Wrapping Up This Year, Thinking 2012.

I had a small epiphany of sorts today. A couple of things happened right in a row that pissed me off - just other humans being clueless, i.e. not behaving as I would have behaved in the same situation. And I had this urge to write about it, but then thought about the two schools of thought on "writing about it" - which is what blogging is, so go with me a little here.

One school says write about it and hash it out in writing, until you have resolved it.

The other says what you put in writing becomes the thing on which you focus, and writing about the negative crap that clutters all our days is not productive. We should write about the good stuff, and focus on that.

I have to say, I'm leaning toward the latter. I tried the former - if you have survived hanging out here long enough, you know I used to be quite the ranter about political stuff and work stuff and just ranting. It's an endless source of material, that's for damn sure, but is it productive? So far, I'd say not.

So, I'm thinking that in 2012 I will make a serious effort to focus on the positive. There certainly is a whole lot of positive stuff to focus on, I'm just not sure I can be funny about it. I have had too much practice at the witty snark approach to life, and I'm not sure I want to abandon it. Maybe I'll create some sort of fusion blog cuisine - positive witty snark, in a light balsamic glaze?

Anyway, the happy story of today is that Miss D laughed her first real laugh while watching her dogs wrestling. My daughter reports that it was a dorky, snorty laugh. I said I don't think she'll still be laughing like that when she's dating age, so let's not worry yet. She laughed! She's 2 months and a week or two, and she's very alert and aware and thinks Dudley is funny! Everyone who knows him agrees that Dudley IS funny, so she is right.

The cold front came through - which means the a/c finally shut off. We'll sleep well tonight, and I bought a couple of fireplace logs (the paper-wrapped faux log kind) for the weekend. I haven't explored the fireplace yet but it passed inspection and I'll test it with a bit of burning newspaper to be sure it draws before putting a log in it. I'm guessing it was almost never used, so I want to be sure that there is no blockage somewhere up the flue. I have an afghan for Supergirl to assemble - I've got a lot of squares done, and I want to put what I have together to see how big it is now. I'm assembling this one with a fierce attention to connection failsafes - the joins are triple-knotted, the ends are fastened down obsessively, and the squares will be joined via crochet. This blankie is built to last, even if her parents don't remember washing instructions.

And yes, I DID say I'm tying knots in the joins. That knitterly dogma about Never Tying Knots is crap if you are talking about a superwash wool or cotton or acrylic item that will get machine washed. You don't need to tie a knot in a natural fiber that will grab onto itself when wet and form a bond, especially if it will be hand-washed. But superwash wool doesn't have that grabby behavior - duuuh, that's what makes it superwash - so if I'm making something that will go into the washing machine and dryer, you better believe I tie knots. The first blankie was knotted, but the squares were sewn together as I wasn't expecting its unfortunate accident.

This one, I hope, will be fairly impervious to careless handling, because it IS a child's blankie, meant to be loved, napped with and perhaps barfed upon, and if it suffers an unfortunate fate as well, version 3 will be acrylic, and the wool snots can kiss my ass.

Dogs are snoring, the weather is cooler, and the rest of the week is looking lovely.