Pay it Forward: Free Knitting Goodies

While the rest of the country enjoys the steamy last month of summer, I am back at work.  Busy scrambling, I am hoping to present my students (who return on Monday) with a classroom with some modicum of organization (managed by an instructor who doesn’t look as if she just rolled out of bed).  After an emotionally fraught first day back yesterday, when I discovered that over 15 years’ worth of my digital files had been erased from my school’s server, I am back on track today toward my goals for a smooth start to the school year.  My hysterical rant to several of my school system’s technology staff resulted not only in traumatized young male engineers, but also in my files being extricated from some mysterious cyber storage area, so I am back in business.  

In the midst of my desperate quest to retrieve files, en route to our school system's central technology office,  I made a frantic trip to Target to purchase an external hard drive (to use to store transferred data).  There, I made a quick stop in the ladies room.  As I speedily washed my hands, an old silver-haired lady with a walker, who stood near the paper towel holder, smiled at me and inquired, “In a hurry?”

She had such a pleasant face and for the first time in the several hours since my discovery of a vacant space on the “H Drive” of my computer, I exhaled and released some tension.  I told the woman that I needed to be at work, but that I had an urgent errand.  She gazed at me warmly and said, “You’ll slow down someday.” 

While her statement might be interpreted as reflective of a pessimistic, cranky attitude, the woman's delivery and demeanor was so comforting that her words had a positive effect.  They, coupled with her walker and feeble appearance, made me take pause, bringing me back to reality from my overindulgence in stressful emotion.  Her presence highlighted more essential and important human concerns, and made my loss somehow seem trivial—not nearly as important as aging with its physical frailty and ultimate outcome. 

In honor of this woman (whose name I don’t know), I am giving away a couple of items:  Tea Cozies 3 (a new book with lots of cute patterns), the newest issue of Interweave Knits (for some reason I receive two copies every month), and a small gift of yarn (specific type to be determined).  Here’s how to enter to win:

Post a comment here, telling me what type of yarn is your favorite and why.  You do not have to mention brand names, but doing so is okay.  I will randomly pick a winner.