Being Realistic

Okay, Chris was right. I have to accept that there is no way I'm going to finish a Kate Gilbert pattern in a week with having to work and throwing a giant baseball tourney. Chris suggested bibs. Not just because she has become a bib addict herself and has now resorted to being a bib pusher. (Can you see her standing on a corner in Uptown with a giant trench coat? She opens the coat to reveal balls of Peaches & Cream and sets of number 8 needles. "Hey kid, it's okay one won't hurt you, everyone is doing it".) Because as beautiful as the Samantha sweater is, the pattern is six pages long, the sweater is knit on number 4 needles, I have a week.

So this weekend while roasting in the nearly 100 degree weather at the ballpark, I knit this: I took the picture on top of my son's drum set because that is where the light was this morning. And I'm too lazy to run downstairs unless I need to fill my coffee cup. Plus, you have to be tired of pictures on my kitchen table. I know I am. I need to get a button, but otherwise I'm good to go. I knit this with Plymouth's Fantasy Naturale because I seem to have a bunch of it around. I knit it as written except that I slipped the first stitch on each row purlwise w/yf because I like the smoother side it produces. I have two other colors of Fantasy Naturale that I can use for this, but since the pattern is so basic I feel as though I should churn out five or six of these puppies for the shower. That means I'll have to make a trip to (insert hillbilly banjo music here) Walmart.

Now I know that for some Walmart is the discount store. You buy your diapers and produce and firearms there and you love it. You love the 122 year old man who greets you at the door. You love the disinterested 15 year old girl with chipped sparkly nail polish who checks you out when you are done shopping. Approximately 4 1/2 hours after entering. 'Cos you can't find anything there because of their super-special highly researched Walmart plan of putting cans of aspargus next to furnace filters. I can't find a damn thing in a Walmart.

Maybe it's being raised in Minnesota, but I'm a Target girl. I can find anything in Target. Any Target, anywhere. Back when I was on the road all the time for work, alone in a different city, I would visit Target when I got homesick. The friendly sight of red shirts bustling, clean white floors and Spot the dog made me feel at home again. Unfortunately, after a couple of really unsuccessful attempts, Target doesn't sell craft supplies or yarn. It takes too much floor space and they don't make any money on it.

I heard through the blogging grapevine that Walmart is your source for Peaches & Cream if you are a nice Midwestern girl like me. I want the bright, fun Peaches & Cream colors versus the pastel Lily Sugar & Cream. I know I can get the Lily for cheap, cheap, cheap at Michael's, but I want the real stuff. So I have to go to Walmart. I've been thinking about doing so all weekend, but by the time I get home from the park I'm hot, I smell, and I'm exhausted. I just want to take a shower and collapse. So today is the day. No games at our park tonight and my son doesn't play until 8. I can do it. I can visit Walmart. I can come out of the store quickly and with my Peaches & Cream. Then I read Sheepish Annie's blog this morning and I'm afraid all over again.