Nyquil induced rants

I (to quote my DD Katie) feel like 'ass' today. Why do summer colds feel so awful? I have been coughing and feeling like crap for 3 days now. boo. Today's post may be somewhat incoherent due to the large slugs of Nyquil I've ingested; I'm now swigging it straight from the bottle, to hell with the measuring cup!

I did manage to finish the little Peace Fleece cardigan and it's laying on the table blocking itself right now. I'm glad I got it done, but this is one of those 'meh' projects. It looked adorable in the pattern picture, but I'm not totes thrilled with it. Hadley, I'm sending it to you, you can use it as your 'dog feeding' coat (this is one of my family phrases -- we have a gazillion of them -- for a coat, hoodie, pair of shoes, etc that you'd only wear out to the dog run to feed the hounds and shovel up poop).

BTW, Megan, I had no idea your hubby was Mr. Harry Potter Fan Club lol. Maybe I will surprise Ry with his very own Wizard cap and/or wand case!

Hot topic on the knitlist today has been 'yarn diets'. A number of listers have declared themselves to be overwhelmed by their stashes and sworn off of yarn purchases for a period of time. I find it an interesting topic. There seems to be a fair amount of guilt involved in 'stashing' yarn, why is that? Do men feel this way when they buy things for their interests/hobbies or is this a women-centric phenomenon?

Personally, I enjoy having my "YRA" (Yarn Retirement Account) and adding to it. I do purge the stash pretty regularly, selling off or giving away things that I feel I'm not going to knit up any time soon. One thing I wish I did better was to keep track of WHY I purchased a particular yarn. Often, I'll see a pattern I like and buy the yarn...but just as often, I fail to put pattern and yarn together and by the time I pull the yarn out of the stash I no longer know what project it's intended for.

The stash has funded several trips and special purchases for me, so it's my little hedge fund against a rainy day. Of course, it would be much more sensible to put the money in the bank and use THAT to pay for trips etc. but where's the fun in that. To mangle a quote from Barbara Kingsolver: "yarn will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no yarn". Knitting has seen me through just about every event in my life since I was 12 years old, both happy and sad times and having a stash of yarn to fondle is one of the small pleasures in life.

and to finish up for today, here's an anonymous "Ode to Nyquil":

O NyQuil!
As red, thou art, as the chilled blood of a cherry bat!
O NyQuil!
You burn with a fire in my throat that could melt the winter sky!
O NyQuil!
You bring upon me a soothing sleep that rests my aching nose!
O Nyquil!
You are far better than DayQuil!
O NyQuil!
Drugs like you that make me sleep are grand!
O NyQuil!
You make me write beautiful poetry!
O NyQuil!
Don't you think that any respectable ode has an excessive number of "O"s?