Many Thoughts

My first thought was that I'd have a blog entry last Wednesday, with charming photos of the pink and blue Latvian mittens I made, with charming information of the trials of their decreases and thumb placements. It didn't happen. And, due to a slight log jam in the quantity of things I hope to do in the next 3.5 hours, there won't be photos of the mittens today either. Photos may be at Ravelry, or not ... I forget. But the mittens are done, blocked, and in a nice little mitten pile, waiting for display.

Another thought I had was that I'd be blogging once or twice a week about the Puritan Reading Challenge. As you will have noticed, that has not come to pass either. However, and more importantly, I have been doing the reading. And thinking about it. And yesterday -- oh, the joys that were at the post office yesterday -- I got a real, live, printed book (25 of them, actually), two of which were this month's book, The Bruised Reed. I can now curl up with a blanket, tea, fountain pen, notebook, and a REAL BOOK and continue on with the reading. I'm on chapter 14 today.

Given that this is an election year, permit me to share with you a paragraph from the book that took me the better part of my reading time one day to decipher. Insolent behavior toward miserable persons, if humbled, is unseemly in any who look for mercy themselves. Misery should be a lodestone of mercy, not a footstool for pride to trample on. Sometimes it falls out that those who are under the government of others are most injurious by wayward and harsh censures, herein disparaging and discouraging the endeavours of superiors for the public good. In so great weakness of man's nature, and especially in this crazy age of the world, we ought to take in good part any moderate happiness we enjoy by government, and not be altogether as a nail in the wound, exasperating things by misconstruction. Here love should have a mantle to cast upon lesser errors of those above us. Oftentimes the poor man is the oppressor by unjust clamors. We should labor to give the best interpretation to the actions of governors that the nature of the actions will possibly bear. Stop. Consider that. (First, decode what his beautiful use of mostly abandoned English sentence structure obscures from the mind that may not be used to such gymnastics.) Then go one further, and think what you may need to change in your own conduct as a result of this exhortation. If you don't like it, think about why you don't. Are your reasons sound?

Oh, it will be such fun to continue on in this challenge, now that I have BOOKS! (12 for me, 12 for mom, and two that aren't here yet.)

The observant among you will have noticed that twice twelve is not 25. 'Tis true. I got another book in the mail yesterday. To be precise, not a book, but a magazine. But what a magazine! I'd wave it before your eyes, but that doesn't fit in to my log jam of things to do. The January/February 2008 Piecework arrived at my mailbox yesterday. I, driving through the blustery winds zipping down from Canada and through South Dakato to our lonely 2-lane highway before chilling Wisconsin, wisely had my daughter turn to the appropriate page and feasted my eyes on the long-awaited pattern for just a half-second. The cover of the magazine proclaims Exclusive! Ancient Arctic Technique Revealed p. 12. Be still my heart.

Really. I am sooooo excited to finally have this technique set out before me. I haven't cast on yet, because I want to have time to savor the project ... not tuck it into stolen moments between churchnewsletterchurchwebsiteroyaltiestaxessettingupnewcomputer- knittingevaluationhomeschoolinglaundryanddidImentioncooking. But believe me, I have read over the article, and carefully studied the one little bit that has been puzzling me since I saw the technique on Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's blog. I understand it (happy dance!) and am ready to put that understanding into practice. Hopefully I'll settle down enough to read the whole article with a bit more depth first.

And these are my bloggy thoughts for the day.

Accountability thoughts:

• Stash 2008 - going well. One skein of Shadow is working up into a Swallowtail, and 3 hanks of Swish Superwash have found a baby to be a blanket for. I get to do the center, Filia gets to do 120 inches of edging. I get to sew it on.
  
• Mittens 2008 - goal for January met.
  
• Scarlet Pimpernel - plodding along

Final thoughts: Go read!