Get a glass or a cup of your beverage of choice, because this may be a long one.

Nothing BAD, just a lot of pent-up stuff I blog about in my head yet not while in this chair and with my fingers on the keyboard. Edit: Nevermind, not so long. Texts and calls and emails derailed me.

First: Haircut on the 15th. By then I may actually know what I want to do with it besides ARRGH! SOMETHING!!! I may just put my head in my stylist's hands. He owns a big and popular salon - okay, not downtown or in Winter Park, where the chi-chi get their hair done, but it's big and popular, and I called today and his first available was next Wednesday.

I like the guy, he's funny and talented and does not lack confidence, so I may just get out of my control freak mode (caused by Severely Traumatic Bad Haircuts Past) and ask him to do whatever he thinks would look good, with the caveat that it must take me no more than a round brush, a blow dryer and a few minutes to recreate at 7 a.m. and not make me cry.

All I know is that my hair is officially too damn long now but I have no idea what I want to do about it, so I should stop being all control freaky and just let somebody else tell me. I may come home with a sort of short shag or just another bob, but one that doesn't look like I haven't had a haircut in over six months.

Second: Books. I know I'm very late to discover this series, but my distraction of choice right now is the Thursday Next series: The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel (Thursday Next Novels (Penguin Books)) How to describe them...Hitchhiker's Guide (I'm assuming all of my vast readership here has at least heard of it, if not, JFGI you'll have to look it up) but with a female protagonist in a world full of often laugh out loud funny literary in-jokes, groaner puns, and abundant absurdity. I'm only in the second book and know I'll work my way through the series. Quirky, witty, goofy, and aimed at literature geeks. What's not to love? The popularity of books like this gives me hope that the world really isn't about to crash into a semi-literate Jersey Shore.

Cookbooks on the Kindle: I am not a fan. A link on Facebook mentioned a sale at Amazon for a couple of vegan cookbooks recommended by a trusted source, so I went for it. I do like the books: The Happy Herbivore Cookbook: Over 175 Delicious Fat-Free and Low-Fat Vegan Recipes and Everyday Happy Herbivore: Over 175 Quick-and-Easy Fat-Free and Low-Fat Vegan Recipes, and they were a steal, but it confirmed my suspicion that I wouldn't really enjoy cookbooks in e-reader format. Some things just need to be in full-sized book format, and I think cookbooks and knitting books both fall into that category.

Three Third: Knitting. OMG I'd forgotten how FUN knitting is, and how good for me! I hadn't started a new project since moving back to FL, dragging my yarn stash with me from here to there and back again. The day before yesterday I had a random strong urge to Start Something. I also don't want to buy yarn, because my yarn stash is already taking up too much space in the guest room closet. So I unearthed some Mission Falls 1824 Cotton in a pale seafoam green inexplicably called "Fog," (isn't fog gray?) and cast on for this top down v-neck. (Apologies to anyone not a member of Ravelry, but just picture the most simple and basic v-neck sweater in a sort of nubby, bumpy cotton.)

It's been a long time since I started a top-down raglan in the round and I'd forgotten what happens when you reach the end of the increases at the shoulders, before you take the sleeves out of the equation and continue on down the body. The upper body feels like knitting a stockinette blanket with occasional pauses to ADD stitches, and I'm making a medium, which should be comfortably loose. It still feels like the upper body stockinette death march, and I don't really mind stockinette at all. I'm almost there - two and a half more rounds until the last increase row, then I'm done with the raglan shoulders and can put those stitches aside. It's going really fast, mostly because I'm back in my Stockinette Groove. There are knitters who love Challenges, and there are knitters like me, who do it to escape our other challenges. My challenges wake me up at 3 a.m. on a regular basis with to-do lists and bright ideas for business development. Knitting is my escape. I won't say I don't care how the sweater turns out, I hope it's cute and wearable and I can wear it with jeans this winter, but knitting it is more about relaxation and meditation than "challenging myself." I've never lived a life where I had an urge to seek challenges in knitting. That life always sounded like a beautiful dream.