Tuesday, August 26, 2008

One Down, One to Go

We dropped our eldest son (eldest by 1 hr 42 mins) at Allegheny College this past weekend. It turned out that there were more tears in the anticipatory period than in the actual experience, though none of the three of us were dry-eyed at the very last good-bye. But, none of us were sobbing either. All in all, we're all three very sure he is at the very best place he could be -- I'd love to work there or be a student there myself!

Our youngest son goes off to college (University of New Hampshire) this Saturday (thankfully they didn't have to go at the same time). This one is only going to be 2 hours away, while the first involved 13 hours of driving in each direction. I think our relief at getting through the first one is going to make this one a bit easier. Tonight at dinner he asked me if I cried a lot last weekend -- I asked if he was trying to figure out how much I might cry this weekend and he grinned at me. I assured him I had saved some tears for him.

I still remember the moment, just before Christmas one year when I was a young teenager, when I realized that, at least for me, the anticipation is usually greater than the realization for most experiences. I'm a big anticipater (anticipator?) -- I enjoy the planning ahead, the imagining of my experience, the looking forward to events, and just the sense of all of the possibilities that lie ahead. That is also reflected in my knitting. My stash is full of anticipated projects. The stash is out of hand when I revel in anticipation so much that it gets ahead of my ability to actually start or finish projects.

Of course, I managed to fit a side trip to Webs and Northampton (for lunch) into my trip -- we were going right by, after all! DH and son were happy to see the easy chairs in the front of the store and I kept my promise not to spend too much time drooling and buying but did manage to get Misti Alpaca Lace in heather green for my next Sivia Harding shawl.

ON MY NEEDLES
Well, the Pi Shawl was going great (now that I have the correct chart) on the trip out, but on Saturday night I lost control of one of the repeats, tried to drop that section down a row or two to get it back and it just didn't work. So, I frogged the whole section back to the safety line once again. I think I'm really just going to put it aside for a while and start another lace project to keep me going for a while.

I am almost up to the armholes for the Braids Cardigan, and am working on a pair of pink self-striping pair of socks. Those two projects will keep me happy for a while, I think.

WHAT I'M READING
OK, we're talking books on tape here -- I can't read in the car or I get sick, so with all the time I've been on the road, I'm not getting much reading time. I downloaded an Amelia Peabody mystery for the trip. We all enjoyed it immensely and it made the travel much more enjoyable. While it was a mystery, we mostly enjoyed the British humor in it and very much enjoyed the reader. I'm going to download the next one tonight.

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