Tuesday mornings and an ode to socks

Ahhhhhhhh. It's Tuesday morning. To some that may just mean it's no longer Monday but neither is it Wednesday. To me, however, it means peace and quiet. Darth is off to preschool so it's just me and Miss Beans who's on a trip in her favorite rocket ship right now (name the cartoon and you get a prize, don't get too excited though, it's just my commiseration). I'm sitting to breakfast at my computer. Peanut butter toast and a hot chocolate that Moctezuma would have been proud of. All is right with the world. To the knitting! I'm waiting on a longer circ before I can continue with the Somewhat Cowel. A 29" circ is just not enough for a top that will have a 44" bust. I hope my dodgy math turns out okay, I've already put a LOT of time and effort in this thing. I'm also working on a little ipod case/cozy for my sister. She loaned me her ipod and car adapter thing for a recent trip I took so I thought this would be a nice way to pay her back. It's being knitted up with some sparkly orange yarn I got from punkrawker86 in the Holiday SP round. Totally perfect for my sister. I'm still toiling, albeit occasionally, on the Harry Potter scarf and I think it may be time to break out Satchel and finish it. I have a vest for my MIL waiting in the wings as well. Oh crap! I can't believe it! I haven't shown you my best Christmas present, have I? What a bad, bad, knitblogger I am! I got a Lexie Barnes knitting bag from my MIL for Christmas! It's in the Hermosa print. I love it. The best part is that it doesn't replace my other super cool handmade bag. They're SO different that they both serve an excellent purpose. I use my Lexie Barnes bag when I want to carry several small projects, I'm going on a longer trip and need a bunch of tools, or there might be inclement weather. I use my handmade bag to carry a large project, when I'm going over to someone's house, or when I'm going to need to have a lot of access to my materials while I'm working. So awesome. In keeping with the simple pleasures theme of today's post, I'd like to leave you with a poem by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda who truly understood the love that comes with a hand knitted item. This poem is from a book called Odes to Common Things, which is truly excellent. I highly recommend you go check out Mr. Neruda at your local library, let me know if I turn you into a fan! "Ode to My Socks" Maru Mori brought me a pair of socks that she knit with her shepherd's hands. Two socks as soft as rabbit fur. I thrust my feet inside them as if they were two little boxes knit from threads of sunset and sheepskin. My feet were two woolen fish in those outrageous socks, two gangly, navy-blue sharks impaled on a golden thread, two giant blackbirds, two cannons: thus were my feet honored by those heavenly socks. They were so beautiful I found my feet unlovable for the very first time, like two crusty old firemen, firemen unworthy of that embroidered fire, those incandescent socks. Nevertheless I fought the sharp temptation to put them away the way schoolboys put fireflies in a bottle, the way scholars hoard holy writ. I fought the mad urge to lock them in a golden cage and feed them birdseed and morsels of pink melon every day. Like jungle explorers who deliver a young deer of the rarest species to the roasting spit then wolf it down in shame, I stretched my feet forward and pulled on those gorgeous socks, and over them my shoes. So this is the moral of my ode: beauty is beauty twice over and good things are doubly good when you're talking about a pair of wool socks in the dead of winter.