At Least

My horoscope for May sounds promising.

This part did make me laugh, though:

"Mercury rules communication, agreements, perception, and commerce, and it is generally not wise to begin a new job when Mercury is retrograde.

The only exception to this rule is if the executive that you are interviewing with is someone you know from your past. In that case, your chart shows that Mercury would be urging you to go back to find new ways to relate together. In that case, it would be apparent that you have more to accomplish together.

However, about ninety-five percent of the time, we don't go back to someone we know when we are interviewing for a job, but to someone new."

I am the exception to the 95%, because with the exception of my present job, where I knew nobody when I got there, every job I've had since the early 90s has been through connections, and my interviews were all with or obtained through people I know, and if this job doesn't work out the first thing I'll do is start calling My People.

The trip to MD is off. A variety of reasons, other friends unable to go, the brush fires that would make the first three or four hours of the trip a slow, smoky nightmare, cousins I would love to see are leaving for Greece, etc. etc. But the reason that really kept nagging at my mind was this: I don't have any strong desire to buy yarn, and that's a hell of a long way to go to eat dinner with friends who will be busy working during the festival, and pet some sheep. It would have been the world's most expensive petting zoo trip. And of course, I plan to be living there this time next year, so after weighing the pros and cons and hearing the news reports of closed roads and accidents and how tomorrow will be no better and might be worse, I came to my senses and canceled the hotel. I just don't want to go, and I should listen to me for a change.

I went through my patterns and thought about what I would buy, and other than the yarn for the Argosy Wrap I couldn't think of a damn thing. Hell, for what this trip would have cost me I can buy Lion and Lamb for the wrap and still come out way ahead. Though the more I think about it, the more I think I may go with the Kureyon the pattern calls for - I have 5 skeins in the stash, the pattern calls for 8 and the model uses a mix of colors. I can get 3 more (actually I'll order 4 more - been burned on the Clapotis) and use my stash colors, I love them and even the L&L colors aren't as suitable for this project. I fondled the Kureyon again and decided it's not as scratchy as I'd remembered, and the colors are just what I had in mind when I saw this pattern. That's what happens with stash, if it's out of sight long enough you can't even remember what it was like.

As a wise friend named it, this is my year of Other Things. My focus has shifted, I don't think of knitting the same way I did a year or two ago. I am moving on to other things - I'll still knit,I've been doing it all of my life, but I suspect I'll be knitting much more selectively. I am in month 5 of the Yarn Fast, and I can honestly say I haven't even been tempted - I have things in the To Do List that I want to do before I buy more yarn. And I have other things to do, too.