When we are capable of living in the moment free from the tyranny of "shoulds," free from the nagging sensation that this moment isn't right,

we will have peaceful hearts. (Joan Borysenko)

It's been a really wonderful day. I've been by turns adventurous and self-indulgent. And I've had a great time.

One of my adventures, which also turned out to be self-indulgent, was finding a new (to me) yarn shop. I had heard it mentioned, but I really didn't know where it was. So I was driving north on the interstate, saw the exit for the town it was in, and on the spur of the moment I took the turn-off. I had no idea where it was, but I actually managed to find it without too much difficulty. And I'm so glad I did!

The Knit or Knot is a wonderful LYS, with a really good variety of yarns and staffed by people that are the nicest people I've met outside of rubber stamp stores. They had several types of sock yarn that I haven't tried before, and I had a difficult time deciding what to buy. So I ended up getting yarn for each of my girls and myself:

I think my youngest is going to love this Fortissima Socka. You can't tell from this photo, but it has silver tinsel spun into the yarn so it sparkles.

My oldest is into a green phase right now. So even though I just did a pair of evergreen jitterbug socks for her, I went with this green tweed Wildfoot. I think I'm going to use the pattern from the current six_sox_knitalong group which is based on one of Cat Bordhi's patterns and has some lovely cables and a wonderful gusset. Plus it's knit toe-up, which is something that I've been wanting to try.

For me, I decided to try the Happy Feet from Plymouth Yarn Co. I love this colorway; plus, how can you resist Happy Feet socks?

Leaving Knit or Knot and getting back onto the interstate proved to be a bit challenging. It was actually my fault. I should have made a left turn to get back onto the main road. But there was traffic, so I decided to go right to get around it. Only there was no place to turn around. So I ended up driving through a neighborhood, then a golf course, then another neighborhood, then I was in the middle of no-where. I didn't think you could drive in Florida that long without running into either the ocean or the interstate. I passed a sign that said: "Welcome to Martin County", and then one that said "You are now leaving Martin County." A little bit later (still heading in the same direction, I came to another "Welcome to Martin County" sign. But I eventually found the interstate, passed through Martin County to St. Lucie County (my destination), so all was well.

I did other shopping, then treated myself to a wonderful Dark Mochachinno at the Java Hut while waiting for my mom to meet me for dinner. I pulled out my knitting, and I managed to get two more rats finished today. It's a lot more fun to knit rats in public, than the socks. With socks people either ignore me, or comment on how many needles I'm using. Once in a while I get someone who stops to take the time to explain to me that we're living in Florida so there's no need for me to knit socks. With the rats, people would glance as they walked by, stop, then backtrack to find out if they had really seen it correctly. Some of them would ask, "Is that a rat (mouse) that you're knitting?" My standard answer was, "Yes. It's for my daughter." Almost everyone just walked off at that point, grinning and shaking their head.

One older woman wanted more information. "Why are you knitting your daughter a rat?" I explained that my daughter lives in New York so I call her my Subway Rat, hence the rat scarf. She thought that this was the funniest thing she had ever heard. She went and got her husband, and made me show him the scarf. Once he heard why I was making it, he went and got his buddy, who then got his wife. So the four of them stood and watched as I added ears to the current rat. Then the second guy turned to his wife, and told her, "I'm so glad you never decided to do anything like this for me." The four of them laughed hysterically, then the wife turned to me and explained. When they were younger, her husband and his friends used to ride the Staten Island Ferry to work so she used to call them the Fairy guys. Had she knit back then, he would have ended up with a purple and green scarf with wings to wear.


Dinner, by the way, was also very good. We went to an Italian Festival, and made total pigs of ourselves. I have an Italian pastry sitting in my refrigerator, but I'm still too full to eat it. (But just thinking about it makes me want to try a taste...)