Poor Planning

I always think ahead and think of anything that can and might happen and try to have a plan. It aggravates Vince that I keep a bag in the car with a change of clothes, a toothbrush and toothpaste. He will get everything out of the car, including my bag. I’ll say . . that’s my bag I keep in the car. For 20+ years I have said that and for 20+ years he gets it out every time he takes stuff out of the car.

We had to go to Abilene today for a doctor’s appointment. For those who don’t know, I cannot sit idle. If I don’t have something to do while waiting or riding in the car, . . it’s not good. I usually take a Kindle. I don’t have a reading app on my phone and I don’t want one. I can run the battery down with the dang thing turned off in my purse.

I keep a knitting project in a bag in the car always. I had a pair of socks for Addie in the car. Last night I thought about grabbing another project to take because two projects are always better than one. I planned to stick a Kindle in the bag with the second project.

Yesterday I said “What time do we need to leave home in the morning? We have to be there at 11:15.” He said “9:15 will give us plenty of time.” OK. 9:15 it is.

I know how long it takes me to get dressed – shower, was my hair, dry my hair, use the curling iron on a few unruly spots, walk Rita. I knew if I hopped in the shower at 8:45, I’d be dressed and ready to go at 9:15. I was sitting in my chair knitting and about 8:30, I got up to go check on the chickens before I took a shower. That when . . .

Vince: I’d like to go by McDonald’s and get breakfast.
Me: I’m not sure that’s possible.

I meant . . I’m not sure I can be dressed and ready to leave here in time to go to McDonald’s (which is NOT on our way to Abilene. We live a good bit south of town and we take the back roads to get to Abilene. From where we live, it’s at least a 20 minute drive to McDonald’s and then only about a 10 minute drive to get us back on track to go to Abilene.

I forgot about checking on the chickens, saying “You take Rita out and I’ll get in the shower.” 15 minutes later, we were on the road to McDonald’s. I sat in the car while he went in and got his breakfast to eat on the road. That’s when I grabbed my knitting bag, realized I never took the time to get a second project or my Kindle. Opened the knitting bag to find Addie’s socks really close to being finished.

They’re short socks and I could easily have finished them on the way to Abilene but I mostly talked instead of knitting. We were talking about the move to Arkansas and there’s so much running through my head about all that.

We got to Abilene at least 15 minutes early so I asked Vince if he could run by Hobby Lobby. I ran in . . literally, and grabbed some extra sock yarn in case there was a long wait at the doctor’s office.

There was no wait at the doctor’s office. I actually hadn’t even gotten my knitting out when they called me back. On the way home, we talked more and I hardly knitted. I had seen this yarn at a Hobby Lobby when we were in AR and since it said Wool-Free, I had assumed it was cotton but it isn’t. It’s 93% acrylic, 7% PBT . . whatever that is. It actually feels really good. It’s a bit thinner than the fingering weight yarn I usually make for socks but I’m betting the acrylic holds up better for Addie. There’s 235 yards per 50 grams, so that’s 470 yards/100 grams and I usually only buy sock yarn that’s no more than 400 yards per 100 grams. It can be machine washed and machine dried, which is good, because despite my begging, most of Addie’s socks end up in the washer/dryer.

And, two skeins, which equals one skein of the sock yarn I normally use, costs about 1/3 what I’ve been paying. Vince should be happy with that! I’ll let you know how I like knitting with it.

Lessons learned: 1 – know how much tiem is left on my “in the car” project and 2 – have a backup project!