Thursday, July 03, 2008

If At First You Don't Succeed...


This, my friends, is what I did this evening. I finished my sock. I mean, I finished off my sock. This is what remains of Attempt #3 to knit myself some cute cotton/wool socks out of honest-to-goodness Sockotta sock yarn (avid readers of this blog - if there are any - will note that the yarn color is eerily similar to that of the shoes that changed my life). Lord knows, I am not a knitting perfectionist like a certain famous knitter whose blog I read; so I cannot for the life of me figure out why I keep ripping this poor sock back and re-doing it (the second time, I actually had it Kitchener-ed, and I still ripped it back). But here we go, for the fourth (and hopefully last) time.

Okay, got that off my chest - whew!

In other news, Anna is annoyed at me. I bought her a file box and some folders and she said, "Oh, I don't need that!"

And I said, "Yes, you do - look at all these loose papers lying on the floor of your room and filling your closet."

And she said, "Oh, that's just trash."

And I said, "Oh, never mind then. Just leave them."

Just kidding - apparently, that's what I should have said. Instead I described to her the amazing holding properties of a trash bag and instructed her to use one immediately. Because obviously she had never seen one before. The day sort of went downhill from there.

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David is at Boy Scout camp until Saturday. Which means I have 2 and a half more days to purge all the crap from his closet. Wish me luck.

23 comments:

  1. Wow... good luck with the closet. I'd need at LEAST a week to execute a purging on my kids stuff...

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  2. Nicholas calls that "making string." One day when I was ripping back a sock, he said, "Mama, why are you making string?" Sigh. It used to be a sock. But take heart. It became a sock again.

    Please make Anna recycle the papers?

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  3. So how does this garbage bag thing work exactly?

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  4. I have a pair of socks in progress that are similarly vexing. Nothing complicated about them, but they're giving me all kinds of grief. I'm pretty sure they're going to end up in the trash the next time I pull them out of their bag. Maybe I'll just throw them on my teenager's bedroom floor, since apparently it is a universally held belief by kids their age that that is exactly where trash belongs.

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  5. How can you purge the crap from David's closet while he's gone? You can't possibly tell the difference between his crap and the special stuff!!!! I'm grieved. Shocked.

    On another note---I made socks last year for the first time. I made 3: a tester (too small for a real, 6 year-old human), and then 2 more that sort of fit. The kitchenering didn't work out on the 3rd one, so that sucked. But I quit. I'm over the sock thing. Whew.

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  6. Good luck throwing things out on the sly. I do that all the time and it's so exhilerating. Just don't get caught! I had a huge pile of my husband's shirts from the 80's next to the door to take to Goodwill last week. Of course he came home for lunch that day. He took one look and said, "hey, you found all my shirts! Thanks!" He hung them up in the closet, but as soon as he's not watching, they'll be gone for good!

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  7. I LOVE purging closets when the kids aren't home. The things I find! Yes, some petrified food. But also MISSING BILLS and MISSING JEWELRY and MISSING ELECTRONIC GADGETS and MISSING SHOES and MISSING LIBRARY BOOKS and MISSING KITCHEN UTENSILS.... It's like opening a pirate's treasure chest. Ooh, I'm getting excited thinking about it!

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  8. Love the trash bag orientation. You could follow that up with a series of trash bag marketing campaigns...

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  9. AnonymousJuly 03, 2008

    Huh, must be something in the air, because my girls leave their trash on their bedroom floors too AND they're not amused when I bring up the topic of big black garbage bags.

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  10. Quick, purge the closet NOW before David comes home!

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  11. I love cleaning closets and organizing. You're so lucky to have a mess to get to go through. I'm really not kidding. It makes me happy to have it all organized at the end of the day. . .

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  12. I'm always amazed at the amount of actual garbage I find on the kitchen counter, mere INCHES from the garbage can. I have had family meetings where I teach the children (in slow motion, so they will hopefully understand and remember) exactly how to drop the item of refuse into the garbage can rather than the counter. There's always one smart alec who will say "But the garbage was too full!" So I then instruct them on how to empty the garbage can, take the garbage to the outside can, and put a new garbage bag inside the can.

    I've found that I have to be very specific about everything.

    I liked Kalynne's comment about finding things in her kids rooms. I once found a library book that was months overdue. I was sure we had returned it, (because it wasn't in any of the places in our house designated for library books) I had even called the library and told them that I was POSITIVE that we had returned it, and they took the fine (for THAT book) off of our account.
    I returned the book in the dead of night when nobody could see me.

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  13. I would like to explain in 5 year old boy speak the amazing holding properties of a LAUNDRY BASKET.

    KEEP BELIEVING

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  14. Oh, you have to purge that closet before he comes back. Otherwise, there's all that high-pitched wailing about how "That's my favorite thing ever!!!!" or "You can't throw away my drawing!!!"

    I've started telling my kids that whatever is left on the floor after I've told them to clean up automatically goes in the trash. It's working so far, but they're young and still impressionable enough.

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  15. There's nothing like a clean closet to feed the soul.

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  16. I would like to explain in 44 year old man speak the amazing holding properties of a LAUNDRY BASKET.

    HOW LONG DO I NEED TO KEEP BELIEVING?

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  17. DO IT NOW!!!
    Glad you have the ability to purge the closet while David is away.
    The girls go to Farm Girl camp all next week, and I plan to purge MUCH.
    Happy Independence Day!
    Pax, E
    PS. working on crocheted "socks" for drinking glasses so that you can tell which drink belongs to which person. They slip on the bottom of the glass and act as coasters!

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  18. Don't know how old your girl is, but mine is 15, and she has the trash collection, as well. The other killer thing is leaving every single dresser drawer pulled all the way open. OH, the fury that brews in me. I keep telling myself, "Summer is almost over." Just kidding. Sort of.

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  19. One day I shall learn to really knit, instead of just using a loom.
    Hmm, garbage bag, I think I shall have to get me one of those sometime...

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  20. Totally laughing over, "Oh, that's trash." Hilarious.

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  21. AnonymousJuly 04, 2008

    I would have been with you - the untidy bedroom is the main source of angst between me and No 1!


    I think you are V. clever indeed to even attempt a sock!

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  22. I have two knitting projects going on at once, considering a crochet project next and several in my "queue" on Ravelry. I am not brave enough to start socks.

    And I too, would like to learn the "man-speak for a 30-something male the incredible potential DRESSER DRAWERS possess.

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