Small Town

I live in a small town, which is somewhat of a rarity for Southern California. I love it. We live in a beautiful valley, about 30 miles inland from the ocean, so we actually get a little change in weather and seasons. Our town covers about four square miles, max. We have, I think, four stoplights. The town is so small that when you give your phone number to someone in town, you only give the last four numbers , everyone has the same prefix, so it's redundant.... kind of like saying I live in California, United States of America.... people just look at you like, "duh," if you recite your whole phone number.

It's the kind of town where you can drop your teenagers off at the local Burger King, the Towne Theatre, the high school football game, or shopping on the downtown drag, and not have to worry about them..... people watch out for each other, you know most everyone, and you can't get away with much. I love it..., my kids, not so much. Like the first time I let them meet some friends at Burger King for dinner and just dropped them off.... the next day I saw a friend in the movie store and he said, "Hey, I saw your daughters at Burger King last night, sliding down the kiddie slide on food trays." Yeah, I have my spys. It's a good thing.


Also, being it is So Calif, I'm not to far from decent sized towns. I can travel a half hour in any of three directions and get to a Target, Price Club, etc. Which is good, because we don't have much in our small town.... and there certainly is no LYS. This, is not such a good thing. My not-so-local yarn store is a half hour a way.... so I don't just scoot out there on a whim (which prevents impulse buying, at least). And then there's the agoraphobia factor.... I'm not really afraid of leaving town.... I just don't want to. I'm a stay-at-home, work-at-home mom, and the longer I stay at home, the less I want to leave it. I'm happy in my little rut. I'd just be a whole lot happier if I had a LYS. Hello, spending an hour in the car for a round trip really cuts into my knitting time!

I know a lot of people live in even smaller, more remote towns, but the California mentality has crept in enough that I want instant gratification when it comes to my knitting.

So, on days like today, when I've just downloaded my Marilyn's Not-So-Shrunken Cardigan pattern, but my online yarn order hasn't arrived yet.... it's completely frustrating. I want to start this NOW! (and of course, I didn't plan ahead). I haven't been knitting long enough to have amassed a "stash," nor can I really afford to just buy without reason, and honestly, in cases like this I'm not sure that would help. No matter how much yarn was in my stash, I'm sure I would not have just the "perfect" yarn... you know, the same reason you end up with 12 different bottles of nail polish, all basically the same red!

Well, I can afford to keep a small stash of sock yarn on hand, so at least there's something to hold me over until my Knit Picks order arrives.

This is the beginning of my Jaeger Matchmaker cable socks. So far so good, I'm liking the cables.... I just don't know what will happen when I get to my gusset decreases. It works in my mind, but that's not saying much, expert that I am (not). So, we'll have to wait and see.

The problem is, I'm going camping this weekend (just with the hubby, no kids!), and I really want to bring my Marilyn cardi to start on, and I'm afraid my yarn isn't going to get here in time. If it doesn't, I'll just have to take pictures of my sock, by the lake, walking down a trail, sipping wine next to the trailer.... you've seen those pictures on the blogs. They crack me up. Socks have been to the Eiffel Tower, major league ball games, you name it. I love all those vacation pictures with "the sock" in the foreground. But mine really wants to stay at home and rest.... we'll see.