knitting and my Annabelle. I make sure that I won’t lose my mind this month — because really, it’s just a month, and it passes.

So back to that knitting that I want to start. This isn’t the time to stick to a plan or follow through on a list of priorities. It’s the best time, if ever there was one, to follow a whim or swing with a mood. I think I will wind a skein of Fearless Fibers sock yarn (should it be Sublime, or Blue Rain?) and start knitting Anne Hanson’s Delicato Mitts. I should have enough left over to make a pair of socks, or even a little scarf.

I have to go now. I’m kind of excited!

13 thoughts on “Mood Swings”

  2. I can TOTALLY relate to all you’re feeling right now. I just keep trying to remind myself that this too shall pass, and hoping it really does. I like your idea of following your whims when you do have time – it is a good way to approach precious free time.

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  4. Jane, Thanks to the link to Nona’s article on grafting. It’s a winner! Hang in there, soon it will be beautiful September and you will have the beach (mostly) to yourself. Lucky you!

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  5. Working from home, when it’s this hot, I go days without leaving the house. Sad, I know. Enjoy your respite and your new project!

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  6. sorry that you have begun such a stinkola month – but the good news is that we are already 1/6th of the way through it :-)hang on dear one – and keep dreaming of all those lovely things to knit.I am totally with you about finding quiet places!

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  7. For me August is the month where I’m dreading the month but looking forward to September. With the heat, I tend to hibernate in the house during my free time until things start cooling down.

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  8. They aren’t called Dog Days for nothing. Whew. YOu ought to smell my dogs right now! :DAugust is my busiest month too, mostly because it’s visitor time. But then September will come and that’s my Birghday Month – so I celebrate the whole month, in part because August is over. Happy is the knitter with socks on her needles.

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  9. I’m not under anywhere near the pressure/intensity at work that you are, but I find myself taking plenty of quiet time at home anyway. 🙂 Hang in there!

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  10. August in your neck of the woods, BTDT, esp when the horse show comes to town. I give you lots of credit and it definitely shows that you love what you do. No other way to do it.

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  12. I’ve finally gotten myself to sit down and read blogs…I long for September and sanity! And the weather’s better! I just looked at your projects on Flickr…lovely. I’ve been so frustrated with “other” projects besides socks. But I still am enjoying the process. And I know what you mean about casting on another project and the feeling you get from that. Sometimes I wish that I got the same rush of joy and contentment from keeping my house that I do from knitting. I’ve been holding it up as a prize for myself…put the laundry away and you get to knit a row or two. Such a child. But I get to see you guys next week! I’m bringing some knitters from here – hope it’s not too crowded!

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  13. I was briefly a tourist in a beach resort area in Maine last August, and I feel for anyone who works in that kind of environment. I had a long talk with the owner/operator of one store there, and he had a lot of crazy stories to tell! (Like the one where the town tourist bus/trolley driver got p.o.’d at the riders, pulled the bus over, got out, and walked off for good, leaving a bus full of tourists on the side of the road. (For the record, I don’t enjoy being one of those tourists; not only is it too crowded, but the reputation that precedes you is so bad that it’s all the locals can do to be halfway civil. And I’m not sure I blame them.)Hang in there; fall is coming!

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