Chickenlips Knitting

"Watching other people buy yarn is the next best thing to buying it yourself." -The Yarn Harlot

I’m in a critical startitis situation—I’ve got so much stuff hanging off my needles that even the small projects aren’t progressing. There is only enough time to do a few rows of this, a few rows of that, and meanwhile stash is everywhere. I adore stash, mind you, but it wants to get knitted soooooo bad and I just can’t get to it. For that matter, it’s not unrealistic to expect a fall contest here at Chickenlips, in which I send one of you some of my orphan baby yarn to love, knit, crochet, felt, or possibly all of the above. So my friends, it is with sadness that I announce my decision to curb my wild, orgiastic yarn buying and money spending, at least for the time being. (sorry, Kelly!) Be assured that I’ve loved glomming onto that sweet sweet yarn with reckless abandon, and your comments tell me you’ve enjoyed watching me do it. But Capital One Mastercard and Wells Fargo Platinum Visa, (bastards) heinous killers of perpetual joy that they are, say I’ve got no choice but to put the brakes on. And in order to succeed at this, as painful as it is, I need to do it in the form of a contract.

Here goes.

I, Chickenlips, for a period not to exceed 63 days*, do hereby pledge to refrain from purchasing the following: yarn, knitting needles, notions, patterns and fiber-related books. In order to avoid temptation to break this contract, I make these additional pledges:

1. I will not go to any LYS, especially after work on payday. I’ll go directly home and knit.

2. I will not visit my favorite online yarn retailers. Should I find myself hovering the mouse over their links, I’ll interpret that as a sure sign I’m about to go off the wagon and get off the computer and go knit.

3. The time I normally spend kvetching about having enough time to knit, I’ll use instead, well, you know.

This contract is in effect until I attend the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival on 22 September 2007, at which time I will (go apeshit) allow myself to carefully select products for purchase, staying within the constraints of a predetermined budget.

Duly witnessed this day, 20 July 2007, by Elwood the cat.

"zzzz....yeah....whatever....zzzz"

Signed,

Chickenlips

* days remaining until Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival.

Happy days

The news ain't all that bad; quite the contrary. There's cause for celebration around here, because J. has been given (finally) a clean bill of heart health! After a stress echocardiogram, and nearly a week's delay in getting the results, the cardiologist finally announced that there was no significant blockage to be found. And I am so proud of him--he's staying on his diet, and well on his way to his ideal weight.

Me? Oh, that's another story. Pass the chocolate-covered anything.

And we take you now back to the mundane.

Our clothes dryer is kaput. We'd purchased it used back in 2000 or so, and it performed admirably longer than we expected. Now it spins without any heat, and won't shut off, so appliance shopping has been added to tomorrow's agenda. And I made it known that I'm not keen on buying another used model. If we can take care of it early enough to have one delivered tomorrow, that would be schweet. But I'm not willing to bet we would be that lucky.

I finished my cherry-lime bomb in time for tomorrow night's Rush concert. Yup, that's right, in less than 24 hours from now I will be mere yards--make that meters--from my favoritest band in the universe, the fabulous Canadian power trio! Naturally, when it's supposed to be glorious midsummer weather in the Pacific Northwest, it's cool and rainy, with no improvement expected over the weekend. It's an outdoor show, but at least we'll be under cover if it does rain. And bundled up in jackets. But does any of this faze me? Not when it's Rush! In the immortal words of Carl from Aqua Teen Hungerforce, "I do not need instructions on how to rock!"