From Andrew Sullivan, via Ozarque's Religion and Language Newsletter: "Traditional morality, in D'Souza's view, 'is based on the notion that there is a moral order in the universe, which establishes an enduring standard of right and wrong. ...' Liberal morality, by contrast, consists first of all in the right of the individual to choose for him- or herself what morality is. ... Theoconservatism refuses to accept that government can ever aspire to be neutral with respect to competing visions of morality. ... Given the existence of an external moral order, the duty of the state is therefore to reflect that external order, and the duty of citizens is to obey it."

Because we might as well bring in politics, while we're at it!

Yesterday I worked with the kids on their song, discussed materialism with my Sunday School class (they're for it, by and large), assured the director that I would not be playing at the bell choir festival this Saturday (he was probably wondering how he could stop me without being unkind), fed my family, cleaned my bedroom, and finished the encyclopedia assignment.

It was sad to see me googling feverishly for one more interesting fact about this county. It was unseemly, my disappointment when all the good mining disasters turned out to have been in other counties. And it was downright pitiful when I found an article in the Chicago Tribune for 1871 claiming "Horrible Tragedy in Franklin County!" and then got there only to discover that it was pay-per-view. I thought about paying to see whether the Horrible Tragedy might conceivably be something historically significant, rather than the usual shooting or fire or something, but snapped out of it in time and pushed the button to send the article in and be finished.

Then I settled in to do my homework for my Tuesday class, and encountered this sentence: "How does acceptance of a person differ from approval of that person's beliefs or practices?"

It brought to mind Kali Mama's comment on the discussion we've been having: "Not all people can be respectful of other people's beliefs, especially when they find themselves in that black and white territory... How much of morality has to do with the approval or disapproval of our culture and the people around us?"

And also of Canadian National's dilemma, way back at the beginning of the conversation: how can she insist on respectful behavior when her definition of respect differs from that of the person she wants to insist to. If you see what I mean.

Because it seems to me that one thing we have to be able to do when our notions of good and evil differ from those of others is to behave respectfully toward those people without having to feign agreement or approval.

Long-time readers with total recall may remember that I was in a study of the book of Genesis with a bunch of fundamentalist Christians one year. Not only was I the only person in the group who believed in evolution, I was the only one who even understood it, since the rest felt it would be sinful to learn the theory properly. So whereas, for me, what we had was a difference of opinion on an academic question, to them it was a moral difference. These ladies' attitude toward me tended toward surface courtesy with a background of silent disapproval.

I guess if they had been good at it, I would not have known about the disapproval.

Because I think that what we need, if we want to say truthfully that we respect others' beliefs without agreeing with or approving of them, would have to be acceptance of them and respect for them as people.

So how, to get back to Kali Mama's and Chanthaboune's comments, could we convey that? Chanthaboune was referring to #2 daughter's dilemma. Is there any way to say, "I won't go clubbing with you when you are planning to behave in ways I can't approve of" without having her friend hear "You're a slut!"? Particularly as the friend is probably telling herself that somewhere in the recesses of her mind. Is there any way to continue respecting a person if you cannot respect his behavior? Must we respect him in order to accept him?

While we mull this over,  I offer you a stir-fry tutorial. It is mostly for Pokey, but you might find it handy, too.

Stir-fry is cheap (unless of course you are stir-frying shrimp and asparagus tips, and even then it may go further that other preparations would), quick, and easy.

The first thing you need to do is start your rice. Then you cut up your vegetables. Cabbage, carrots, broccoli, zucchini, cauliflower, stuff like that. There should also be green onions and cilantro in the mix.

Cut up the meat as well, if you are using meat.

Heat a bit of oil or broth in a wok or big flat skillet.

Make a sauce. This should involve about half a cup of broth and a quarter cup of soy sauce. If you prefer, you can use juice instead of the broth. Stir in a tablespoon of corn starch and some red peppers and let it sit there harmlessly while you fry things. When I say "red peppers," I mean hot pepper flakes, the seeds. My husband roasts them and otherwise prepares them, so we always have large jars around the house. I don't know exactly what is entailed, because we make him do this outdoors and we stay well away. Most Lao people do it in the house, and their houses have a permanent hot pepper overlay, so that every American who comes inside begins coughing within a few minutes.

If you don't keep hot peppers on hand, you may have a little packet the nice pizza delivery person gave you. This is about the right quantity for an American, so throw in the whole packet.

Throw the meat into the pan and season it. I like to press a couple of cloves of garlic in with it, and some ginger. The funny-looking thing in the picture is ginger root. You can buy it in the produce section. If you have a heavy- duty garlic press like mine (the other funny-looking thing in the picture) you can just cut a bit of the ginger root off and press it. If not, use a grater.

This is also the time to add Hoisin Sauce or fish sauce or any other seasonings you like.

You have a little time now. You can make a salad and some cookies, or mix up a cocktail and sit down and drink it.

Once the meat is brown, fling in the vegetables. Stir them about a bit, pour on the sauce (mix it up a bit to be sure the cornstarch is well combined), cover the pan, and turn down the heat.

By the time you get everything else on the table, your stir-fry will be perfect. You can see mine here with some brown rice. I also made salad and cinnamon elephant cookies. There was a mismatch between the cookie recipe and the cutter I chose. This, in combination with my stubbornness in refusing to switch cutters, meant that they look more like tapirs than elephants, but they still tasted good.

Off to the gym!

Usually at this time of year, my garden is lovely, filled with flowers and lush foliage. The odd weather means that instead I have this puny effect.

Partygirl dropped by and commiserated, thought it is worse for her, since her house is on next week's garden tour. She leafed through a couple of decorating books in hopes that there would be some good way to make her husband's prize-winning rose garden, cut nearly to the ground after the frost, look as though it belonged on a garden tour even though there wouldn't be any roses.

A really distracting cushion on the glider, maybe.

It is of course much worse for the farmers. Our state is expecting that there will basically be no fruit. I haven't even been down to the farmers market yet, since the word is that there is nothing there but hot house flowers. I should probably go anyway, just for the socializing, but it might be depressing to see the grim farmers with their sprigs of lettuce.

"Buy local" may just be hard to do this year.

I cut the two flowers I had blooming and brought them in to make an arrangement.

A really good flower arranger can make something elegant with two blooms. We learned this while preparing for #1 daughter's wedding: anyone can make hundreds of roses look good; it takes an artist to be breathtaking with a couple of lilies.

So, while my husband and I were cutting out the deadwood on our non-prize-winning roses and lavender bushes, I cut lots of herbal foliage and made a measly arrangement.

The foliage of lavender smells almost as good as the flowers, fortunately, and the gray-green color is quite pretty.

I also had this lovely piece of vintage lace that my brother gave me years ago. I washed it, and I ought to mend it, but I hesitate. I don't know how to make this kind of lace, so I hesitate about trying to mend it, but there are a couple of little holes starting, and I don't want them to get worse.

If any of you are knowledgeable about the care of vintage linens, let me know. For the stern among you, let me assure you that I have given several examples to a museum for proper care for the future. But the ones that I kept, I like to use.

The cat liked the arrangement.

I did grocery shopping and housework, though not in the quantities I had envisioned.

And in between #2 son's gymnastics and Partygirl's visit, I worked on my encyclopedia entry, which is due tomorrow.

I have 933 words, and the assignment is for 1,000, so that isn't a problem. The problem is that I don't like the entry.

And the central problem there is that we have been working on this encyclopedia for years now, and all the juicy stuff has already been written. Counties that had important archaeological sites, civil war battles, and presidential boyhood homes have been done. The county I am writing about has to be summed up with things like "There are no important archaeological sites, but hey, there were probably prehistoric people here, since there was a river and all, and what the heck, why wouldn't there have been?" and "There were no Civil War battles here, but there were some local boys who signed up as soldiers."

It is hard to make a really thrilling entry out of things like that.

Here is the Bijoux Blouse. It is made from a pattern by Oat Couture, in Endless Summer's Connemara. The pattern is very easy. I have been carrying this around and working on it at conferences while the attendees were in sessions, while watching my son's gymnastics class, at the Federal Building while waiting to talk to investigators, during meetings of various kinds, and even occasionally just at home on peaceful occasions.

It is perfect for that kind of knitting. It is boxy, with drop sleeves, so you must expect something like a sweatshirt when you finish. However, the problem of cotton yarn's predilection for belling out at the bottom works with this pattern, as the pattern itself is fairly bell-shaped. This will make a wonderful cozy slouchy sweater for cool evenings.

And here is the table runner, getting nice and textured.

I worked on it while talking with Partygirl. We did not talk about how to get along with people when moral shades of gray arise, but the subject came up repeatedly during the day.

#2 daughter went clubbing with a friend, who misbehaved. #2 daughter was angry, and uncertain about how to deal with it. From the relativist point of view, her friend's choices aren't hers, so it's none of her business. From the utilitarian point of view, her association with the other girl could lead to people's drawing false conclusions about her, and she had to stay out longer than she would have chosen to, and be alone and unprotected in the club longer than was comfortable while the friend was making errors in the parking lot. From the point of view of a moral absolutist -- well, her friend's choices are still not hers, and her best solution is probably not to go clubbing with this girl again.

The natural reaction -- being angry and yelling at the friend for being such an idiot -- doesn't really fit into any ethical code.

Then my husband found an empty cigar packet in #1 son's car.

#1 son just turned 18. Apparently the local custom on one's 18th birthday is to go buy a cigar and smoke it. #1 son assured us that he didn't plan to take up smoking, in fact he didn't plan to smoke ever again. But from his point of view, his father's discovery of the packet while checking his oil for him constituted invasion of privacy and his telling me amounted to tattling. Our talking with him about it was disrespect for his 18-year-old self, and his father's disapproval -- since he smokes -- was hypocrisy.

I felt blessed that we could have a five-minute ethical discussion over this, rather than a screaming and yelling fight, which could easily happen with an 18-year-old.

Janalisa dropped by as well, and reported her distress with a situation in which any or all of the parties could be in the wrong, if we knew all the details, which we don't. The only moral issue, really, was whether her telling me about it was gossiping.

In all these cases, my mind went back to what we discussed this week in class. We should distinguish between actual moral issues and those that are really about preference, opinion, and style. We should make our position on moral issues clear, but not to the extent of behaving immorally ourselves, even when that is the natural reaction. On the others, we can and generally should respect individual differences, letting the stronger defer to the weaker.

Smoking may be disgusting, unhealthy, and -- as my smoker husband pointed out -- expensive, but it isn't immoral. There are worse things our son could have done to celebrate his eighteenth birthday. As his parents, we had a responsibility to remind him of the negatives of smoking but I'm glad that we didn't let it become a hindrance to our good relationship. Janalisa's problem wasn't a moral one. As her friend, I was glad to have the opportunity to encourage and support her, but I'm also glad we were able to discuss it without passing judgement on the other people or turning it into a gossip session. In the case of #2 daughter and her friend, there is a moral issue involved. #2 daughter shouldn't encourage her friend in her misbehavior, either by her presence or by her words, but neither should she herself misbehave by being unkind to her friend.

I doubt that this approach will prevent wars, but it does seem to work well in daily life.

In case you don't read the comments, let me repeat some interesting stuff here.

The conference yesterday went very well.

I want to recommend, in fact, that those of you who intend to go to conferences should make an effort to hang out with therapists whenever possible.

Whereas all the conferences of teachers offer coffee and doughnuts, this conference had on the hospitality table a selection of pastries from the local French bakery and a basket of assorted teas, including Lapsang Souchong.

I finished the Bijoux Blouse, but it is wet because I am blocking it, so I offer you no picture. I have put pictures of wet blocking things here before, I know, but they are not accurate, so I am not going to do that on a day when we are thinking about inaccuracy and evil. I would say that it turned out well, and I am looking forward to wearing it, but I could not help but notice that it involves several fashion faux pas, in that it is a boxy drop-shouldered sweater which is in color a very good match for my skin.

This round of discussion of good and evil was foreshadowed by a thought a few days ago that we need to distinguish between actual wrongdoing and mere differences in style, which we should probably ignore. So I will not hold these things against the Bijoux Blouse, but will wear it when I am not attempting to be chic. I bought the yarn and pattern last year when the closest I hoped to get to being chic was wearing clothes without holes in them.

My plan for this weekend is to be completely domestic. I plan to clean house, do the grocery shopping, cook, sew, stuff like that. The past three weekends have involved work (and illness) and next weekend is filled with parties, so this is the ideal weekend for unbounded domesticity.

I am still very interested in your thoughts on the questions posed yesterday, and your responses to the comments mentioned above.

Coming back to say that Ozarque is having a discussion on online civility over at her place which dips into points on perception, cross-cultural mores, and utility vs. morality.

Canadian National has brought up some points about good and evil.

I haven't written about good and evil for a while, so I'm thinking we need a bit of a recap.

Popular positions on good and evil include the following:

1. Moral Absolutism: there is an objective standard of right and wrong, which we merely discover, and by which all behavior can be judged.
2. Moral Relativism: different standards of right and wrong apply to different people, and therefore we cannot judge other's behavior.
3. Utilitarianism: no action is intrinsically right or wrong, but can be judged only by its effects.

Chanthaboune also reminded me inadvertently of Hedonism, which is a snazzy word for "If it feels good, do it," an expression of moral position which was popular in my youth. I don't know whether it is still popular or not.

Canadian National said, "My questions... are: can there be one code of morality? Can there be one definition of "respect"? Can we define things that were true for us as true for others? If the answers to these questions are "no" then how do we get along? There's the challenge."

I am taking a lunch break, and decided to write about some important revelations I had this morning.

I have to begin with a dull story. Now, this is my diary, I am not under contract to be scintillating, and I should perhaps not feel that I have to be apologetic for being boring. However, consider the case of poor King Louis, who wrote something dull in his diary one day and is now famous for it, and scorned perhaps more for that than for all the really bad things he did. or at least more frequently criticized for it. In case you were asleep when they taught that in school, I refer to his entry on the day that the Bastille fell: "Rien," which means "nothing." He had been hunting, and is thought to have referred specifically to what he caught, but still. It is a lesson to us all.

So, here's what happened. Yesterday, I started work at 6:00 as usual, took 30 minutes for exercise, and then went up to the store where I worked till 5:00, completing everything I needed to do there so that I am working at home today. I raced home in order to get dinner cooked in time to get to handbell practice, noticing that I was practically out of gas but discovering when I got to the gas station that I had left my billfold at home. I got home later even than I had anticipated, rushed madly around and gave the family a distinctly inferior meal, cadged a ride from a driver with gas, and skidded into practice at the last possible moment. I stayed on through choir practice, got home and spent some time with the family, got up at 5:30 and got right back to work at 6:00.

Now one of the things on my list yesterday was to do a flyer for tomorrow's conference, but it turned out that I needed to do it on the Mac at home. This machine is still not hooked up to the internet because I have still not figured out how to hook up the router, so it is essentially deaf and I cannot send documents back and forth with it. So I did the flyer on it this morning, but the company logo is not on this machine, and I cannot send it from the other machine, and therefore had to do all sorts of extra stuff in order to deal with that. At last I had a master, and I drove nervously to the gas station and thence to the copy shop -- where I discovered that, while I had remembered my billfold, I had forgotten the master, and had to drive home for it.

That was the boring story. The point is that I am working so much, and hurrying so much, that I am making stupid errors and failing to do basic maintenance things. There are negative consequences for both my efficiency at work and for my family, and if I keep it up I am going to feel stressed and overworked.

There is no reason for this. When I go to work at a separate location, I clean up my office and pack and unpack for workshops during my paid work time. I figure out computer connection issues during my paid work time. I prepare and clean up lunch during my paid work time. Those tasks do not suddenly become housework just because I am working from home.

Nor have I suddenly become self-employed. Nor has my work become way more urgent than it was before. When I was at the store every day, I knew that there was no way I could finish all the available work before closing time, and I just locked the door and came home anyway, secure in the knowledge that the work would wait for me to get back to it the next day. I was right.

I am going to set reasonable working hours and factor in time for cleaning up at the end of the day. I am going to continue starting early, because there are jobs that need to be done early, but I am also going to take time out for the gym and lunch, and generally aim for a mere 40 hours a week.

Yes, I am.

I leapt out of bed this morning and rushed right to the computer to write things for pay, and now -- taking a tea break for a minute here -- I have nothing left to say. And more writing for pay to do.

I'll just mention that I am astonishingly bad at bell ringing. I went back to bell choir last night, thinking that we would be doing the same pieces as last week, and I would be a step ahead. No such luck. We did completely different pieces. Now only were they bristling with notes (mine are, you may recall, in the imaginary section of the staff), but they also had cryptic notations like LV, TD, and special symbols that meant to knock the bell on the foam table. I was clearly a drawback to the choir as a whole, and the only reason they didn't throw things at me and ask me to leave is that we were in church and it would have been unseemly.

In one piece, the final measure includes (indeed, from my point of view as a bellringer, consists of) two Cs, both half notes. I shared with the director that that measure was the only one I felt confident about in the entire folder of music. "You just need practice," he said. This shows how desperate he is to have somebody, anybody, playing the B6 and C7.

I must try to put the whole sad episode out of my mind and get back to work.

 Lostarts alerted us to a book that Crazy Aunt Purl has coming out in the fall. I'm going to read it. I love Crazy Aunt Purl, as who among us does not.

But the Amazon description does give the impression that it will be sort of a knitting book, when I think we all know that as a knitter, Crazy Aunt Purl is an excellent writer.

I was already thinking about the difference between books and blogs, because I read Bitter is the New Black over the weekend. I got this book from Booksfree, having put it on the list after having read the advance description last year. It sounded like a nice little piece of chick lit from the "went through strife and came out a better person" school, and it looked like it, too, for the first couple of chapters. Unfortunately, it isn't a novel. It is a collection of blog pieces spruced up to look like a novel. Therefore, it is more like real life, in that the character doesn't actually improve. She starts out self-centered, materialistic, rude, obnoxious, and prone to stereotyping, and that is just how she ends up, too. That is often how real life is.

It is not much of a plot, though, is it?

When I read blogs, I'm not expecting a plot. Good writing, some interesting ideas, new knitting projects, or even just an update on the life of people I have come to care about, that's all I ask. But an actual book, it seems to me, ought to have more to it than that.

It was the same with a forgettable book I read last year, Around the World in 80 Dates. This was the story of a woman who went around the world having blind dates. It was probably interesting as a blog, dropping in now and then for an amusing story about a date. I always find Chanthaboune's date stories amusing. But sitting down to read them all in a row? Snore.....

In a book, there simply has to be a plot.

So I am thinking that books that are really compilations of blog entries should have warnings on them. Or at least be packaged as collections of essays. No more of this deceitful practice of pretending they are novels.

Crazy Aunt Purl's book is not a novel, and doesn't pretend to be. But I don't think you should go into it looking for a knitting book, either.

Here is my knitting, in a crumpled heap on my coffee table. Let's see what else is there... the promotional water bottle from Saturday's conference and the candy that was in it, all the books and magazines I've received in the mail this week, and some of the ads as well, yarn, used dishes, napkins both cloth and paper, my list of play therapy terms to commit to memory, remotes and a mobile phone.

It is apparent that things are still not being done Decently and In Order chez fibermom.

I have been thinking, throughout this entry, of last night's class discussion. We were being told, essentially, that we should judge between right and wrong, but quit being critical of things that aren't moral issues.

We should speak out against Mr. Bush's cheery attitude toward torture, but not about his repeated use of "a artificial" in his speeches. We should criticize ourselves for gossiping, but not for having messy coffee tables. We should warn our children against stealing, but lighten up on their desire for a tattoo. These are my examples, not the speaker's.

I was talking about this with my sons when I got home last night. This was common sense, they said. You didn't need a class to tell you that.

But I think that most of us do it the other way around in real life. That is, you are much more likely to hear someone speak scornfully of another woman's hairstyle than of her sexual behavior.

I hope I never speak scornfully of people at all, and our class last night was not suggesting that we should speak scornfully. I do think, though, that a listener with a clipboard would find that I am right. The protagonist of Bitter is the New Black was snippy about people's choices of clothing and their figures, not about their descents into gluttony, lust, drunkenness, and covetousness. I think that is an accurate picture of how people actually behave. Snippy, obnoxious people, perhaps, but they could be a microcosm.

"You didn't ask what was common," my son protested when I pointed this out. "You asked about what was proper. They're not the same."

So where does this leave book reviews? As long as I am talking about the book and not the author, I guess it's okay.

I will be missing book club today, as I have been called up to the other store. I need to stop saying "the other store" because there is only one. I will try to say "the store" from now on and you will know that it is not the one I can walk to, but the one requiring a drive through traffic. I will be there today and tomorrow, and then have another conference on Friday, and of course yesterday I had school visits and I will be doing church visits next week, so the "work at home" thing is not involving all that much time at home.

Considering how untidy my home is, this is probably a good thing. You do not want to have to think of me weltering in slovenliness. Even if it is not a moral issue.

Oh, and here is a link for a PDF file showing how to make a hypertufa planter. I would really like to do this. However, I have not yet succeeded with my chaise longue of pallets, nor with hooking up my router, so I will stick with things made of fibers for this season. New adventures increase the elasticity of the brain, but a little success is good, too. However, if you make one of these and it is really easy, let me know. Or just come over and make me one. That would work, too.

Here is Marji's lovely SWAP, and here are all the contest entrants for 2007. They all did wonderful things.

I am hurrying to get off on school visits -- #1 son has a dental appointment and I have to take #2 son to school on my way, so I have an earlier deadline than usual.

Zoommm!

I had to come back to say that having my SWAP and a quarter (I have 3 pieces from my SWAP Part II completed) made getting ready in a hurry today very easy. It was no more trouble to look professional than to grab jeans and a T.

"It's been a tough year so far," #2 son remarked the other day, a propos of nothing. I looked inquiring, but he said that was all, he just had thought about that fact.

In some ways, he's right. January was a pretty optimistic month, except for my husband's decision to purchase a car, also known as the Family Impoverishment Project. February was The Month of Excessive Excitement. All of us took part in that. March was my Month of Workplace Drama, and other family members had their own exciting events. April, while a continuing workplace transition for me, has also been The Month of the Monstrous Virus. May will include visits from both my girls, #1 son's graduation, and the transition to working from my home with kids in the house.

So, what with one thing and another, life chez fibermom has not been conducted Decently and In Order.

I am supposed to get up in the morning, make my husband's coffee, unloading the dishwasher while it drips, and my own tea, take his coffee to him and update my xanga while drinking my tea. Then I do the laundry, pack healthy lunches, see my husband off to work, fix a healthy breakfast for myself and the kids, go to the gym, shower and dress, do some light housework, and get to work. After work, I make a healthy dinner, supervise the cleanup, attend the class or rehearsal or whatever of the evening, do some needlework, spend some time with my family, study, read for a bit, and go to sleep. On the weekends, I work on my writing assignments, sew, attend the occasional party, do housework and gardening and errands, spend time at church and with the family.

Even if, in the midst of those things, I have adventures, the framework keeps life pleasant and peaceful.

But there is a tendency, when life becomes too exciting or we are ill or work gets too urgent, to ignore that framework. I have been getting up and diving into work immediately, stopping to make whatever self-indulgent breakfast the boys request (that pastry was very tasty, but I have a feeling that it includes saturated fats and simple carbohydrates) and having a random lunch in front of the computer. I quit working when the boys get home at 4:00 (or pretty soon afterwards, at least), but -- having been ill -- by then I am ready to flop onto a sofa with a book and a box of Kleenex, and possibly a plate of cookies, too. Dinner is anything fast that the boys won't whine about, and there is no housework done in the evenings. Weekends have involved more working, and then a bit of lying around sniffling and whining.

Partygirl and I were talking recently about the fact that a well-conducted household can be ignored for a few days with no ill effects, and that is true. But you can't be slapdash for months without consequences.

And The Empress and I both are afraid to go for our annual checkups for fear of what the lipids profile will reveal.

"I feel that my life is so stressful that, if I want a cheeseburger, I'm going to have a cheeseburger," she said at the conference on Saturday. She had eaten a Krispy Kreme doughnut from the hospitality table.

"I haven't felt well enough to argue about food with the boys," I agreed. "Not that it's their fault. Even if they bully me into making them waffles and sausage for breakfast, that doesn't mean that I have to eat it. But I do." I had eaten the Cheetos in the box lunch they had provided.

We are both intending to get back to the gym ASAP. Today, for me. I have also unloaded the dishwasher and done the laundry. I am going to work for only eight hours today, and then switch over and finish the encyclopedia entry. In fact, since I worked on Saturday, I may do the bare minimum of work today and take a little time to clean my house. Let's face it, in order to have a pleasant life, you have to eat right, exercise, do your housework and whatever spiritual practices you favor, and then go to work and have adventures. Oh, and don't forget the dental floss and sunscreen, either.

I have been knitting. Here is the Bijoux Blouse, wrinkled from having been stuffed into a bag and carried hither and yon, with one sleeve completed.

I have another conference on Friday, so it will likely be completed by the end of the month. It currently has that cotton yarn uneven hemline thing, but doesn't frill too badly, so blocking my solve it. Or even just hanging it evenly. Or not stuffing it into bags in a crumpled heap. I think it is going to be the knitted equivalent of a sweatshirt, anyway, and I think I will like it a lot for days at the computer.

My Knitting the Classics project will not, I can pretty much guarantee, be finished on time. All other deadlines I plan to meet.

And my son was right that 2007 has been sort of challenging. We have all had some personal challenges, and that affects all the family members, as much as our group adventures have. But we also know that our lives -- including the past four months -- are, in comparison with those of many of our fellow human beings, peaceful and privileged and easy. Even when I'm whining, I remember to include a large measure of gratitude. That is right up there with doing the laundry and remembering sunscreen.