casting on

I'm itching to cast on for my next knitting project, but I have a dilemma. Because I'm heading home in April, suitcase space is a topic frequently on my brain. I have lived in Sweden for over a year and a half. And I have accumulated. So my rule for the spring is "don't buy anything." at all. unless i can eat it and it disappears. This leaves me with an obvious problem in the knitting department, yet i suppose one can view it as a challenge as well: I may only knit with my stashed yarn. This may not sound too bad, but my stash is such a hodge podge of ends of skeins and yarn I've had forever but never done anything with because they don't have any appeal. So this is what I'm working with. Alexander, the 4 yr old I'm part-time au pairing for, complained last week "jag fryser på kinden." literally translated: I'm freezing on my chin. So I happily came to the rescue with a promised cowl....the perfect solution for his chin and for my yarn scraps. When I presented the finished item this morning to a too-tired boy, he said with a quivering voice that it wasn't like his buddy's, and that he didn't like it. oh dear.

But mostly the knitting dilemma has been in the background lately. I've been teaching a whole lot, and it can be tiring. Today alone I was on my bicycle for 2 and a half hours, going from school to school. (i counted as i puffed up the hill home) It's easy to feel stressed, rushed, and like the day is a blur. And then I arrive at an elementary school. The building is an old Swedish mansion style; tall and stately. And the playground on this grey, lifeless-looking, slushy day, is full of happy children. Clad in snowboots and head to toe jackets, they embrace the day. They find a patch of ice and are fixated for half an hour, taking turns falling. They don't seem to mind that the snow is no longer white but now grey with dirt and gravel. They remind me to laugh, to relax. My "own" child does a pretty good job of reminding me of this himself. We had a rousing pillow fight a couple evenings ago. Me and Alex versus Erik. the usual teams. :)