Chaos Theory

Anyone who knows me, knows that I don't handle chaos.  Uncertainty, chaos, unpredictability, it all brings out my...shall we say...ungraceful side.  And since Chris has forbidden me from obsessing over all of the uncertainties in our life right now (we have 5 weeks left on our lease and still no where else to live), I have been choosing to obsess over Other Things.  Inconsequential Things.  Pretty Things, even, sometimes.

So, knitting it is!

I started this amazing, intricately cabled sweater for Chris for Christmas this year.  It really is a gorgeous pattern.  So I bought the yarn I needed, and cast on for a sleeve, figuring that if I made a mistake, a sleeve would be less painful to rip back, than a body with 300 stitches on it.  After knitting for 6 inches it became evident that the sweater MIGHT fit the Boy, but certainly would not fit my husband.  So I checked my gauge, realized (holy CRAP) that I was getting 3 TIMES the number of stitches to the inch as the pattern called for (uptight, much?) and ripped the whole thing back.  At that point, I shelved the pattern.  I would still love to knit it up for Chris, but it will call for either a) different (thicker) yarn, or b) massively reworking the pattern so that I can knit a sweater that Chris can wear or c) both of the above.

So instead, I'm working on more socks for my boy.  He has informed me that he doesn't like the socks that I bought for him at the store.  He only likes the ones I make.  Which is just about the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a while, but yeah...that's a lot of work to knit up 6 pairs of wooly socks for his feet.  His feet which are the Lords of Perpetual Growth.  But I continue to work at it.  I started a yellow pair with a brown chevron strip around the ankle.  I'm calling them the Charlie Brown socks, and they are turning out super cute.  I'll post some pictures when I finish them.

And just as proof that, while my life contains more chaos than is comfortable for me, I have not yet surrendered my sense of humor, I offer you this...


Back last Summer while I was scanning 4, 820 pictures to use in the slideshow for my parent's 50th wedding anniversary, I came across this series of pictures.  It features my brother and I, and since there aren't many pictures of us lying around, it caught my attention.  (Talk about chaos, that would be having twins...two babies terrorizing around the house at the same time?  Yes.  Apparently, my aversion to chaos is repercussion for the chaos I rained down on my parents.) 

Anyway...here's the first 3 pictures:

I'm not kidding.  3 pictures, all of them basically the same.  One of us looking off, not paying attention, one of us not smiling.  Actually, that could probably describe every single picture of my brother and I until we were probably 14.  Anyway, I offer the next photograph as evidence that my inner smarta** is strong, deep, and I was BORN this way...

And voila.  I'm pretty sure my Dad was trying (repeatedly) to get our attention AND to get us to smile, you know, simultaneously.  And after the 4th attempt, I'm reasonably certain that I had had enough.  So that's what you get.

(Incidentally, there are enough pictures of me like this that my Mom calls it my "teeth are screaming at you" face.  AWESOME.)