Category Archives: Life

I totally had a set of these when I was a kid. Mine had…hmm…Tom Sawyer. Last of the Mohicans. Oliver Twist. The Count of Monte Cristo. The Call of the Wild. There was a Robin Hood. And Edgar Allen Poe. And I think Moby Dick, though I think it may be the one of the lot I never read.

Anyway, just a happy blast from the past. I’d nearly forgotten about these, despite how very many hours I spent engrossed in them. Funny how memory works.

This has nothing to do with yarn-y goodness except in regards to why I’m not getting anything done. It popped into my head today because I am in enormous pain from aggravating an old injury that originated in my brief stint in the Navy and, in fact, ended my career. It’s this:

After I got hurt, I was still working out to the extent that I could. One afternoon I was on the recumbent bike and one of the Drill Instructors decided to come over and give me a talking to, which was a little unusual. You rarely heard those guys use their inside voices. Anyway, he paced around the bike and gave me a bit of a lecture, and the part of it that really, really stuck with me was when he said, “There’s a fine line between working hard and being stupid, and I trust you’ve figured out where that is now.”

That was ten years ago. And you know what? I’m not sure I know where that is now any better than I knew it then. I think I might be making the same mistake again. I need to ponder a bit. Because doing the equivalent of physically flunking out of OCS again would be stupid. And if a Gunnery Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps actually told me that, in an environment meant to push you past your perceived limits, then maybe, just maybe? I ought to consider acknowledging that just working harder isn’t always a good solution.

Something to think on, anyway.

Some of you may not know this, but I work for a certain widely despised big-box retailer which ought to remain nameless. I know that admitting this kills my knitting cred, because they are omg-teh-ebil! if Remnants is to be believed, but whatever. They gave me a job when I needed one to put a roof over my head, and they’re about the most civilized retail I’ve ever worked. Which is not to say that I like my job particularly, but it pays enough of the bills. Come to think of it, it’s been a good ten years since I’ve had a job I liked particularly, and that one didn’t really pay the bills. Hmmm.

Anyway, said retailer has something like 6000+ locations worldwide at this point, so it’s not too uncommon to get sent to another location to work on a special project or to help with training or whatever else might need done. So Monday I found myself working in the backroom of a store I’d never stepped foot in before, in a mall I’d never stepped foot in before. And do you know what happened when I walked out into the mall to get my lunch?

I discovered that I could never, never work at that location full-time. The damned thing is right next to an A.C.Moore.

Sixty-two dollars and change later, I am the proud owner of three new pairs of bamboo straights and something like twelve new balls of yarn. Gorram clearance is hell on my stashbusting plans. OTOH, I only grabbed what I have immediate projects in mind for. Now if I can only find another five or six hours a day…

I actually had a big ol’ panic attack last night, and that hasn’t happened in a while.

You know, I’ve come to realize lately how much strength it can take to let go of a worry, if you’re a worrying type like I am. I tend to hold everything close and try to mold the world to the absolute maximum possible, and thinking that I’m that damned capable of making an impact is too much sometimes. The problem is sorting out what it is that I can actually change and letting go of the stress over the things I can’t do a flippin’ thing about.

The boyfriend, who strikes me as ridiculously lackadaisical when it comes to serious matters, is actually a master at this, though I sometimes think he takes it too far in the other direction and fails to worry about things he actually can affect. It’s a balance, and I’m not very good with balance.

In any case, there have been a lot of things like this lately: at work, someone above me makes a bad decision because they don’t ask for my input even though I’ve offered help. I am responsible for the fallout for that decision, and have to find a way to work with it long-term. I spend way too much time angry about somebody making a stupid mistake and not enough time figuring out how to work around having a big chunk of my resources unavailable.

The amount of mental effort it takes to think about this the right way around is considerable. Part of that is my wiring, and part of it is that the last few years have been full of struggle and I find myself ducking every time the world throws something new my way.

In any case, I’m trying to learn. There’s all kinds of stuff going wrong in my life, but there’s some pretty awesome things balancing it. But it’s not even about that balance. It’s about trying to train my mind not to be on red alert all the time.

Now all I have to do is fail to worry about what happens if I don’t accomplish that. I think that much, at least, is doable. 🙂