Learning New Words

I woke up Thursday morning with a sense of guilt and horror. Had I bashed poor Nick's head in during the night? Had I destroyed all the dishes? Had I *gasp* chucked the stash out the window in a fit of somnambulist idiocy? No. I dreamt that I had left my wedding planning to the very last minute and my Mother ended up planning the whole thing.

Now, my Mom has fabulous organizational skills and fabulous taste and a good head on her shoulders. In reality, Mom planning my wedding helping to plan my wedding would be an exceptionally good thing. In my dream, however, everything was in the wrong place and the wrong people were there and the wrong officiant was there and when I asked what was going on, she said (in her MomVoice--there's nothing like it) "Well honey, you just didn't get around to it." Hence the guilt and horror. Good god, it took me like an hour to feel better. When I told Nick, he pointed out to me that I really have yet to experience a wedding dream where everything goes well, so this one shouldn't be any worse than the others. But this one had my Mom in it, telling me I was bad at planning. [Shudder] This is when I learned the true meaning of the word "guilt."

So I went to work with renewed purpose, called my friend Amy (check out her website, PS) and arranged to go dress hunting and caterer-tasting sometime in the near future (she's getting married soonish too).

After that adrenaline rush and subsequent burst of virtue, I settled in to stitch on my half of the couch/futon, which looks like... well, a stitcher stitches there:



It's cozy and next to a bright lamp and I can put my feet up and watch Ultimate Fighting Championship DVDs while I crochet. And knit. Did I tell you I started knitting? Well, I did. I am. And here is the beginning swatch/dealy/thingy:



And it quickly became this as well:



I won't show you the rest of the swatch because I tried all (all) the basic stitches (garter, seed, more stockinette, different ribs) and it ended up looking supremely bizzare. But it's mine and I'm proud of it. Even if I cursed like a damn drunken sailor on 'roids as I was knitting the darn thing. My gosh, knitting is so bloody difficult--how do people master this and create such beautiful things? Just when I think "Hey, I've finally gotten the hang of this knitting thing!" I immediately drop a loop, or lose a needle under the futon, or explode in a furious rage over my complete lack of ability. My yarn stash is learning new and colorful words, and I have probably shocked years off my houseplants. Thank god I don't have any children yet.