My Summer Vacation

Summers are normally a very relaxing time for me.  By the time May rolls around I'm usually feeling a teeny bit of burn out after homeschooling all year, which in our household means, I spend 90% of my time in the car driving the kids places.  I always look forward to a summer spent at home, not in the car.  I love those lazy summer days where we simply walk down to the lake, park our butts on the beach & vegetate until dinner time.  If we vegetate long enough, Hubby will come home from work & fix dinner.  I love summer!

But this year, I traded my vegetative state for "spending money."  I went & got myself a part time job at the local theme park.  What was I thinking??  Actually, I was thinking I'd work a couple of days a week & earn a little extra yarn money.

That's not exactly what happened.  The part time, couple of days a week job turned into 60 - 70 hours a week.  It's my own fault.  Jason, Creator of the Schedule, who's young enough to be my grandchild, would look at me with his sweet little face & I'd hear myself saying, "Sure, I can work that day."  I'd hear other worker-bees mention that they'd been scheduled for a day they wanted off & I'd hear myself saying I'd cover for them.  My work load would be finished & I'd find myself sticking around to help out everyone else.  I'd tell myself that since I'd put the uniform on & was going to have to go home & wash it, I may as well get it good & dirty.  So, it's my own fault.  But good grief!  After not having worked outside the house in 18 years, it was quite a shock to my system!

It didn't help that my hours were so screwy.  I'd leave home between 1:00 & 2:00 in the afternoon each day & get home around 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning.  And I'd be starving, which usually meant stopping off at the local all night truck stop for something either full of sugar or horribly greasy.  After gobbling down the truck stop food in the car, I'd get home & watch Netflix for an hour or two while I washed my uniform & my stomach settled.  I'd hit the bed around 5 a.m., sleep until noon & get up, shower and go do it all over again.  That was my summer vacation.

I can't complain though.  I really enjoyed the job, the people, & the atmosphere.  Oh, and the strawberry slushies.  The employee cafe's strawberry slushies were what kept me showing up for work day after day.  I'm not sure how I'll survive the winter without them.  They are more addictive than crack.  More addictive than sock yarn!  Hand spun, hand dyed sock yarn!!  Hand spun, hand dyed sock yarn on sale!!!

The job continues through the end of October, but it's weekends only now.  Finally!  I can return to knitting.

My summer knitting pile is pathetic.

That's all I accomplished all summer long.  A few hats, a few scarves & a couple of shawls.  Pathetic.

The problem I face now is that there are so many things I want to knit, I don't know where to start.  Instead of casting on, I sit here staring into the yarn bins for hours, frozen in indecision hell.

Maybe some music will help break me out of indecision mode.  I'm weirdly excited about my new gadget.

It's a little tiny, portable speaker that hooks to an ipod.  It works great & I use it constantly.  I carry it around the house & use it instead of headphones, I take it to work & subject my workmates to my music.  (They deserve it!  I did spend months listening to their Justin Bieber & some girl playing cups. I really don't understand the whole teen fascination with musical cups.)  I even use it in the car so that I can blast my loud obnoxious rock music while driving home from work at 3 a.m. when there's nothing worth listening to on the radio & I'm trying to stay awake.  That little $9 speaker has probably saved me from taking quite a few ditch naps.

So, I think I'll go turn on the music, close my eyes & simply grab something out of the yarn stash.    After all, any knitting is better than no knitting.