Adjustments

This week and next will be a series of adjustments in what could be called life rhythms. Hubby's finished with work until September, so we are adjusting to him being home and unstructured, for want of a better description. Always there, no time alone, sort of thing.
The school year is winding down for everyone, which means a little schedule adjustment, with end of school activities and half days and at the end of the week, children home for the summer.
Unstructured, not my favorite, will be on the agenda for the next two+ months until the school bell rings again. It will mean getting the week's schedule and figuring out what days we will have kids and for how long and what days we will be by ourselves to schedule things like doctor's appointments(which I should have gotten out of the way a few months ago, I know.
But the weather is beautiful and I can feel the siren song of long summer days with lots of free time beckoning.

Now about the knitting, another adjustment. For the past few weeks, I have had a horrible stiff neck on arising. Sometimes on the right side, sometimes on the left. So painful, I couldn't bear to be touched. After having my DD#2 look at it and my right wrist which was also sore, she advised it was due to too much knitting. When I protested, my hubby chimed in and said "You are knitting all the time". I guess he's right. I start in the morning, carry around at least a sock throughout the day for when there is a little spare time to knit a few rounds, then watch TV in the evening for about 3-4 hours of constant knitting.

I have an impressive amount of items completed, which is great, but I really want to be able to do this without the pain. I had this problem once before when I was taking classes and trying to get as much done as possible. The solution then as it is now is to just stop for a while. I was figuring through the month of June, but it may take a bit longer. Now I have another class on the 25th and 9th for a cotton ruched top that I will go to but absolutely no knitting until then and I am not going to try to complete the top in that time frame. My DD#2 is going to work on my neck, shoulder and arm this Saturday and give me some exercises to do to get back into knitting form.

I guess I am going to have to adjust to becoming a process knitter rather than a project knitter. The way I understand the terms and the way I am going to slowly ease back into knitting is to take one project at a time, do some research and background on the pattern and/or stitches and just enjoy the journey rather than speeding through to get to the end.

My immediate problem was what do I do with my hands while relaxing, reading and TV watching. I have organized my knitting, I pulled knitting books out that explore techniques, fair isle, stranded knitting, entreloc, double knitting, color theory, lace knitting and I am going to study technique. I have always planned to do this, but just speed through to the patterns and ignore the rest.

I am finishing sweaters that just needed a button or some ends woven in (two down one to go) and there is the monumental task of sewing up all the blocks for my bed spread. I have yarn to wind into cakes (hubby fixed my ball winder,yeah) and two shawls to rip back to various points and restart. I gave myself a manicure and pedicure and worked on some puzzles.

So far so good, but it's only been two days!