Sunday, March 2, 2014

A Bit of This and That

I guess the biggest news around here is that I've retired. As of Friday I am no longer teaching. I just decided I'd had it, with all the days out of class for yet another inservice on some new method or curriculum, with all the behavior problems (one student came back to our school after being strongly encouraged to leave last year, but got thrown out of his "new" school. His goal for this year? To make his teacher cry. Heh.) And our new principal, a woman, doesn't believe in suspending students for any reason, doesn't believe in removing them from the classroom for any reason, and on top of that, is a micromanager. Enough. Teaching used to be both fun and worthwhile. Not any more.

So, I'm now got lots of time to knit and read. And I'm going a bit crazy trying to figure out what I want to knit. I have so bloody many choices, and I can't make up my mind.

I was set to make the Metropolitan Knits sweater I mentioned in my last post, but decided I didn't like the Inka yarn I was planning on using for it. I ordered the yarn specified, Valley Yarns Amherst in Soft Grape, instead. But when it arrived, despite looking a touch darker than lavender on their website, the yarn was brown. A medium brown. I contacted Webs, and they shipped me a replacement order. Only it's the same medium brown as the first order. I'm just going to ship them both back and order a different color. The labels clearly state "Soft Grape" on them, but it's brown. I even had my sister-in-law look at it, and she says it's brown, too.

I've run into a hitch, however. Webs sent me an email with the shipping label when I first contacted them, but I don't have a working printer, so I have to take it somewhere and print it out. Then I have to take the package to a UPS store to send it. And, unfortunately, my knee decided I needed to stay still and avoid walking at all. I did make it to my doctor, and he sent me to my orthopedic guy, who just injected cortisone into it. (That really, really hurts!), which made it feel good for about a day, but it's back to being swollen and painful, again. Next week, I'm supposed to go back to my orthopedist, and I'm having my brother take me there, since I can't drive like this. Guess we'll see then.

So, I'm basically stuck sitting with one leg propped up, which would mean knitting would be perfect, only I can't decide what I want to knit.

Maybe I need to just start a list of all the things I want to knit, then put it in order from "most wanted" to "least wanted", and start knitting from the list.   Or is that just another way to procrastinate?

Hope this finds all of you safe and warm, dreaming of Spring.