Yang.

To balance out having drunken a bit last night (Friday), tonight I stayed in watching chick-flick DVDs with Reidun and knitting.

I may have done that thing I do when I drink the alcohol where I point vigorously at people's faces with my Gollums and send inappropriate texts. Sam's take on my drunken state was that I get sillier and stubborn. It could be worse. The words 'mildly obnoxious' were not uttered (he may have been holding back). That would make a good blog entry, Sam - list our drunken personas and see if people can mix-and-match the blogger to the drunken persona. I love a good mix-and-match activity!

I have faith that all the free-agent netballers will come crawling back to be a part of Team Kate (Inc). I let you drink water and have subs (if the budget allows it). You don't know how lucky you are! I may add a surcharge to the weekly price in reaction to your strike-threats. I'd say $15 a game for the pleasure of playing in Team Kate (Inc) would be reasonable and generous.....

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Ask Ange how the looming is going. She's been looming a lot.

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In my dedication to knitting, I was working on my scarf in several public places this week - on the bus, in a doctor's waiting-room and during the previews at Harry Potter. Why waste time thinking and observing when you can be adding another stripe to the scarf? Idle hands are the devil's playthings, I always say. I'm up to 58 stripes now. It shall be completed soon-ish.

And then I will remember that my chin is slightly allergic to real-wool products and every time I wear my new scarf I will get eczema *.... and thus will stop wearing it. Then it will get dusty from un-use, and will give me dust-allergies any time I try to wear it again (eczema be damned!).

* Is that how you spell 'eczema'? It's the best solution spell-check had for me.

I have good self awareness.

Fashion and beauty come with a price. Discomfort and irritation and pain are no strangers to me in the quest for aesthetic perfection..... and besides, it is the therapeutic act of knitting the scarf that gives the most pleasure, not the wearing of it. The journey, if you like, rather than the destination.

I was talking with Ange about how knitting and crafty stuff are no longer economically cheaper than buying things ready-made and thus have become luxury activities - quite the opposite of what they were in our parents' days. We both used to wear home-made clothes around and it was a treat when we got a store-bought item to as a treat.

I had little dresses and pinafores Mum had made and dungarees and shirts with domes.... I used to love that little tool that puts domes on things. I'd squish my fingers in it between the rubbery parts. Actually, I have no idea if that's what it was actually for - that's always what I imagined its purpose to be, though.

I am certainly the first generation of women in my family to lose the skills of making things. Not sure if that's because my personality type just wasn't interested in learning them - I'm sure Mum would've loved teaching me to sew or knit or preserve things - or if there just wasn't as much time for that kinda thing, once Mum was back at work and things were cheaper at Dowsett's anyhow. I feel somewhat inferior to those previous generations.

I'm trying to think what skills I have that they didn't...... Certainly not cooking either. I guess I'm much more computer savy than they ...... What a poor trade-off. I need to work on developing my time-honoured skills to pass down to future generations...... Blogging and Photoshopping pictures just isn't as magical.