alisonknits: To Hell and Back

Hell = High School

I spent much of the weekend reading my journals/diaries from high school. It was a harrowing journey. I had a lot of teen angst, and I often felt like a hypocrite because I put on a happy face all the time. It was truly amazing to see how much I changed over those four years, from teenybopper crush-head to disaffected youth. I'm really glad I was so faithful in my journaling, because it's kind of wonderful to be able to read them over as an adult - it gave me a lot of insight into my character. That sounds so pretentious.

I started keeping a diary when I was 9, and wrote a lot from high school to my mid-twenties. I don't keep up with it as well today, but I often feel that it is my best spiritual practice. When I was doing The Artist's Way, I wrote a lot - a major part of that program is to write morning pages, three pages of free writing, each morning as soon as you wake up. It's really an excellent discipline. I hope to get back to it.

Sometimes it seems like writing a blog is like a replacement for journaling for me. Which of course is silly because a) I'm not very faithful about blogging, either; and more importantly b) a public blog is not the same as a private diary. I hope I can do a better job at keeping these purposes separate in the future.

Anyway, my stroll down memory lane also reminded me how much I miss working with youth. Maybe I'll put out some feelers and see if there's a UU youth group near me that needs a new advisor for next year. Hm...

Obligatory Knitting Content

I taught the first of a two-part of a socks class on Saturday. I wish more people had signed up, but I may have turned some people off with my prerequisites. Still, I wanted to be sure that the class would move at the necessary pace to learn each part in the allotted time, and I was delighted that the timing worked out the way I'd planned. That hardly ever happens when I teach a class for the first time. I wrote out a generic sock recipe for any gauge/size, in a narrative rather than pattern format, and we started mini socks in worsted weight yarn on 24 stitches. Saturday we did the foot, heel and started the gusset.

As for my own knitting, I have nothing new to show you. I've done a little on the for-hire knitting, but am still largely avoiding it. Must correct that today, which is, in theory, my day off. But I don't really get those. Whine whine whine.

But I want to have something really spectacular on the needles, like a complicated lace or Fair Isle, and I can't start anything like that until I can clear out some of the backed-up UFOs, crank of the for-hire stuff, and figure out what big project I want to undertake. Firebirds is a strong contender, but I don't have $200 to drop on the kit right now. Maybe I can do something in lace from the stash. Must. Finish. Something. First.