Patience - I Hear it's a virtue

I will swatch.

I commit right here, in front of all my cyberspace pals, to swatch.

I will practice patience and remember that swatching is better than frogging.

I will NOT start another project without swatching.

And...
I will remember that this...
is not a swatch...


Nor is this...


And, this... Well, this is most definitely not a swatch...

This, this here, is a swatch.

Actually it's a swatch in progress. Okay truthfully, this is as far as I got with the swatch... And it was knit after the above pictured not-a-swatch-but-actually-a-sweater following a practically sleepless night of worrying that my gauge wasn't working out quite right (my stitch count was okay - almost - but row count was off).

I got lucky this time as the larger needle size did not work and I was able to comfortably proceed with the sweater knowing that I was using the optimum size needle for this project. However, my higher row count may require the purchase of another hank of this not so cheap yarn and considering that I initially purchased only 2 hanks of this yarn to use as a sweater accent... I am feeling the floor continue to slip out from under me a bit.

The good news - The sweater is fitting just right after joining in the round and the yarn feels (and looks imho) wonderful. So the 24 hours of anxiety has passed and I am thrilled and can't wait to finish.

However, I am attributing this partial success to luck only and will stick by my commitment to swatch... Real swatches... Not just 4-6 rows, but real 5" x 5" swatches! (Unless I can start with a sleeve... Or something else small...) Just saying.

On a less fortunate note... I took my 12 yos to the eye doc today and found out that he needs glasses. Okay, let's pick out frames... Now I have no idea what kind of glasses a 12 yo should wear these days (or any other days) but I quickly realized that he wasn't going to go for the cute little frames with footballs on them like his younger brother got a couple of years ago, so I settled for steering him away from glasses that made him look like a rapper. The gal helping us agreed with him that the boys these days did like the thicker, black frames so we set out to find a pair without dark lenses or red racing stripes down the side.

Now, I can't even begin to tell you how much this type of thing stresses me out. Standing in the middle of 5,000 pairs of glasses which I know nothing about while a 12 yo tries to make a decision. 1) I need/must be in the know (and pretty much start to fall apart if I'm not). 2) I despise relinquishing control in such decisions but realized that my soon-to-be 13 yos needed to be pleased with the final decision. 3) I couldn't find a tactful way to explain to him that he wasn't necessarily "hip" and would be much better off in a more traditional pair of glasses. Don't get me wrong, he is an awesome kid... intelligent, sensitive, mature... but, you can see where I'm going... not necessarily trendy or... hip.

Well, short story longer... he finally found a pair he really liked, I sucked it up and we went to the counter where the manager stopped by and said, "Wow, you're a nice mom!". Wait a minute... something's wrong. I look up, "Why?" She replies, "Prada... these are nice glasses for a 12 yo," and walks off. I snuck a glance at the price tag, ran back to the Ray Ban shelf, tried to sell my son on the first pair he had liked that I shot down before the mounting stress caused me to give in and give up. Heck, I was even scrambling for the pair with the red racing stripe! But it was too late. His mind was made up and mine was wiped out. I must've looked a bit faint... or maybe she was dreading having to start over with us... but the sales gal was able to get us the 50% discount that they offer on the children's glasses since he was only 12.

Me in Target's finest, my son in Prada. Go figure.

BTW - It didn't occur to me until this vert minute that I could've quite possibly waited a day to gather some information, check out some pictures, or at least sleep on it. Nope, I'm a "now" kinda gal.

Patience I tell you... it's killing me.