domestic dilettante, humorless feminist shrew

First, how is it that I’ve suddenly not posted anything in days and days? I feel like we’ve been both very busy and very tired lately, and apparently I’m right on both counts, since in my head, I’ve posted at least one entry that doesn’t actually exist.

Possibly also telling is the fact that Monday night we put Maura in bed and sat down to chat, and then the next thing I knew it was eleven at night. Reading that, you may think that we just talked for several hours, but you’d be wrong, because what we’d actually done was fallen asleep smushed together in the middle of the bed.

Anyhow, it seems that the summer storms have hit us, which always leaves me wanting to curl up in my bed with books, tea, and my knitting. I can’t say that recent circumstances have helped that urge–my friend Emily recently sent me Margaret Atwood’s Writing with Intent, plus the new Knitty came out.

I’ve only just started that Atwood, but I’m really enjoying it. I have yet to read anything of hers that I wasn’t engrossed in, so I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised that a bunch of bite-sized chunks of Atwood are every bit as wonderful as the nine-course feasts that she generally lays out. Reading this is making me think that I should go back and reread her other works–we own a great many of them, some of which I’ve probably not picked up since I first read them more than a decade ago.

Of course, to start rereads, I feel like I should finish my to-read pile first, and since that never diminishes… Someday I’m going to win the lottery, and I’m going to chart out a rigorous schedule: up at eleven, read until half past twelve, lunch, read until two, ninety minutes of nap, an hour of internet, a nice walk, supper, a few hours with Maura, a few hours of free time for knitting and television and internet, and then reading and knitting until bedtime, right about three.

I wish I had time for more knitting and reading than I do, really. I prefer to do something else while I knit–talk on the phone, talk to someone in the same room, or even watch television–so it sometimes becomes the last thing on my list. I’m working on the shawl for my mother, though, and also a pair of socks that I’m hoping to finish up sometime this summer, at least.

I’m also starting to think about Christmas presents again. I owe my mother-in-law a Peace Shawl, which looks like it will be lovely, if tedious. It won’t be Christmas, but I expect that it’ll be her big knitted thing for the year.

Knitty’s latest issue has a gorgeous sweater, Honeychurch, that I think would be gorgeous on my mother. I don’t usually make clothes (outside, of course, of socks) but this might be the exception. The sweater looks fairly easy, like it might be nice, mindless knitting that I could do while I read. (Yes, I read and knit at the same time. This only rarely causes me trouble.)

I’m a little bummed that this Knitty only had two pairs of socks, and that they’re both top down. I rather like the look of Outside In, but, again, don’t like knitting top-down socks. I could adapt it, but…well, but I’m lazy, and if I’m going to go to all the trouble of adapting things, I’d just as soon use my own pattern and call it a day, I guess.

Maybe it’s a bit premature to be planning new knitting projects when I’ve not finished anything since–er. Easter? Slightly after? On the other hand, maybe this is what I need to get myself started again.