Stinking ragweed pollen

Both yesterday and today I woke up with a sore throat and a "compromised" voice (scratchy, prone to odd changes in pitch, which is typical of allergies for me). (I'm glad I had a week off from teaching Sunday school, and that, in fact, I really didn't have to speak publicly at all - no eldering, no teaching, and if they put me in the pulpit, it won't be until October).

And yeah. One of the Worship Committee members asked me again. I kind of laughed weakly and said the first time I was asked, it was midweek of a busy week and I didn't think I'd have time to prepare properly. And he told me a whole bunch of comments he'd heard - that I was the "best" Sunday school teacher they'd ever had (then why, I thought, is our class typically so small?), that I spoke so well, and on and on. A lot of it being stuff that I would charitably describe as things other people apparently see in me that I don't always see in myself (rather than giving in to Imposter Syndrome, which actually seems to be pretty prevalent, at least among well-educated women). So I said I'd definitely consider it but would need more than a week's notice. So we'll see. If our supply pastor (who is himself a student) gets worn out or hung up by midterms, I may be stepping in.

(It's funny. I'm a lot less scared of doing that than I am of some things.)

Anyway. The other thing the allergies have done is made me very tired and actually kind of borderline weepy. It happens. Histamine is a neurotransmitter, and I'm sure it can affect moods as well as affecting mucus. (It also plays a role in alertness, which is why so many antihistamines carry the side effect of drowsiness. Hm. I wonder if some of my past insomniac episodes could be chalked up to an excess of histamine?)

I'm also going through a little bit of the more-or-less regular bouts of The Grass is Always Greener - feeling like, I don't know, it vacillates between "I'm wasting my life" / "I never have any real fun" / "I don't do anything all that meaningful, not like Scientist X who has published all these papers." (And the funny thing? I think Someone is trying to whack me upside the head to get me out of that: on three separate occasions this week (including the funeral yesterday), I heard a message based on the concept that what is really important in this life is not BEING important....not necessarily doing the big notable things....but that being "useful" or "kind" or there for other people when they need it....that's important and valuable too. It's just, sometimes helping a student navigate the maze of Financial Aid, it doesn't get the same notice or recognition that some other things do. 

To try to cheer myself up, I've been digging through both my stash of yarn and my stash of patterns. This is partly because I have two exams to invigilate next week, and I have found to my distress that anything that requires paying attention to shaping or to a complexish stitch pattern doesn't work for that (I had to rip back a bunch of Basketweave after trying to knit on it and invigilate and totally messing up the pattern). I'm down to two potential candidates: Some old, old, Artful Yarns ("Pastry," I think, is the name of the yarn line. It's a pale blue with little "flags" of the same color coming off the yarn) yarn I bought for a long, skinny hipster-type scarf ("I was planning to knit a skinny scarf before they were cool"), just using good old garter stitch. Or, I found the Scrunch Hat pattern in a back number of Knitscene and realized that the robin's-egg-blue bulky weight yarn I bought on one of my JoAnn's jaunts will work nicely for it. That's another simple garter stitch project. I might begin one or both - neither require row counters (which is currently the limiting resource on my knitting: when I run out of row counters, I can't start anything new unless I'm willing to use a notepad or something to keep track).

Because I already employed my last free row counter for another new project: my Pony swapner bought me Spark Absurd's pony-knitting pattern (Found here and sent me a couple skeins of fingering weight yarn to make a mini version of the pony I designed. (The pattern is written for worsted weight, but like any toy pattern, as long as you use appropriate needles, you can use any weight of yarn). So I cast on for that and knit a bit on it today. (I'm going to do the "normal head size" rather than the "chibi-style oversized head" style). It's going to be a really tiny pony, much smaller than the amigurumi ones. (It might actually be a right size, in proportion, for a "filly" pony. Hm. Wonder if I need a Scootaloo. Except that would take finding the right orange in a sockweight or sportweight....). I might have to try doing a normal-size worsted-weight pony of it as well. Maybe another one of the ones I dreamed up? I do still want to make a DJ-Pon-3, but plan to do that as an amigurumi. (I do have another "imagined" pony, I spoke of her before: Pageturner, a grey pegasus with a pink mane and tail, who works as a librarian or bookstore owner somewhere else in Equestria...seeing as Twilight has the book-availability market sewn up in Ponyville)

Yeah, I'm still working on the different sweaters but sometimes I just need something new and different to work on. (A while back, a commenter asked me if I was more of a process or more of a project knitter. I think I'm probably slightly more of a project knitter because I NEED those finished objects...I mean, don't get me wrong, I like knitting and just sitting and knitting....but there's something psychologically valuable to me about being able to point to a finished scarf or sweater or stuffie or whatever and say "I made that." But I'm also not a one-project-at-a-time knitter, which  I know many "project" knitters are. Then again, I can never just read ONE book at a time, either.)