Nearly. Almost. Well, Just a Few More Rows..

There are times that I really become nervous, and the past couple of weeks have really been very nerve racking for me, and in various aspects of life. Spurg has a new boss, and unfortunately that is not turning out to be a good thing. He has decided that scrubbing toilets for the county sounds better than being a graphic designer for the paper, and well, that pretty much says it all. He’s still working there, but looking for another job, a complete career change as graphics just don’t hold the allure for him that they once did. I’m not going to go into details as of yet, but hopefully a change will happen in the not so distant future.

Nick hasn’t gone to school in quite some time. I’ve stopped making a fuss with him. I’ve let him just hang at the house with mom, but have made it clear that it is unhealthy for him to isolate himself the way that he has been. I told him it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t finish school, but that he needs to consider a day program for disabilities such as he has. He has been resistant to even considering it, but slowly, I am working on him.

Today, instead of Spurg taking Sydney all the way to the other side of town to school, (she was placed there since our local elementary was full but she will be returning to our local school for the 1st grade as there will be room for her) I walked her to the local school to take the big yellow bus. I’ve been very nervous about this as she is my little baby and has never done something like this without an adult. When that bus pulled up though, she was on it and rushing to any seat that she wanted. She is the first pick up and it’s just her and the driver until the next stop. It was really cute to see her sitting there in the third row passenger side and she was just glowing. I think that I am just going to have to face it, she is a very independent child and very able to cope with some things on her own. We do have to get up and ready a bit earlier than when Spurg took her. It’s a half hour walk to the local school, plus I am taking Nick with me since he cannot be left unsupervised. Nick was a good sport about it, although nervous since to get to the bus stop we have to walk right by his class at high school. He was afraid that he would get into trouble if anyone saw him even after I assured him that he wouldn’t. When we began to head back home, I saw Nick’s class clinician and we stopped to chat for a few minutes. Nick asked if it would be okay if he stopped by the class to say hi. I suspect that he is beginning to miss his friends. We were there for about 20 minutes, and Nick was as relaxed and easy going as could be. When leaving to go our way, we barely got around the corner from the class and Nick mentioned that he might go back to school, but that he wanted to sleep on it tonight. I made it clear that if he doesn’t return, and doesn’t go to a day program, he will have to walk with me to take Sydney to the bus every school day. This did make an impression on him since half way home he was begging me to take a break and stop anywhere.

That kind of made me laugh, since I was prepared to feel the pain myself. Walking that far these days is really painful for me with the arthritis in the hips and knees. But I am pretty good at pushing through the pain and getting to where I need to go. Honestly, I know that in a matter of years I may not be able to do that anymore, but I can now and the exercise is good for me. It is also my hope that I might be able to drop a few pounds with walking an hour 5 times a week. In July, I will probably have to pick Sydney up from 1st grade, so it will go up to two hours of walking each day. I used to do that every school day when Nick went to the local elementary, so it’s not like I haven’t done it before, it’s just been a long time since I have done it.

I’m feeling the aches coming on, but that’s okay. It’s time for some knit therapy and tonight before bed, a nice hot shower. (I would kill for a long soak in the tub, but we only have a shower here. Sucks, big time!)

Gretchen is coming along. I had a very hard time starting the edging, no fault of the written pattern which is simply very clear. It was my own brain having problems wrapping itself around the simplicity of it all. Once I had that “AHA!” moment though, I have been knitting like a fiend.

Gretchen is beginning to make me nervous though. She doesn’t look so very big. I don’t dare take out the tape measure to confirm this, I’m too terrified to. I might measure her just before blocking and am trying to convince myself that she will block out much larger than she is now. I have knit lace before after all, and have seen time and time again how much size a garment can gain in blocking. It’s just another one of those things that my brain has a real hard time wrapping itself around. (Kind of a “I’ll believe it when I see it” brain thing going on here.)

This is all that I have left to do on Gretchen. I only cast on for her 22 days ago and haven’t knit every single day, so she’s been a speedy knit for me. Hopefully in the next day or so I will be blocking and then the brain can breath a sigh of relief with the evidence of her being much larger and a more wearable size than she is today.