I did get one thing done this weekend:



The back of Honeycomb. Once you divide for the straps (casting off the part that will be the back neckline, here), it goes fast. One nice feature of the pattern is that both straps are knit at the same time using two separate balls of yarn - so you don't knit one strap all up, and then get hit with (a) The dreaded, "Knit other side the same, reversing shaping" instruction (which I dislike. I know, it's done to save space and all, and I AM smart enough to figure out how to reverse the shaping, but it still annoys me - and when I'm tired, and afraid I'll make a mistake, I usually have to write out the implied section of the pattern, reversing the shaping on paper before I try it on the garment) and (b) you don't have to worry about writing down what row you had just completed out of the pattern when you started the first strap.

I cast on for the front, but of course have not gotten very far on it yet.

I did finally figure out a way to cable without a cable needle on this - I can pinch the stitch to be held "in front of work" between my left thumb and forefinger and hold it while I knit the next stitch in line, then put that stitch on the needle and knit it. It's not quite the daredevil method that the 'true' cablers-without-cable needles (and yes, that's yet another bit of inexplicable craft snobbery I've encountered: people who look down on people who "still" use a cable needle to knit cables, and remark like they are "training wheels" and stuff. And it's kind of annoying to hear. I suppose it's that the person deep down in a little insecure - I think most snobbery stems from fundamental insecurity - and probably what the person making the comment really wants - though they might not admit to it - is for the other person to cave and say, "Oh, yes, you are so much better than I am". Pfui.)

Anyway, not using a cable needle is perhaps marginally faster for this pattern, I don't know. I'll have to see how the front goes. (And if I were knitting on this, say, on a moving train, or in a crowded place where I might get my elbow jostled, I'd still use the cable needle, just for the extra security. I think picking up a dropped stitch in this pattern and with this yarn could be a real frustration.)

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Added, later:

Thanks for the validation on the not-ditching-my-own-plans thing. I think I maybe need to learn to be better at self-care. I'm getting that way - once or twice lately I have called to ask to be let out of a meeting I didn't absolutely have to be at (once, because the plumbers had been out and had taken several hours and I knew I wouldn't have time to do everything I needed to do for the next day AND go to the meeting). But I am kind of bad about going, well, gee, these plans I made were just for me and they were just something fun, so they don't take priority.

it might be the result of my not having been invited to many parties as a child: I never got to experience the rule of "you go to the person who invited you first; you don't bail on them just because someone 'cooler' made plans later." (Or it may be because I had a few experiences, later on, of "I know you're my friend and we had plans to go to lunch/out shopping/whatever, but I just met this GREAT guy and he asked me out to a movie, I know you'll understand..."

I need to get better at not standing myself up, just because I accepted being "stood up" a few times by other people.

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Also: you know how I often talk about how, as a child, I sort of expected I would get an instruction manual on How to Be a Grownup when I hit 18 or so? And how I didn't, and so I often feel like I'm making it up as I go along?

This is a quotation from this morning's installation service:

Like Abraham and Sarah before us, we have accepted your call to journey into unknown territory. We wait for your Spirit to show us the way

And that struck me kind of funny...because really, perhaps that's it. Adulthood - every new stage of life, really - is unknown territory to us. We can look at other adults and try to learn from them (or learn not to be them: "If you can't be a good example, you can at least be a terrible warning"). Or we can read about things others have done. But when it comes down to experiencing it for ourselves, it really is unknown territory. What I think and feel about things is not what I expected to as an adult, not what I think my parents or the other adult "role models" I know think and feel. My reactions to things are not what I expected. ("And you may tell yourself: this is not my beautiful house"?)

So really, I do feel a lot of the time like I'm making it up as I go along.

And while I suspect I've been "shown the way" in a lot of ways more than some other people have - and I really am grateful for that, and I think all the background and training I got have helped make the moral and ethical decisions relatively easy for me - still, there's an awful lot of stuff I don't feel a lot of guidance for (maybe that's the stuff that really doesn't matter. Maybe it really doesn't matter that I, as an adult, eat the occasional bowl of Fruity Cheerios or wear pajamas with sock monkeys on them or entertain myself on long car trips alone by talking in funny voices).

It's just, I thought, when I became an adult, that I'd be, well, more ADULT.