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I’ve always been a bit of a procrastiknitter, in the sense that I will grab a new project fiercely, knit it until I’m almost done and lose interest. This wasn’t the issue in the past weeks.

Last night, as someone gave me an unexpected token of friendship in the shape of a loaned spindle and a bunch of yummy fibre, I realized I need to get out of the patch.

I’ve been contemplating whether I need help. I feel like I’ve been carrying a load on my shoulders that can’t be shifted and when last week a friend caught me after a meeting and looked me straight in the eyes and asked “what’s wrong with you”, I broke down. I find it odd that I always used to break down with my mum. And now I can’t because she’s part of the load I carry. Can’t go to dad. He’s part of the load I carry.

Work is suffering because of this. I get given brilliant reviews when I am seriously doing nothing. This whole week I think I’ve put in around 10 hours of productive time, I feel like I don’t give a crap about what’s in my tray and because of my head, I can’t concentrate. Rather not do work than perform badly.

I need a break. Yet I can’t afford the time out, given that at home everything is so fragile, I need to save up days to ensure I can leave whenever I need to. And I’m tired. So tired. Part of the reason I couldn’t knit is that I am so exhausted my mind goes into static signals when I hit the train in the afternoon.

The one thing I found out thanks to this whole thing is that I am a good actress. I can always crack a joke and bring out the fun half of me, just because I hate breaking down in front of people.

While I don’t quite know the way out of the patch, I know last night I felt the knit. Got to the thumb gusset on my glove. Step by step, procrastiknitter.

For some good news at the end of the week – Whitesnake are the Very Special Guests at this year’s Download. Tune your chords…. “Here I go again on my ooooown….”

2 people made me mad yesterday. I should let that be bygones, but for some reason, I can’t.

On the one hand, my ex-boss is being an infoleech of the best kind and it’s pissing me off. Infoleeching at the place of work is when you’re friends with someone, and they just suck info off you, yet never give any away. They are getting rid of my old team, and I’ve had to find out through other sources. Yet she comes to my desk every day asking me how it’s going. It’s going awful, you cow, why do you always have to ask? You know I hate my job and I hate it even more now that I know my boss has given perfect tools to my other team mates yet me and the one next to me are left to fend for ourselves and take 3 times as much time to prepare anything than the others do. I hate that I’m overloaded with work and that while I was promised a handout to other people while I concentrated on the Big Project, it’s not happening, and more and more, I’m just browsing the net waiting for the shit-fan interface to break so I can just tell people to just fuck off my  sight. Alas, I digress.

To come back to the original point, if ex-boss had told me about what is really going on over there, I could have applied for a recent role in a certain team, that while it’s not the cure-all to my problems, it would have taken me off the radar where I am and… oh surprise. Now that role is actually HIGHER than it was advertised due to the changes. So she actually screwed me over. Nicely done girl.

The other pissoff was last night. Relationships come with in-laws. That is a given for everyone. Some people love their in-laws, they have meaningful relationships with them and lively chats over the phone. I don’t particularly enjoy them. The male in-law seems to take no notice of my existence at all, and the only comment he made to me about me last time he saw me was that “I sure eat a lot for such a skinny girl”. The female in-law, while she likes me fine given that I knit and have taught her tricks and actually acknowledges I exist by conversations over the phone, has the most annoying habit of having her son call her at the most awful time in the evenings – dinner cooking for me is a ritual, you do not interrupt it and when you have dinner at 5pm and your son has it at 8 pm, don’t ask him to call you at 7.30pm because that’s plain annoying. You may be alright, we’re not. Then when he gives in (of course, it’s HIS mum), she insists upon herself instead of making it a short convo.

The short story is, they’re coming for a visit this weekend. House is not up for guests so they’re staying at a hotel. Freakingllujah is all I can shout. The issue comes with their arrival time. Saturday, 11am. Grocery shopping time. The boy now wants us to head into town as soon as the shops open to ensure we’ve stocked up to cater to his parents needs.

My approach when my parents come to visit is – we have shit to do, you’ve to tag along, hope you’re fine with it. His approach is to bend over backwards, do the shopping in 30 minutes, only buy the “essentials” and then rush home to cook for them, cater for them on silver service and then bathe their feet or something. Considering only one of them appears to see me when I’m in the room, you can imagine how much I’m looking forward to this. On top of it, he wants to cook. I usually don’t mind letting him take the lead there. This time, I wish I was knee-deep in dough, sauces and pans, just so I can forget the inconvenience of having people changing my boyfriend’s brain for a puppy’s one for a whole weekend.

The “insists upon herself” bit goes like this – they’re driving down here. They have a satnav. They have a car. They know how to make both things work at the same time. We have a parking space. So does the hotel. Any REGULAR person would drive their car from point A to B and that’d be the end of the story. She asked for DETAILED directions. As in, detailed down to the birdfeeder where the robins go every other saturday. As in, repeat it please, for the 4th time running. And we were cooking dinner. And he said so 5 times. And she wouldn’t let go.  Repeat that again, please?

Oh and before any of you think of this- I’m not at all disturbed by the fact they’re coming over on Valentine’s day because we don’t give a crap about these things… hell we don’t even have an anniversary. However, THEY don’t know that, and to break into someone’s routine so suddenly in such a remarkable date without a second’s though, shows you how much they give a poostick about me or his son’s happy relationship.

There. Rant over.

This year I want lots of disposable income. My bosses are grinches who don’t want to give me proper pocket money to afford things, so I want enough money to buy my 2 week holiday to San Francisco and San Diego.

But I also need the disposable income because I’ve been craving a spinning wheel for quite some time, and there’s always been one thing or another stopping me from the purchase. I really need the wheel because the boy is getting anxious about the amount of fibre stacking up in the spare room…

But today I learnt that Prodigy, Slipknot, Korn and Motley Crue will be performing at Download. And while I was pondering whether or not I’d go this year… I really need to now.

I mean now. I want the RIP Package this year. I had enough of teen festivalgoers puking 2 rows behind the tent last year. If you can’t hold your alcohol don’t play with the grownups I say, but what do I know, I only drink tequila. I want a nice comfy cosy noiseless environment that allows me to sleep until noon, then go for a kebab and plant my arse on the main stage field until I fall asleep or I get permanent tinnitus. Whatever comes first.

Could you tell the president that 2% is not an acceptable increase on pocket money? Please?

With high hopes of headbanging in June,

Ruth

PS: Don’t worry, the person formerly known as my friend is not coming with me this year. Brian will, though!

Never mind. My point is, I just tried to log on to my email, and the internet kept spitting me out saying ”no user with that name”. WHAT?

Oh wait. stelatheshoe is DEFINITELY not me. Coffee. Must. Have.

They are all parked differently. Some people will get to work in the morning, find a parking space and just ram the car in it, straight or not, and off they go. Some will take the time to find the space where they can put the car in reverse and enter the space backwards, then straighten the wheels and exit. The first will have to do the hard work of reversing to exit after a hard day of work. The others will simply slide off their space and be on the road.

I am going to have to change my way of parking my mind before work, because this morning as frustration hammered my head (trains delayed, my tights are falling, the laptop is heavy, I am hungry) I almost frayed at the edges and shed a tear.

I hope changing my parking ways changes everything, because I’ve been here before and I don’t want to have to take drugs to be in the frame of mind that regular happy people are in.

2) Spinning technique: For now, only spindle short draw. I recently learnt some long draw, but I’m not a fan.

3) Plying technique: errrr the spindle kind?
4) Dyers: Shunklies, LimeGreenJelly, Babylonglegs, Oceanwind…

5) Colours: Bright and complementary colours.
6) Book: I’m now reading The Little Friend, because I loved The Secret History and I think Donna Tartt should really release another book soon.

7) TV Show/Movie: So many…. Buffy, Angel, SATC, Supernatural, House, Grey’s, Six Feet Under…

 8 )Spinning Mag: So far I’ve liked Spin Off and I have subbed.I’m also trawling around the net finding articles.

9) Favourite time of day: Falling asleep on the sofa.

10) Indulgence: Spanish chocolate (Valor con leche, in the purple wrapper, no almonds)

From Forest And Frill

I finished the whole body section of Forest & Frill by Stephanie Dosen (available for purchase on Ravelry) in just one afternoon! I double stranded Rowan Soft Lux in a lovely forest green, et voila… Almost ready to prance, it just needs the crochet edge!

From Snow Day

Thinking about writing up the pattern and putting it up, in English and Español…