Resisting the feelin’ wealthy high

You know one of the fastest ways to get poor?

Feel rich.

I went to KnitPicks today for, you know, a couple little things. I have an order in for a kid’s sweater and needed 500 grams of a nice machine-washable DK-weight wool (hello, Swish) in two colors…and also, some of those little ‘needle markers’ would be nice. Oh, look, books are on sale. Sweet, check this out, heyyyyyy, $35 for the yarn and pattern for two market bags?! That’s $17.50 apiece and they’d make awesome Christmas presents…I could probably whump those out in nothing flat, too…

And a few balls of this and how convenient, I can auto-order the yarn for this sweater with a couple clicks and…whoa. $205? How did I get to $205, for 500 grams of DK-weight blue yarn and some needle markers…?

I almost shrugged and bought it all anyway. It was a very close thing.

See, I’m feeling very wealthy right now. Practically high, truth be told. The checks are on their way and I just heard that I’m the one and only qualified candidate for the “potential” contract and hot diggity damn, I’m practically a millionaire already!

And then suddenly, my common sense reached out and belted me upside the head.

I know better. Recent evidence to the contrary aside, I really do. Spending money I don’t have on the basis that I will have it “soon” is inane, and I know it.

So I went into my shopping cart and clicked on “remove all.”

Then I started over…with a phone call. How would Mom feel about a sweater that had to be washed separately on ‘delicate’ in her front-loader and laid flat to dry? S’okay?

OK.

One quick stash-dive later, I had 500 grams of DK wool laid out on the bed. 300 grams in a hand-dyed blue, 200 grams in cream. It isn’t machine wash and dry, but it is soft and warm and lovely.

And already bought and paid for, years ago. I can’t even remember where and when I bought it, to be honest. It’s been in the stash a long, long time…I think it might have been 1999, the first year I went to Stitches, with an infant Eldest staring wide-eyed at all the madness from the safety of her Snugli.

It was a near thing.

Hopefully, I’ll soon have the cash in hand to go a little nuts at KnitPicks and my local yarn store and so forth. But until it is actually in my bank account, and not immediately needed for other things (oh yeah…bills and such…), I’m going to have to keep a tight rein on my feelin’ wealthy high.

Now, if you’ll excuse me…my long-neglected list of knitting projects is calling.

And I owe you some pictures, too. I finished the Pacific Northwest shawl a while ago, and the Tofu-swirl socks, and I even started another pair on the way to LA in ‘mystery sock yarn’ from the Some Assembly Required Sock Drawer…

…wait…

……where has the camera gotten to this time?!……

………argh………!

(And thus are my dreams of an orderly and even well-organized home office once again dashed…)