Deep in thought and polishing off those cookie crumbs,
I pondered this idea. Mmmm . . . I mean, hmmmmm. There are so many hobbies I’ve
taken up over the years. Sewing clothes for my troll dolls in the 60’s. Creating
clothes for myself in the 70’s. Stitching outfits for my babies in the 80’s. In
the 90’s we wove rag baskets. Which led to lap quilting. Followed by stamping.
Pie making. Pie selling. Pie eating. Coupon Sense. Fermented foods. And blogging.
With all these hobbies to manage, it’s amazing I ever had
time to clean house or make dinner.
Alas, the golden age of nearly all these fads has passed. No one asks me to weave a shabby basket for them anymore. Stamping has gone the way of troll dolls. Frankly, I just got bored with most of these things. Sewing clothes is more expensive now than buying them already made. Everything changes. But eating chocolate chip cookies? That’s forever.
And so
are the pounds they accumulate.
I had to do something. Finding a fresh pastime seemed
like a good idea. It turns out I’m not one of the fifty percent of grieving
widows who gag at the thought of swallowing food when their hearts are broken.
Lucky me. I blame that on all the cookies I was given as a child in exchange
for my tears. Homemade chocolate chip cookies. I mean, come on. As
in touch with my emotions as I am, I never even had a chance.
I wracked my brain, trying to get it off of chocolate.
What about in-person classes for senior citizens? Now that the pandemic is more
or less behind us, it’s considered safe to gather as human beings again. I didn’t
know if I wanted to commit, though. What if there were no snacks? Or worse, only
the healthy kind?
Enter You Tube. Such a lowly name for a
resource that rivals all of the World Wide Web. Want to learn to bake a cake? How
about repair stucco? Maybe you want to install a dishwasher? Or diagnose your
own terminal illness? Well then, sit back, turn up the volume, and prepare to
be enlightened. You can do all of that in your pajamas and no one will ever
know the difference. You Tube is better than a dictionary and more current than
the encyclopedia, which isn’t saying much. Every time I have a question about
how to do anything, my kids remind me they discovered how to perform brain
surgery while living off the grid, just by watching this channel.
Forget millennials and xennials. This is the You Tube
Generation.
I put on my pajamas, grabbed my favorite cookies, powered
up the television, and hit the search button. “K – N – I – T – T – I – N – G,” I painstakingly spelled. Baziiinng!
I knew it. You Tube even cares about Baby Boomers. And to prove it, here
was the hobby first taught to me by own grandmother. I scrolled through all the
options and settled on a beginner’s project I thought I could handle—blankets
using only a knit and pearl stitch. Cuz that’s all I know how to do and it's all
I want to do. I’m not trying to get fancy or make sweaters here. I’m trying to overcome
my chocolate chip cookie addiction.
I found a blanket pattern I thought would make a cozy addition
to my living room, studied the technique, and took notes. Then I drove to JoAnn
Fabrics, bought a bunch of yarn and tools and, as soon as I got home, I started
knitting one and pearling one and knitting one and pearling one. Instantly, I was
addicted. And elated! I’d solved my snack problem and identified my purpose in
life. As long as there is Christmas and people who don’t know how much they
need my blankets, I will never overeat chocolate again. It was that easy.
You Tube is a genius.
Except. The girl on the tv wasn’t giving directions
away for free. She was advertising for her Etsy business. If I wanted to find
out how many rows of knitting make either a throw or a lap blanket, I would
have to track down her Etsy account and pay for that information. Aren’t they pretty
much the same thing though? You know, like, “Throw me a lap
blanket.” I felt confident I could figure this out on my own. I graduated high
school. It doesn’t require a college education to know when a blanket is big
enough. I’d just cast on a few stitches and knit until I was done.
I found an exciting UFO documentary to binge watch,
and in hardly any time at all I knit and pearled a blanket all over myself. It
was awesome. I loved the texture of the yarn, the color I’d chosen, and the clickety-click
of the needles.
Knitting was better than cookies.
It was relaxing. It was comforting. It was low calorie.
I knitted and pearled and knitted and pearled until my shoulders ached and my
hands cramped and the wooden needles caught fire. I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want
to stop. I had to stop. I ran out of
yarn. Proud as punch with my finished project, I held it up as high as I could in
my stocking feet and then took ten steps backward. It stretched out in front of
me like a woolen river, covering the living room from side to side with every
skein of Lion Brand Natural Heather I could find. I was as proud
as a new mother could possibly be. It didn’t look much like what I’d seen on
You Tube. It wasn’t exactly a lap blanket. And it was too heavy to throw
anywhere. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of a creation like the one I
brought into the world.
It appears I knitted myself a sleeping bag. If you fold
it in half and put in a zipper on one side—yep. That there’s a sleeping bag.
Hunh. Maybe I didn’t need to purchase quite that much yarn. Or watch that many episodes about
aliens.
I think we’ve all learned a lesson here. A lesson
about moderation. About trading one addiction for another. And about
overconfidence. But the most important thing we’ve learned here today,
something they won’t even tell you on the You Tube, is this. Sometimes the best
things in life are not free.
