An anniversary, of sorts.

The long weekend in October 2007 was really nothing special. We didn't have anything planned really, just the usual groceries and washing and lawn mowing that occurs most weekends around here. But it was not an ordinary weekend. There was an additional day off tacked onto the end of it.

It is a wonderful thing, that paid day off. It feels almost as though it is our one chance to claim something back for all of the time we give our employers. You wake up on the Monday morning already to get up to pack lunches and fight to get kids dressed, and then a small thought niggles at the back of your head, and you are reminded that you don't have to get up, you can catch an extra 5 if you want to, the day is yours, to do with what you want.

Previously, I had had to work most public holidays. It was one of the downfalls of working in retail and hospitality. I really didn't mind working them, the extra money was always welcome, and it was not like we could really afford to go anywhere anyway back then. But our circumstances had changed. We were both working full time jobs, they didn't pay alot, hell, they still don't, but we could finally afford for me not to have to work more than one job. The long weekend in October was going to be my first long weekend over which I did not have to rush off to work. And I had decided that I was going to do something for myself to celebrate.

I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I wanted to do something I WANTED TO DO. I figured I had earned it lol. So I made a decision, I would learn something that someone had tried to teach me ages ago, but I was too young and impatient to learn. I used the power of Google to work out what I would actually need (though I probably could have worked it out with out Google) and I found a few instruction videos that looked ok and easy to follow. I may have been wrong.

It really shouldn't have been as hard as it was. Either I wasn't doing it right or the videos where wrong. I decided that the videos where wrong. So I searched for some more, and I found a few. This woman at least didn't talk to me like I was an idiot. It hadn't occurred to me until I found the right video, that I may have been trying to learn to do it the wrong way around for me. That would certainly explain why it felt so incredibly unnatural to hold it. So I locked myself in my bedroom with my laptop and my instruments of destruction and gave it another go, I would be buggerred if it was going to beat me.

My first results where not pretty. In fact, I am not sure it could really truely pass as craft. The 'string' was really only there to hold the holes together. But it was mine and I was proud. I had managed to knit myself a pot holder, out of baby melting acrylic, but I wasn't to know better then.

So, this weekend my friends, is somewhat of an anniversay. Without this weekend in 2007, I would never have meet you all. Without my day off in October, I may never have learned to knit. It has opened up so much to me, a craft that I love, extra crafts that go with it, and friends I would never have found.