I Think I May Need An Intervention

So...I go to The Black Sheep this morning really just to show off my booties (shameless hussy) and pick up 3 mm. needles to continue work on the Hat of Tinyness, but then I wander over to admire the Araucania sock yarn. You may recall that I bought a skein last week. I also, last week, bought a Fiber Trends pattern for an Oak Leaf and Acorn scarf. "Sarah," I thought to myself while looking at the pattern the other day, "I bet there's a pretty Araucania sock yarn in shades of browns that would work up beautifully in this pattern."

And sure enough, there was. Lovely browns...soft wool...browns....just...browns....

Don't get me wrong. I like browns. I love some browns. But heaped around the browns is a pile of skeins in riotous but beautifully blended colors, each one more tempting than the last. And there is one I keep coming back to which is golds, and purples, and orangey-pinks and okay, it sounds like crushed parrot or something but it was gorgeous!

"But Sarah," I think to myself in a calm and rational fashion, "you haven't done anything with the yarn you bought last week and you were really looking for something in browns, even though the browns aren't exactly thrilling you..." (Note to idiot self: I think there was a lovely skein with shades of greens...why not go for that!)

So what do I then do? Calmly and rationally wander over to the frigging Araucania Aysen and buy two skeins! Number 804, not that that means anything. But look how pretty!


Okay, it might look a little like Crushed Parrot, too, but I tell you, in person it's drop dead beautiful. And no, I have no idea what I'll be doing with it though I'm thinking a brioche stitch neckwarmer might be nice. (With credit to Grumperina for the inspiration.)

I wish I could have sat and knitted with the ladies, but Mr. Pointy Sticks was waiting in the car so that we could go to Barnes and Noble. So we headed down to Towson and the gods must have been smiling, because we found a spot right away. And I got the book I wanted to pick up for my step-mom and then Mr. Pointy Sticks kept wandering and wandering and I really couldn't complain because he was, in part, looking for stuff for me and wandering and while he wandered, I kept finding little presents for me, me, me. Which explains why I came home with Robert McCammon's Swan Song, Stephen Brust's Book of Jhereg and Maggie O'Farrell's latest which has Esme Lennox in the title. (Give me a break...it's upstairs and I'm down and my feet hurt.)

While we were there we fortuitously met up with my aunt and my cousin, Becca. I love running into people I know unexpectedly.* Such fun. I was also able to save my aunt $9 by letting her use my 30 percent off coupon on a book. And then we hit Trader Joe's and now we're home and I should be knitting.

But wait, there's more! I got a nice surprise package today from someone for whom I knit a scarf. And she sent some cute notecards and candy and some Christmas cookies and some hair ornaments and, piece de resistance (read that with a French accent, please) some adorable felted wool stitch markers. Four that look like little acorns (see, the gods are urging me to do that Oak Leaf scarf!) and one that is blue and has a weensy-tiny sheep embroidered on it! I may have to turn that one into a necklace, it is so appealing. Thank you, Kathryn!

Current Reading

I am indulging in another British mystery, though you might think I had had enough after three Bill Sliders. This one is Caroline Graham's Written in Blood, an Inspector Barnaby mystery. I have the vague feeling I might have read it before, but I am still enjoying it greatly.

___________________

* Like on Thursday evening. I was tired and didn't feel very good and we had taken Rachel and Steve out to get some shopping done and I didn't want to cook and it was getting late and no one wanted to be the one to decide whether to go home or eat out, and if we were going to eat out, where we might eat and I get annoyed because it sometimes seems that I am always the one to make the final decision and I also feel guilty that I don't just want to go home and cook a warm and nutritious dinner for my loving and beautiful family and sometimes I just wish that someone else would say, "Okay, tonight we're eating at ___!" so finally I said, "Okay, tonight we're eating at JJ's."

So we did and we had just sat down and were looking at our menu and Steve said, "I think someone's waving at you...." And it was Rachel's old friend Sarah and her mom who we hadn't seen for a year and they came and squooze in at our table and we had a wonderful time. Sarah's at Princeton and she's just incredibly cute (while at the same time being beautiful) and bubbly and vivacious and funny and her mom's really great and funny and fun to be with. We like them both a lot. It was one of those unplanned events that I think are often the best.