Raking Leaves

Last week I had saved up to buy some new yarn. I'd done some stash busting, and for several weeks had had my eye on some yummy Paca Peds sock yarn. I now have two sets of sock needles, so I can have two sock projects cast on at the same time. Knitting logic dictates that I must have two projects cast on at one time, and I currently only have one. It is a plain, ribbed sock in a colorway I call "Raking Leaves," since adding a metal rake to the autumnal leaf colors is the only way I can explain the gray stripes.

Online sock yarn, superwash wool and nylon (I think, the label is in German). The first of a pair.

Then on Monday night I inexplicably lost my NRSV Bible with extra Aprocryphal texts that has been glued to my side the past two semesters. As a religion minor who adores Biblical literature and has homework and a paper to complete for her Hebrew Bible class, and a life-long bookworm who considers books sacred, this was like loosing a treasured limb (maybe two). I tore apart my room and spent several hours traveling to various lost and founds with no luck. But Bibles don't cost that much, so I could at least get one skein of sock yarn. I could recover.

On Thursday, as I opened the dorm door with my arms barely holding onto my paints for art class, my trusty cell phone of two years tumbled out of my pocket and snapped completely and utterly in two. Not quite as devastating as the Bible (I was not as emotionally attached to my cell phone), but significantly more expensive and still expletive worthy.

#$%^&*

There went my budget for sock yarn.

The colorway is very hard to photograph. It is actually more dull and warm than the digital camera interpretation.

I forwent the shower I had been looking forward to to stomp in my dirty, paint-stained pants and shirt through the snow and ice to local Verizon store to see about a replacement. I had to wait in line, so I sat down and stared at the floor.

I stewed about my lost Bible.

I stewed about how if I had put my keychain in the other pocket it would not have caught on the phone and pulled it to its death.

I stewed about the lost sock yarn I'd been waiting several weeks for.

I stewed about how the bookstore, in some inane, crapass system, had sent all of the textbooks, including the Bibles, back to the manufacterer mere hours before I got there and how I was having to wait several days for a new one.

I stewed about having to limit my money spending.

I stewed about the customers in line before me, who were crabby (understandably, two new phones didn't work) and unpleasant and the Verizon guy really didn't deserve that.

I stewed about the fact I was stewing over stuff I should suck up and get over and I really didn't want to take my bad mood out on the Verizon guy.

Then I saw my knitting in my purse...


....the little plain rib sock that really was quite lovely and couldn't help it wasn't fancy new sock yarn. I pulled it out and knit a few rows, and the bad feelings drained away with every stitch to be replaced with peace and zen.

The next few days I gave all my love to the sock...





...and got some love in return.