Restoring my faith

Just when I had decided that I had come to a point in my life when it was time to start over as far as friendships were concerned, I got a helpful and touching reminder of just who my friends really are. They are not necessarily the people I spent my college years hanging out with endlessly. Most of those people, I am sorry to say, have very little in common with me now. This is not to say that my life is any better or worse than theirs, it is just that we exist on different planes of reality. I am in the parent-of-twins-struggling-to-make-do-on-one-teacher's-salary plane. It's not a very well-populated plane, but it is where I am at the moment, and I wouldn't change it.

The people who I now count as friends aren't necessarily on my plane, either, but they don't seem as wrapped up in their own stuff as a lot of us tend to get. These people actually return (or *gasp*) initiate phone calls and keep in touch with me. There are others out there who I suppose I could maintain contact with, but the maintenance would be all on me. And, frankly, raising two kids and trying to keep from being buried alive in diapers, toys, and bills takes a lot of my energy. Just getting out of the house is exhausting. And don't pretend that since you have a dog you know exactly how I feel. Nothing against dogs, understand; it's just that dogs aren't people, and children are, no matter how you feel about them.

Yarn snobbery and other crimes of vanity

I am a knitter. I knit. I do not shear my own private herd of sheep, nor do I create using only natural fibers. There are those out there who would claim that using acrylic yarn dooms any project of mine to end up looking and feeling cheap and atrocious, an assault to their sense of all that is decent and beautiful in the world. HA! I say. Just as art should not be judged solely by the medium used to create it, so fiber art (knitting, sewing, crocheting, etc.) can be beautiful even if it is created with frugality. Conversely, I've seen a lot of ugly stuff made from yarns I can't even dream of affording. What gets to me is the assumption by certain designers who have their patterns published in i-zines that everyone can just run out to the LYS and pick up the silk and baby llama blend that has been hand painted by blind Hungarian virgins that they chose to use for their sample of their design. I have no LYS unless I drive a minimum of 60 miles. Wraps per inch, please, or some mention of the weight of yarn you suggest!