The year's end is quickly approaching. With only 31 days until the New Year starts, I find myself becoming more and more reflective and restless. What have I done this year? What did I want to do? What is important to me? What do I hope to achieve in the coming year?

Like many, birthdays (particularly those that end with a zero or a five), the change of seasons, the start of school or the end of the year are signals for me to engage in personal assessment.

I have spent the past five months absorbed in food, and frankly, I am sick of it. Sharyn and I recently talked about how tired of thinking about food we were. The counting Points, the reading labels, the energy required to keep our diets "on track" while continuing to stimulate our palates.

Beyond the just task of creating a healthy meal, I am tired of the act of eating. Very little strikes me as interesting or palatable. The bizarre notion of ingesting some Jetson-aged meal-in-a-pill that Rosie the Robot had designed to meet all of my individual nutritional needs is quite appealing. This could be alarming if you know me well -- my love of food (shopping, cooking, reading recopies, eating) is legendary.

Mostly, I am completely disenchanted with the fabric of my life. I own too much. I weigh too much. I read too little. These are the superficial aspects of my truly wondering about my purpose in life.

It feels as if I am just moving through life, rather than living it. This has nothing to do with my health, my relationship or anything else that might cause concern; it is just me thinking that I need to demand more of myself. That I need to give more of myself.

The weirdest part is that all of this pondering grew out of a discussion about the need to get my act together and finish some knitting project. There is a wild combination of mathematically stupefying extrapolation connecting my thoughts. Spring always has been feeling blue and reflective, and the warm November rain feels too much like spring.

to Baby Jane?

She found some fantastic vintage reproduction shoes on sale and danced around the house in celebration.

The dancing was curtailed by respiratory distress. In spite of a terrible allergy to pine, I purchased two holiday wreaths to support a local mental health agency. One for our door and one for Joe's mother. I underestimated the power of pine. Even with the wreaths in the trunk, the pine scent was so overwhelming I was forced to drive home with the windows down and the heat on.

A pair of boots would be more practical for the impending Storm of the Century (because there is one every year), but nothing found locally hold a candle to Valentina's purple and green beauties. Frankly, neither of these boots would stand up to the snowy rigors of a Dutchess County winter. I once arrived in Manhattan, dressed as Sasquatch, only to find that 70 miles can make a huge difference in weather. Resplendent in polar fleece and clommpy snow boots, I lumbered through the Manolo-heeled masses vowing to dress for my destination, not my point of departure. Although this is the very mindset that makes me silently ridicule flip-flopped New Yorkers returning from Florida in February.

I suffer from a serious case of boot envy. Every September, I tell myself this will be the year that Franco Sarto (or some other mass market shoe genius) will make a boot to fit Calfzilla. Please do not tell me of Zappos and their wide-calf boot offerings. I have tried them, and my calves runneth over.

It turns out that Joe's mother hates wreaths because they were a fixture of mourning in her Baltimore neighbourhood. Nothing says "holiday cheer" like a fragrant memory of death!

As a child, I was one of those kids that rarely did anything wrong. This is more a credit to my mother than any natural inclination of mine towards goodness. In fact, there are glaring moments of being a "bad girl". For instance, I used to smoke.
Camel Filterless Cigarettes.

I do not have many vices, but why is it that a good habit is harder to form than a bad one? Certainly, pleasure factors into the mix. While I cannot presently imagine deriving great pleasure from smoking, I know that I did love those ciggies back then.

Being "bad" is not always as bad as it seems. In fact, there are time when being bad is quite good. Mae West made a career of this.

Since my return, I have been quite bad about exercise. Normally, skipping classes and workouts would be cause for guilt, but after a week away from home, time with my honey seemed far more important.

Last evening, I invited Joe out for a Vietnamese dinner and a little flirting. This morning, I ignored the alarm clock and snuggled in for an extra hour of sleeping next to Joe. In the long run, those two stolen hours with Joe will be more beneficial to my health than hip drops and bicep curls.

At least that is what the bad girl in me says.

Even with a full week away from the time-wasting lure of the internet, I did not make much progress on the Raglan Cap Sleeves Aurora Top. Visiting and eating took precedence over knitting.

There was a bit of shopping as well, however, I did not come close to a yarn shop. My shopping focused purely on my appearance. With a neither food diary nor Points calculator in sight, I feared the worst for it. It seems that I have learned a thing or two about eating well, even if I am not noting and calculating every morsel that passes my lips.

While my suitcase may have gained a few pounds in Pittsburgh (shopping), I am personally minus one pound of "stuffing".

If you hear reports of a woman popping one of the security screeners at LaGuardia Airport for laughing at her pound of multi-colored yarn, rest easy...that woman is not me.

My bag is packed, and there is knitting content within, as well as my Mini iPod (and charger). Realizing that much of my time at home could be spent slouching around in a nightgown gave me more freedom in terms of assigning space to yarn and needles. What you see is the start of a sleeve. My in-flight/holiday knitting project is the Raglan-Cap Sleeves Aurora Top. The green apple Classic Elite All Seasons Cotton from my streamlined stash.

I knit on the train to NYC, and I had finished both sleeves by the time the train pullled into Grand Central Station. I will be in Pittsburgh, with my parents, for the week, and I do not want to find myself without a project to see me through the remainder of the week. Worst case scenario may find me trolling Pittsburgh yarn stores to find an appropriate project to work on my #5 needles.

My parents are "interesting" people. And by "interesting" I mean that they do not have an ATM card. I made the decision not to bring my laptop, thus I will be without a computer and internet access until next Saturday. I feel as if I should be making my way to Pittsburgh by covered wagon. Jet travel seems too futuristic.

Enjoy your week.

Eat lots of turkey and gluten-filled carbohydrate dishes for me.

When I travelled for business, I was able to pack quickly and efficiently. My boss would marvel that I could fit clothing for 10 days of business and pleasure into a 20" rolling suitcase.

Christmas was another example of packing restraint. Typically, I carried only that 20" roller and a handbag. All of my gifts were tucked into the roller, and my book was in my handbag. My secret weapon in packing light for the holidays? I kept a few items of clothing stored in my bedroom in Pittsburgh.

Between the downsizing of my possessions and the upsizing of my body, I cannot rely on the stash of Pittsburgh clothing to see me through. Now, I am forced to pack clothing, which makes the prospect of packing knitting rather mentally anguishing. I am loathed to pack anything that I will never use, but then again, I do not want to be caught out when the desire to knit hits me. None of my current projects are particularly portable or enduring.

Rhinebeck Weekend will be seamed tonight, which leaves me with the following options:

Twisty Turns is a damn space hog. No.

Tubey is a good option, but I am dithering over the color (charcoal) against my skin.

CeCe is a project with great portability, but possibly not a good "socializing with family" knitting project.

Hurry! I need a new project!

Is it wrong that I am more concerned about bringing the "right" knitting project than I am about my toothbrush and underwear?

Bereft.

1. Yourself: restless
2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend (spouse): loving
3. Your hair: pixie
4. Your mother: Libra
5. Your father: Gemini
6. Your favorite item:
7. Your dream last night: forgotten
8. Your favorite drink: wine
9. Your dream car: Spyder
10. The room you are in: office
11. Your ex: ass
12. Your fear: mediocrity
13. What you want to be in 10 years? adventurer
14. Who you hung out with last night? Sharyn
15. What you’re not? professional
16. Muffins: no
17. One of your wish list items: Deco
18. Time: dragging
19. The last thing you did: read
20. What you are wearing: green
21. Your favorite weather: sweater
22. Your favorite book: (a confederacy of) dunces
23. The last thing you ate: carrots
24. Your life: uneventful
25. Your mood: glum
26. Your best friend: Joe
27. What are you thinking about right now? travel
28. Your car: burden
29. What are you doing at the moment? blogging
30. Your summer: short
31. Your relationship status: partnered
32. What is on your TV? nothing
33. What is the weather like? gloomy
34. When is the last time you laughed? morning

When I was a child, I had a strong belief that my mother had the power to make things happen. Even now, I will give my mother some tidbit of information on a future endeavour, and she will deliver cautionary tales. Travelling to Luxembourg? My mother would have just read an article about an outbreak of MonkeyPox there. Trying snowshoeing? She will warn against a broken ankle, frostbite, or some other oddball malady. My natural response would be to roll my eyes and dismiss her with a sigh. One week later, I might be calling her with my leg in a cast and my baby toe amputated.

Last week I learned that this universal empowerment is not just for mothers to exert control over their biological children. The universe smiles on those of us living with our partner's progeny.

Wednesday night the kids were laughing about last year's major gym class mishap. A girl was popped in the eye with a softball, and she suffered a fractured cheekbone and needed stitches. Despite the seriousness, Kevin and Lukas laughed about this until I pulled out the Mommy voice and chastised them: That's not very funny. How would you like a softball in the eye? *insert foreshadowing soundtrack here* Fast forward to Thursday afternoon where we find Lukas in the emergency room getting six stitches in his right eye...after an Ultimate Frisbee mishap in gym. A karmic smack-down?

Lest you think I am all evil, I plan to win your favor with sock yarn and roving. Let me know if anything strikes your fancy.

The other evening, I was picking up some items on hold at the library. The woman in front of me was juggling 5 large children's books, 2 children's videos and 3 children with no more than 18-24 months between one and the next.

Books were dropping, videotapes were flying free from their holders, children were crying and mother looked quite harassed and tired.

Yanked from my post-voting euphoria by the aural and visual jumble, I mused "Babysitters and birth control: if you cannot afford one, you had better afford the other". It suddenly hit me that one of the most challenging aspects of motherhood may well be the schlepping and carrying of children and all of the accoutrement that is part and parcel with children. The coordination of people, places and things is no small feat, particularly when dealing with small people.

Like my father, I have a near-phobia about hauling stuff around, but like my mother, I seem condemned to a life of a pack mule life. I moaned previously about the luggage required for a day at work and the gym, and Twisty Turn is not helping.

While Decadent Fibers' version requires a mere two hanks of yarn, the yarn in question is 8 ounces, 490 yards of fiber per hank. I hope that wearing a pound of yarn is easier than carrying it around.

By my own admission I am one of those "snooty intellectual* liberals" that the media tells us conservatives love to hate. Just as some Christian groups may find my feminism and childlessness by choice an affront to all that is holy and American, I miffed by cars covered in yellow ribbon magnets and flags.

I am a proud American; however, I feel that part of embracing any ideology is to stand back and question it with as much objectivity as you can muster. Blind acceptance of anything is far too narrow for me. Yet, for all of my distaste of blind embrace, wild optimism and overzealous patriotism, there is a moment in my American life that makes me misty -- voting. I still get chills when I pull the lever to close and open the voting machine curtains.

I wish I could find seaming Rhinebeck Weekend as stirring as flipping a few levers... But to give my idle hands some focus until they are forced by Theresa (our knitting group teacher/leader), I cast on for the Decadent Fibers rendition of Twisty Turns from IKP's Wrap Style.

An easy and quick knit, I am certain to meet with some sortly of knitterly doom. It seems to be my fate with the "quick & dirty knit". For me, it is generally anything but...

*NB: I do not think of myself, nor define myself, as an intellectual. It is purely the rhetoric that one finds in liberal-bashing texts.

The city-country dilemma is one which with many of us grapples. Perhaps, my dilemma is further muddled by my inability to resolve my living situation. I live with three men. I make no proclamations about the cleanliness of one gender over the other, as my clutter is a huge offensive to all who live in the apartment, including me.

However, the predilection for teenaged boys to avoid dishes is astounding. Eating sinkside is not acceptable manners -- table or otherwise. Take a seat (and do not lean back in it!) at the table, use a plate, and do not chew such that I feel as if I have been magically transported to a cow pasture. Otherwise, when the day comes that I actually vomit from the sound of your wet, sloppy chews, I will aim in your direction -- just to teach you a lesson.

Talking with Joe about the boys' actions and (lack of) manners is a minefield. How do I broach the subject without offending Joe's parenting skills? I know he taught them the value of clean hands and how to chew properly – in terms of digestion and decorum. The manners have slipped as they have aged, and Joe fails to notice the transgressions. Verily, I am so focused on the transgressions that I could cut diamonds with my laser beam glare.

Am I living that Talking Heads song, minus the beautiful house and the beautiful wife. Not quite a shotgun shack, a 750sf apartment shared with two teenaged boys can be very trying for a woman who relishes silence, alone time and adherence to certain principles of etiquette.

I am ready to find some land, plop down a yurt and claim squatter's rights. Me and my knitting in a cozy space...Naturally, Joe would be welcome as long as he sat at the table and chewed his food thoroughly and quietly.

Given the choice between a few hours of seaming Rhinebeck Weekend whilst watching Seamless and going used car shopping with Joe, I chose the latter. Naturally, one might find tagging along with a man who is used car shopping to be as exciting as being the unemployed friend shopping with the friend with a bottomless clothing budget. However, I enjoy spending time with Joe, no matter the way we spend it.

My transition from online food journal junkie to going it alone has not been as seamless and successful as I had hoped. It is worth pointing out that since the cancellation of my online account, I did lose one pound, but I’ve been holding steady for three weeks. Mama needs a plateau-buster…and not just in terms of weight loss.

I cannot say why or how it happened, but I find myself craving change. One part of me misses Manhattan and all that it has to offer, particularly in terms of more interesting and stimulating work; but another part of me fantasizes about moving to the Oregon coast and living a simple life that affords me plenty of time for home-making and crafting. I suppose if I cannot have the city, I really want the county, or at the very least an intimate small town.

Contradictory? Yes! I want the extremes of the spectrum, which is hard to obtain unless you have the money to own a city and country home. Maybe my love of extremes -- my desire for them -- has been the driving force behind the lurking discontent that has eternally plagued me. I am not sure how I can resolve my dilemma, but I know that I must. I feel too disconnected and discontented at the moment. And whether this stems from my need for chaos or from a sense of complacency; I do not know.

In two weeks, I will be back in Pittsburgh for a visit with my family, which should offer a fair amount of time to ponder the future and the paths that could get me closer to one, if not both, ends of the continuum.

In spite of nicknames suggesting that I am a temperamental hothead (Little Pepper pot, Tabasco), my blood pressure has always been under the baseline. Until now. Two readings last week had me well above 120/80. Thankfully, I was already scheduled to see my doctor yesterday. Or so I thought.

According to the doctor's office, the appointment is for next Friday. I discovered this standing in the office, having wasted my time, my energy, and some $3.49 per gallon black gold. Normally, I would lay odds that the mistake could be either mine or the scheduler, but not with this one. It is all her. When I was booking my appointment, she was fumbling around with the computer and losing information -- such as the information that my blood work needed to include a cholesterol screen! Last August, as a result of some female issues, I asked about a pregnancy test to rule out that possibility. This same scheduler told me to discuss the pregnancy test when I came in for my physical -- in October!

To be frank, I only want two things from my doctor:

1. My latest (and hopefully improved) cholesterol information
2. A medical note to justify paying for Weight Watchers with my Flex Spending Account.

I was so pissed off about the bungled blood work and appointment that I skipped Yarn Central's Knitting Party in favour of ranting to Joe and going out to dinner -- to maybe the only Italian restaurant on the planet that does not serve wine. Get me out of Podunk!

Forecasts still show a strong chance of sleeve, but a shift in the wind may seriously reduce the chance of seaming. I am going to carry a tapestry needle -- just in case.

Chilly with a chance of sleeve.

I do not know how I managed, but somehow in the busy night of fondling yarn, searching the files of my memory for Thompson Twins songs (Hold Me Now), playing Theresa's iPod Stereo thingy and chowing down on Shrimp with Lobster Sauce; I completed one Rhinebeck Weekend sleeve and started the second.

Yarn Central's monthly knitting party is tonight. If I can focus my efforts, this weekend may include a chance of seaming.

To say that my knitting has been rather sparse since the trip to Rhinebeck would be an understatement. Rather than attending to the sleeves of Rhinebeck Weekend, I have been more absorbed in cooking, organizing and a bit of reading.

In spite of The Year of Magical Thinking and two works by Spalding Gray are taunting me from the bookshelves, my literary inclinations have been rather "light" as of late. With the shorter days and impending holidays, I am less than enticed by heavy non-fiction. However, as all three books were acquired Christmas 2005, I must do my level best to slog through read them by year's end.

Currently breaking in the reading glasses is Genevieve Antoine Dariaux's A Guide to Elegance: For Every Woman Who Wants to Be Well and Properly Dressed on All Occasions. An encyclopedic guide to elegance first published in 1964 -- updated in 2004 -- has me snorting with laughter.

Grooming
The cornerstone of elegance might be represented by a bar of soap.
Amen to that, sister!

Personality
To be elegant is first of all to know oneself, and to know oneself well requires a certain amount of reflection and intelligence. Consequently, a woman who is rather stupid will always find it extremely difficult to become truly elegant.
This could explain the sartorial selections of any number of celebrities, but it keeps the Hollywood stylists employed.

Pounds
...it is probably true that the list of the Ten Best Dressed Women is also a list of the Ten Hungriest Women.
Obviously written well before the meteoric (and unfathomable) rises of The Olsen twins, Nicole Ritchie, Kiera Knightly, et al.

Veils
Somewhat out of fashion at the moment (and I cannot imagine why), veils are one of the most flattering of feminine adornments. It is not really correct to wear a veil before 5 P.M.
Sod that! I feel fabulous and fetching in my vintage hat.

Weigh In

One of my failings is my ability to push off a project if I am not required to adhere to a deadline. Naturally, I knit like a fiend on Rhinebeck Weekend until it was clear that nothing short of altering physics would have the cardigan ready for a New York State Sheep & Wool showing. Without a deadline or a purpose, poor Rhinebeck Weekend has fallen to the bottom of my knitting bag, which I still carry to and from work -- a good sign.

In an effort to make myself unavailable to dole out candy, I worked on the sleeve. I have already modified the body of the cardigan to be more cropped than Ivete’s version. My plan was to create a ¾-length cuffed sleeve, but it was dismissed as creating too much bulk. I am still set on ¾-length sleeve that is straighter than the pattern’s. Rather than increase along the length of the sleeve, I cast on the number of stitches after the final increase, plus two to balance the bottom ribbing. After the ribbing, I decreased by two stitches. So far, it looks fine, but I am still waffling on including and excluding the ribbing on the sleeves.

The argument in favor suggests that ribbing on the sleeve will echo the ribbing on the body and neck of the cardigan. The argument against, however, is that ribbing on the bottom of a less fitted ¾-length sleeve is going to look crappy. Anyone care to weigh in?

As for my final weigh-in of October, I was disappointed to see that I missed my month goal. I hoped to end the month at a specific weight, which I missed by 2lbs. The old me would have become depressed and despondent about this. The old me cried at a ½-lb weight gain. The new me refuses to feel a sense of failure. The new me is damn proud of the 22lbs I lost in 15 weeks.

I am more proud of what I have gained than what I have lost.