Soctober! (contains a mystery sock spoiler pic...)

What a difference a few weeks make...

1. Earlier this month, I was in Denver for work. I saw my friend Jon, who is really Spanky's friend from HS, but I've known him a good long time now too. He's a really great guy, and he made what was otherwise an unbearable situation fun, and distracted me from my problems for a bit. Also, it snowed.



2. You see, the Wednesday of the week I was there, my mom's husband died. She married someone 18 years older than herself, and he's been sick for a while, but all of a sudden, he went down hill really quickly and died. It was torture knowing that I couldn't leave Denver, because I was the only one from our company there, and I had to get the materials sent back before I could leave. When I got back to NYC, I spent a week catching up, just to be out the door again for my 5 day bereavement period. I know I'm lucky that my company even has such a policy, and the time was totally put to good use, because there was a lot of paperwork to help with, even though I wasn't there for the physical things like getting the cremation taken care of and so forth. We also had a very moving memorial for him, which went off very well, and of which I think he would have approved.





Every day, I'd get up at 6am to go walking with my mom and her neighbor (which is when I took the pictures), we'd do one or two things once the businesses opened up, then go shopping, or sit out on the porch, or watch mindless tv. My mom's pretty devastated. They were happily married for over fifteen years, and she's never really been alone before. She has a lot of friends, and I'm sure in the long run she'll be fine, but it's hard in the short term. She's just going through the motions. I really didn't want to leave her, but I have to go back to work tomorrow. Meanwhile, none of the work I brought down with me got done. I did manage to knit the Soctober mystery socks up to the third clue though:



I don't feel so bad posting the picture since the fourth clue is out now, and if you're really into the socks, then you are probably this far along yourself anyway... I downloaded the fourth clue, for the foot, before I left my mom's house, but I haven't started them yet, because I don't deserve to if I haven't done any of the work I needed to do for work.

The legs of both socks knit up really fast while I was watching cable. I don't have cable tv at home, so when I'm at my mom's I have a hard time shutting it off. Seems like some of my favorite shows are on back to back every night: NCIS, Ghost Whisperer, and Criminal Minds--the season(s) with Mandy Patinkin. I know those are all really mindless shows, but that's why I like them. There is a formula to each one, and it is safe viewing. Except that Ghost Whisperer started hitting close to home... Although, I think my mom sort of liked the message that you should keep on living even when you don't feel like it anymore, and that even though your loved one may have 'gone into the light', it doesn't mean that your life is over. Anyway... that's about all I could manage. I did finish a simple pair of ribbed handwarmers with the leftover Waterspun from my Columbia beret, but I don't have pictures of them now.



3. One day, I think it was Wednesday or Thursday, we went to Joann's. I wanted to get some crochet thread, as I saw this awesome pattern in Crochet Today for christmas ornaments made from starched thread doilies. They were crocheted and then starched into balls. Anyway, then I saw this new sock yarn called Bamboo and Ewe, by Sensations, which I think is the Joann's store brand, and told my mom I would make her another pair of socks. She picked out the colorway. Don't blame me. I really tried to talk her into a different one, but she likes all the tropical colors. Yikes. I'm going to do these as just plain stockinette socks, obviously.



4. Anyway, that brings me to now. I'm back for one more week, and then I have to go to Louisville, Kentucky for work again. I'm not ready for any of it. I'm really over my job right now. It's going to suck from now until the end of the year.

In the meantime, though, I did take a few minutes today to jot down my knitting goals for the rest of the year, and I'm looking forward to it:
-finish mystery socks
-Fetching for my assistant for xmas (Cascade 220 from the stash)
-Sarah's baby gift (leftover Comfort in the stash)
-John's scarf for xmas (Pastaza in the stash)
-little pumpkins socks with the awesome sock yarn I got in Denver (another post!)
-mom's socks
-finish veil
-finish clementine shawlette (would love to be able to wear this to xmas party)
-alpaca gloves for spanky (stash from 2007(?) Rhinebeck)
-hat for jon in Denver (unknown--no yarn picked for this one yet, but I'm sure I have something appropriate in the stash)
-cheryl's present (stash)
-those crocheted xmas ornaments
-hat for my mom's friend Karen (no yarn picked for this one yet either, but I do have some Koigu I was thinking about making the purl beret with, and I think that might be perfect for her)

That's it! I know it is a lot, but they're all small projects, so I think they'll move fairly quickly. Some are negotiable in timing, too. I would like to get Matthew his xmas present by xmas this year though. Normally he has to wait until February!