Guilt-Free Knitting

Yogi (on the right) had a play date today with his sister, Oprah, my mom’s new puppy (the puppy mom is a schnauzer, the dad's a poodle--you can see which parent the pups take after). They’re only eight weeks old, but their roughhousing would put my three brothers’ glory days to shame. Yogi and Jada had a sniffathon when we got home then had to play even more, so now the're both conked out dog-skin rugs.

That gave me time to pick cukes, dill, and basil and make a cucumber salad to go with a chicken stewing in the crockpot. Since the dogs are still counting sheep (Jada, anyway), I may even get some knitting in. I’ve been making kitty-eared kids’ hats lately—they’re quick & easy, and I can watch a movie without worrying too much about dropped stitches or reading complicated patterns.

That’s the thing about knitting: it’s really an excuse to relax, unperturbed by the voice in my head that screams “idle hands are the devil’s workshop” if some part of me isn’t moving. Ray was raised Lutheran, and I went to a Catholic girls’ school for a while (both traditions think they’ve got a strangle-hold on guilt), so that would have been plenty to keep me from the sin of sloth. But the nuns’ warnings were just frilly lace added to the sturdy guilt-woven fabric of my being by my grandma, the Presbyterian Pragmatist. She was the Master. “Why honey, if I had to wait for you to get up and help, the mopboard would never get washed.” Wash mopboard? Are you kidding? What IS mopboard?!? Another favorite was, “Won’t the other girls make fun of you dressed like that?” Wow…way to tackle that tricky fifteen-year-old self-esteem building, Gram.

Don’t get me wrong. I adored my Grandma, and while my mom worked two or sometimes three thankless jobs to raise four kids on her own, my Grandma, widowed by then, taught me how to keep a house, cook, garden, and be a strong-willed, outspoken, independent woman. She’s the reason I’m having roast chicken and cucumber salad for dinner. But I gotta tell you, when I sit down to knit in a minute here, you can bet your “Old Rugged Cross” my hands will be a blur.