It's the little things

Yesterday we had rain, and it was the gentle kind of rain that falls at a slow, measured pace so that none is wasted. The thirsty land has time to absorb every drop. More would have been better, but I’ve learned to appreciate what blessings I’m given.

But…I felt immense pressure to use the day well, to make the most of the time I couldn’t be working outdoors. And this after a couple weeks of hard outdoor labor driven by the ticking of the clock ever closer to first frost, hard freeze, the end of the season during which certain necessary labors must be performed. I could clean my office and tame the chaos that had been accumulating over the last month. But seriously, would you want to spend your day dealing with this?

Hmm. What if I took the day off, made it a do-nothing day? Or…let’s get real here…I just did what I wanted and not what I had to do. Interesting concept, huh? I could read all day. Or knit one of the projects from ‘that mess on the coffee table.’

Apparently, like Dallas, I have a perverse nature. The decision to take a day off seemed to be all the incentive I needed to make a long list of chores that I wanted to do. Go figure. I even shopped, and I usually hate shopping. But hey, it was a beautiful rainy day, and I drove by the prairie conservation area on the way to town and dawdled alongside the road for a while, admiring the browns and fading greens, the red swaths of sumac, the last of the goldenrod, and the occasional white speckling of fleabane still in bloom. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to find a hand-painted yarn that mimicked those muted sweeps of color? What fabulous sweaters and socks that would make!

In town, at the grocery store, I found the new Knitter’s Magazine. And clams. Just that morning my daughter had called, raving about the clam chowder her friend made, and so I was craving clam chowder too. Plus, it turned out that I really wanted to have the supplies on hand to fix the fence so the calf couldn’t get into the strawberry bed, and I really wanted that little ash shovel so I could do a better job cleaning under the fireplace grate. And I really wanted a few other odds and ends I hadn’t yet spared the time or effort to track down. What I didn’t find in town, I ordered online when I got back home. Good sewing scissors. A replacement copy of Homespun, Handknit, which has the boiled mitten pattern I want to try next month. Then I sat down and really looked at the magazine. Drooled on it, actually, and then ‘window-shopped’ my way through all the interesting ads with websites. I picked out sock yarn & felting yarn, but I’m waiting for the knitting books to arrive first so I can double-check the yarn requirements.
I updated my book requests at the library, browsed Amazon.com and made a list of the upcoming titles through next April from my favorite authors so I won’t miss any.

And then I wanted to knit. I did a couple of repeats on the shawl, then two pattern repeats on the sock. Would you believe I didn’t drop or twist a single stitch? Really, I checked this morning to make sure. Is this what middle age is about? Clearing away some of life’s clutter so I don’t drop stitches – metaphorically…literally, too. How do you clear away your mental clutter?