a great big pain in the...hand

Have you ever worked on something for what seems like ages, and then all of a sudden you come to an awful realization, say like you made a mistake near the beginning of a loong scarf or something and didn't notice until you were almost finished? In my case, I worked over a third of a graph afghan and realized that it was going to be waaaay too big....

I should preface this by saying that my wonderful friend Pammy asked me a couple of months ago to make a graph pattern for her first grandbaby due in the Fall, to which I of course agreed. I started it and then promptly left it for a month or so few weeks to finish a few other things and such, thinking, as all procrastinators do: "Well I have until October, LOTS of time!!!" Then a couple weeks ago I realized my lots of time had ticked away, as time will do, and decided to hunker down and start seriously working on this thing....and so I did...and I worked very hard, trying to bang away 10-15 rows a night...and so my hand began to hurt--a lot--and this weekend I decided to take a day or two off from the marathon of evening crochet...and it was at this point that Cee made this innocent comment: "Gee, that's turning out to be a really big blanket...." To which I replied, "Oh.. no...wait, do you think so??" Heartsick, I tried to float down the river of denial for as long as I could, but once the idea was in my head it wouldn't get out, don't you just hate that? And after I measured and did some arithmetic (never my strong point) I figured that by the time this baby blanket was finished it was going to be over 5 feet in length without the border...I just knew I'd have to frog all 23 inches of my graph ghan in progress. Honestly it's not my fault....the pattern I have was meant for filet thread crochet, so I was kind of winging it for baby yarn, having to guess hook size and which stitch to use....Sure, I could have left it, and then maybe when it was complete, they could have used it for a hallway runner...nothing would appease me, not even Cee saying "Well, just keep this one and start them another one", to which I replied, "But then I'd have to buy more yarn..." At this point he made a noise sounding suspiciously like a scoff and said "You'd do that anyway..." Humph! No, I made the decision, took a deep breath, and started ripping. It took me most of Sunday afternoon and evening just to rip the dang thing out. I was actually nauseous, thinking about all that hard work, all those yarn strands I had to keep untwisting while I worked, and then had to do the same thing when I ripped it back out....live and learn, what can you do? And so now, a few days later, the ghan has been restarted with a smaller hook and in single crochet.....and when it is done I will be very glad to see the back of it....my hand still hurts, and time, she is not on my side...but it WILL get finished!

I harvested the first 3 tomatoes yesterday and took a picture, here it isn't:

Two of my maters were only the size of raspberries, but one was your typical cherry tomato size....they tasted pretty good, and I felt very fulfilled, maybe the way a farmer would when he had sown his seeds and tended and then harvested his crop, well okay maybe not, but you get the idea, I started singing "The Circle of Life" and danced around my kitchen, eating my cherry tomatoes....not really, but I guess this sort of proves that my thumb is a little bit green after all.