I knit a bunch on my Hand-to-Hand Aran last night at knit night -- and had enough time to tear out all I'd done before the coffee shop closed.  Somehow, between all the chatting and laughing, story-telling and picture-taking, I crossed a "magoo" in the wrong spot and threw everything off.  As usual, I just blew right past the subsequent warning signs that flashed in my brain and muddled/fuddled it good for the rest of the night.

Can't you see, I'm TALKING here?

It was that kind of night.  Ann was completely bewildered, trying to figure out her gauge and calculating mods for a new pattern, and then discovered that she'd been looking at the schematic for a completely different sweater the entire time!

I got all the stitches back on the needle before leaving for home, then worked a few rows to a) get it right, b) figure out where the hell I am in the pattern.  I did this cheat-sheet card with nothing but numbers and letters to represent rows and stitch patterns, but I'm going to have to add a symbol or two.  I like it because it looks like a secret code.

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I am losing it.  I'm going to have to work on... something.  Organization?  Checks-and-balances?  Getting enough sleep?  I had not one, but two late notices in the mail the other day for payments that I thought I'd made online.  I wrote the payment info on the stub... typed it into my Quicken register... apparently forgot to actually perform the online transaction.  I'd done that once a long time ago and had been so careful and methodical since then, but I guess I got lax, let my guard down.  Erg.

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I'm the resident Know-It-All in one of my classes -- and I HATE THAT!  I've piped up a couple of times (I know!) and the instructor has all but pointed her finger at me in a couple of situations -- and I HATE THAT, too!!  It's only been a couple of weeks, and I've wanted to crawl under the desk a few times already, but I also get a little like that shirt that my stepdad made for my sister once:  Help me!  I'm talking and I can't shut up!  I could probably have tested out of this class, though I don't know if there's even a procedure in place for that; I wanted to take it because I thought I could learn some things.  You know?  Tips and tricks, a little shortcut, help me improve and do a better job -- there's always something to learn!  I thought it would be my favorite class, but it's my least favorite class so far (of two, so what do I know -- and I totally LOVE the other one).  The instructor is a little less organized than I'd have imagined, is very repetitious, does a fair bit of digressing, and -- in a class where attention to detail is pretty much what it's all about -- seems to pick and choose what details to be picky about, dismissing some altogether!  I have a hard time reconciling the inconsistencies, especially since I've actually practiced some of what she's teaching.  You know when you were in high school algebra or geometry and you wondered when in the world you'd ever use that information and your teacher said, Don't worry, you will -- and here we are, knitting, and using it all the time (even if we don't actually think of it or call it "algebra" or "geometry" -- oh, heaven forbid).  Well, here is the instructor standing up in front of class saying, Oh, you won't need to know this; they don't use/do this anymore.  And there's just the teensy tiniest grain of truth to that -- mostly as relates to terminology of the work performed and of the performer -- but, to my mind, not enough to slam the book shut on the subject!