I've been a bad blogger. . .

. . .but that doesn't mean knitting hasn't been on my mind. The last couple of weeks have been really tough, and I've been keeping myself as busy as possible to help me get through them. Some of this busyness is knitting, but a good amount isn't. The non-knitting activities usually take me away from my computer and any blogging thoughts I might have. But, as my sister pointed out, I need (and want) to honor my commitment to the blog.

The good thing about not updating for a while is I have a more impressive amount of work to report on. I'm too lazy/my room is too messy to take a photo of the Grecian Plait in progress. . . but it's really coming along. I'm all the way through the neck hole shaping and I've only got a couple more inches to go on the shoulders. Front's almost done! I've been neglecting this project for days at a time, yet it's still a pretty fast knit. I promise pictures within the next couple of days.

In other knitting-related news, I checked out an interesting book from the library today. It's called "The Knitting Circle" by Ann Hood. It's a fictional book, and from what I've read so far it's about how a woman uses knitting to help her get over her young daughter's death. I'm not dealing with anything quite as heavy as a death, but I am using knitting to get over my own recent rough spot. It's a nice, entertaining, comforting, and somewhat brainless read so far (not a jab at the book, I just appreciate reading something outside of the academic material I normally read).

I've been trying to put things in perspective lately, and even though this is a fictional story it's helping me understand that the problems I have are small compared to some of the problems of others. I'm starting to really embrace the idea that any problems I have are far outweighed by the positive things in my life. These thoughts make me want to be more of an active charity knitter; but I guess as a student I'm stretched so thin already that I can't really expect myself to be Mother Theresa. Still, though, I think it would help me a great deal if I could use my own emotion to create something that might help someone suffering a bigger pain deal with their grief.