There is something wrong with the sky outside, I had to go into the back garden and look at it properly but yes, it's - - - blue. We have had weeks of rain, weeks, I tell you. Sometimes drizzly rain, sometimes driech, sometimes conveyer belt sweeps of rain in curtains and often great big flattening rain storms that sit directly overhead and pummel the bedraggled plants into the ground. So today is ... wierd. I know I should be skipping gaily admiring the wonder of it, but as I am in a grouchy mood, all I can really see is dust bunnies, paw prints on window panes, crumbs and grot and smears. So I am trying not to look, now here's a little household tip for you that you don't see on Kim and Aggie - subdued lighting, or in Scotland - normal daylight. Does the trick for sure.
The reason for the general malaise? Well nothing out of the ornery really, just teenagers and their lifestyle. Much as I love the three of them, I don't appreciate their level of mankiness or their immunity to piles of dishes/clutter/dirty laundry made by them. When gravel-guy was away recently I got them into a routine - one chore each when they came in, so by the time I got home the dishes (most of them, but not those in the living room or made messy by a sibling) were done, the downstairs vacuumed (two of the three employ a slalom technique going around the worst of the piles of stuff, but hey - the floor is no longer crunchy), and the rubbish put out in the bin (with a trail of whatever, so I knew this had been addressed too). All worked fine until gravel-guy returned from Greenland with his 320 photos of musk-ox (he'd gone there to look at coraline polyps or something but I guess musk-ox were more photogenic) and made it clear this was an unacceptable return to child labour and the poor-house ways of life of the 19th century (Note: I do want to make clear that these poor little critters created the mess and they are 16, 15, and 14 years respectively).
Still, I like to think some of their time doing chores rubbed off, I was minded of this the other day after struggling home on the bus with a particularly big shop. As I lurched through the front door the straps on two of my shopping bags gave way and I collapsed in an inelegant heap of coat and grocery, and there I would have stayed, pinned by the weight of purchasing food, had it not been for Nr.2 kid. He put down the games console thingy, and quietly got up and pattered over to me, gently, he lifted the bags away with his huge dinner plate hands and took them into the kitchen (Oh joy! I thought - at least one chick cares) and then I heard him opening the food packets ....and sounds of chewing, eventually he said "You might want to get up from there - Hugh (nr.1) is back in a minute with food and you're blocking the door". Sigh.
I have finished two little projects, but I am slowed by my sulking.
I am completely sympathetic regarding the ungrateful teenagers. You have my permission (although you don't need it) to remain grouchy. I'm sure you realize there are several more years of tolerating their mankiness, clutter, and dust and then poof, they'll be gone, and you and gravel-guy will have your own tidy space again. Poof. I miss my kids.
Posted by: Celia | September 13, 2009 at 07:40 AM
Also...your FOs are really lovely.
Posted by: Celia | September 13, 2009 at 07:42 AM
Oh good grief, I hope I never behaved like that when I was a teenager...
Posted by: Daisy | September 13, 2009 at 05:07 PM
The knitting is gorgeous, the crankiness is completely understandable. I tend to think of chores not as child labor, but as training for adulthood. :)
Posted by: Jocelyn | September 15, 2009 at 12:45 AM
Am just catching up with blog reading, and oh my goodness, I so missed seeing this! That knitting is beautiful! Details?
Keep knitting, to keep calm...
Posted by: Bryony | September 20, 2009 at 08:50 AM
Oh, I did have a good laugh just now. In complete and utter sympathy, I hasten to add.
Posted by: Bluestocking | September 24, 2009 at 05:45 AM
I'm with you--kids need to clean up after themselves. Of course, Girlfriend is totally against any cleaning done by herself, so I can't really give any advice--just support :). My thought is that some day she will have to live with human beings that are not her immediate family and will need know how to not alienate those people.
The sweaters are very pretty! What's the pattern for the 2nd one??
Posted by: Jeanne | September 30, 2009 at 05:49 AM