I feel poor.

I just got a small raise, I am making more money now than I ever made in my life, and I feel poor. I couldn't figure out why until I did some demographic research for another purpose, and looked up my own zip code while I was at it. The average household income in my zip code is over $118,000. I am significantly below average. Around here, I'm the poor people. And the thing that gets me is that this isn't like Southwest Orlando, where you have a cluster of pro athletes and pro golfers in Windemere and Keene's Point and such places, and also 50,000 theme park workers living with multiple roommates in thousands of apartments. I'm sure the average income down there is even higher, thanks to a few dozen zillionaires. This is a fairly homogenous area and the median and the average were within dollars of each other in this study. Which is accurate based on what I see around me. I am officially too poor to live here, and too poor to move unless I leave the state entirely, because unless I want to commute an hour by car (public transportation? Fugeddaboudit) I couldn't buy anything else here, and the apartments are no savings at all. Just another reason on the lengthy list of reasons to get out.

Actual Knitting Talk: I am loving the Lacy Prairie Shawl. It is so soothing, so fun, easy but with enough interest to keep me awake, I can do it while watching Keith Olbermann and drinking a glass of wine, which makes it Perfect Knitting. If any of my remaining stalwart readers (trust me, the hit count don't lie and they dropped like flies last month) is into knitting shawls for charity, or prayer shawls, this would be a fabulous pattern, like slicing a comfy afghan on the diagonal. I switched yarns, the eBay wool was too hairy and not soft enough for a shawl, and I was poking through my now modest stash and found a bag of Berroco Bluefaced Leicester, now discontinued, another eBay score from probably five or so years ago, in a pretty taupe, that I have been hoarding because it's so nice. It's now on its way to being the shawl, and there will probably be enough left over for a scarf or fingerless mitts or some other cuteness. Damn, this was nice yarn, why did they discontinue it? It has luster and softness, and is not "heavy and wooly" it's almost like it has silk in it, yet it doesn't. I can see that it could be a pain to use for a complicated project because it's loosely spun and a bit splitty, but for this mindless yet fun shawl, it's perfection. This will be a big, soft, neutral taupe shawl, suitable for chilly meetings and nippy evenings, casual, comfy. And I am going to take my glass of pinot grigio and retreat to the couch with it right now. Happy Weekend!