The Diet

I've mentioned being on a yarn diet several times since the New Year rolled around and just about every time, someone has called me crazy, or mentioned how they'd never be able to stick to a no-yarn-shopping policy.

Recently I mentioned that while I had not come close to emptying a dresser drawer full of yarn, I did manage to use up a shoe box sized drawer full of little bits of left over yarns.  I received lots of Yays, high fives, You Go, Girl's and many, many Congratulations! Now you can go yarn shopping!'s.  And I appreciate the accolades, but...  I just don't feel right about it.  The goal was to use up a 'real' yarn drawer full of yarn, not that little shoe box sized drawer.

So, I'm going to stick to my yarn diet a while longer.

While the yarn diet is somewhat horrible, it's also somewhat fun.  I have to admit, I get a kick out of using up stuff.  Maybe (okay, probably) I'm nuts but...  squeezing the very last tiny bit of toothpaste out of the tube, using the last bit of ink in a pen, watching an over-stocked pantry dwindle down to emptiness...  It just makes me giddy.  I get The biggest thrill out of finishing things.  (Make note that I like to finish 'things' not projects.  Projects are Not things, which explains my UFO pile.)  So, as much as I am dying to make a LYS run, I'm enjoying watching my yarn supply slowly decrease.

And by slowly decrease, I do mean s...l...o...w...l...y decrease.

But besides watching my yarn supply get smaller, I'm also enjoying the resourcefulness of 'shopping' my stash pile.  I like having the 'use it up' attitude.  I guess that goes along with the thrill of having to use the hairbrush handle to push the last of the toothpaste out of the tube...  Whatever.  I'm enjoying using up my yarn.  I'm enjoying the creativity required to keep knitting 20/7 (I do usually get about 4 hours sleep a night) and only using what I have on hand to do so.  And of course, my bank account doesn't mind either.

So I'm sticking to my yarn diet.

And my diagonal striped scrap yarn blanket is helping me do that.

And all that garter stitch is the perfect accompaniment for a good book.  I can't remember who recommended it, but I finished and Loved An Affair to Dismember by Elise Sax.  I struggled with it in the beginning.  I had to read 20 - 30 pages before I felt like I knew the characters enough to care about them but once I got to know them, they had me laughing out loud.  In fact, at one point, I was sitting alone in a restaurant, eating and laughing out loud, laughing to the point I had tears streaming down my face.  Good grief!  Eating alone in public makes me uncomfortable enough, but to be sitting there, alone, and hysterically hyena laughing, out loud....  Mortifying!  But the book was great despite my embarrassment.

And now, I've moved on to Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi.  I'm hoping this book will help me get past my ridiculously shy, introverted awkwardness.  We will see.   After my public humiliation with An Affair to Dismember, I don't think I could have picked a more perfect title to read.