Yup, I started the Song of Hiawatha Shawl last night.

I've only got about eight rows done, not enough to show the pattern, so I'm not going to take a picture just yet.

I did learn something new already: the crocheted provisional cast on (the shawl is down from the center down, so you need a provisional cast-on). It's time consuming but not hard once you get the hang of it.

I also worked some more on the Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf. I am two or three rows away from starting the final section. I did this because I realized part of my malaise was that I wasn't challenging myself mentally, I was spending the evenings watching television (and in the absence of anything "better," I default to the news channels or Law and Order reruns, neither of which is good for my perception of humanity). So I pulled out a book I had been reading on Community Assembly Rules (ecological, not human, communities - things like "why do you only see certain size classes of rodents co-existing?") and puzzled through a couple of the chapters while I knitted.

And I felt much happier. Part of it is, I do like reading research papers. I like the little "plink" I can feel in my head as I discover some new-to-me fact or research conclusion or model of how things work and fit it in with the other information already in there. I also feel productive - like I'm doing something to Better Myself. And the knitting is just icing on the cake - it helps me to concentrate while I work, and I can get some "simple" knitting done that seems to take a long time when I'm just working on it by itself.

I don't know why I "forget" about this - how much I enjoy just reading biology stuff, or history-of-science stuff, but I do. I guess it's the bad old Leisure Imperative - that says "if it's work-related, it can't be fun, and Thou Shalt Not Work on Thy Time Off."


So I'm a lot happier today. And the fact that I got a solid night's sleep, for the first time this week, surely helps too.

And I'm going Shopping this afternoon, which is always something to look forward to. I'm contemplating making another one of those multidirectional scarves (they're fun), just to have on hand as a gift, and I'm considering getting either some of the Lion Brand version of self-striping sockyarn and making a really thin, lightweight scarf, or else trying out the new "color waves" yarn (acrylic, but that's good for a gift; several of my friends are wool-ergic and so I do need to remember them). Unfortunately, the Hobby Lobby IS the closest thing I have to a LYS. So any in-person yarn shopping has to be either Lion Brand or the odd Bernat yarn that they carry.

And I've begun Christmas shopping, which always puts me in a good mood. I have something good in mind for my dad, but I have to find out his accurate shirt size. And I ordered some little niceties from Norfolk Lavender last night to add to the knit-and-felted Kureyon bag I'm making my sister-in-law.