Onde and Other Things

Here's my latest progress on the Phildar pullover I am doing in Phil'Onde:

Back of the Phil'Onde Pullover

I'm closing in on the end of this ball of Onde. I've got 27 more rows before I start binding off for the armholes. I wonder if this first ball will make it that far? I'm still finding the "chlorophylle" quite easy on my eyes and I have gotten comfortable with the stitch irregularity that is part of the character of this yarn. It feels like it is taking me forever to knit this thing, but that's probably because I can't speed-knit the ribbing as much as I might like.

It's definitely fun to watch this Onde stuff do it's magic. Not quite as fun as Kureyon or Silk Garden, but almost.

There have been quite a few interesting posts concerning knitting and yarn acquisition and guilt of late (check out Claudia, Carolyn, Wendy and Kersten for their personal feelings on the subject). I enjoyed reading these posts because they are personal perspectives on guilt and fiber acquisition and knitting. I can pick pieces of myself out of each one of them.

At the end of the day, I just have a hard time feeling guilty about my stash. I slogged through four years of college, six years of graduate school, two years post-doctoral training and then another two more years of grad school. I worked hard to get where I am and no one is going to make me feel guilty about how I spend my salary. I firmly believe in surrounding myself with the people and things that make me happy. My house makes me happy. My stash of fiber makes me happy. My collection of books and my tech toys make me happy. I'm definitely a material girl.

I consider myself lucky to have all these things. I wish everyone could have all the things that they want. But I don't really feel guilty about having them. Life is too short to feel guilty about things.

But people are a different matter. The guilt in my life comes from much more personal things. I feel guilty about not responding to the email that is piling up in my inbox right now. I feel guilty about not having enough time to blog, (because I miss my daily creative writing experience). I feel guilty about not having enough time right now to be a truly active participant in the Audrey blog (though I'm hardly needed -- there's so much good stuff happening there without me). I feel guilty about not yet having made hotel and plane reservations for a friend's wedding in July. I still feel guilty about not coping as well as I would have liked with my mother-in-law's extended stay with us over the summer. And I feel extremely guilty about not having enough time to call a dear friend who is going through a very rough spot.

I really truly feel that material things should only be worried about when they become an uncontrollable obsession that starts to hurt other people. But I also feel that if I try to keep people as my main concern, it's hard for the material things to get out of control. It's all about balance and perspective. When material things start to get out of hand, my guilt levels go up. It's an emotional warning sign that I need to re-prioritize and figure out how to be more efficient with my time.

And that's what I am struggling with right now -- achieving balance. It's amazing to me how one extra activity (my programming class) can throw everything else out of whack. Good thing it's only until June. In the meantime, I hope all the people that I'm feeling guilty about will be patient with me. And I promise to stay away from any more degree seeking ventures... at least for a little while!