Blogs, Journals, and 'My Diary'

Dear Diary,

I've never been good about keeping a journal. I always imposed too many rules on myself. You know . . . 'I'll write every day' or 'this journal is only for dreams (or school or love, or - insert subject)', etc.

It's always been amazing to me how people can 'journal' (when did that become a verb?) every day or blog about their lives. Well, I have a better clue now and it only took 50 years!!! Blogging or journaling is a great way of keeping track of life. It is a way of providing a bit of order sometimes, especially when life seems a bit chaotic. I find myself traveling through the day and, when something happens or a thought occurs, my response is "I want to write about that." This kind of adds a level of creativity, a dimension to activity that I didn't have before.

I've always been a strategic thinker. It is easier for me to see the big picture than the details. Because of this, the details often get lost. As it applies to knitting, weaving or another fiber activity, it is difficult to recreate something because I don't have the project record to refer to for the original piece. Another aspect of this is that I've stopped myself from doing things (dying fiber, particularly) because it seemed that it would be too much record-keeping and formulae - like Chemistry class (okay, I was procrastinating, but, for now we'll blame it on the lack of blogging). With this blog, it is all a bit more comfortable. I've been reading blogs for a bit and feel less A-B-Normal. So, we'll see how this goes . . .

Now, for the knitterly content: I've been listening to references to Soctopia.net and went to have a look. This woman (Mama Monkey) is amazing. She developed sock patterns based upon the Harry Potter characters for posting during July when the book and movie were released. And, as if these weren't fine enough, now she's got a 'mystery' sock pattern on the site. The theory of this is that you cast on and knit based upon her clues. You knit without knowing what the finished product will look like. There are 'mystery' stole projects out there but this is the first 'mystery' sock pattern I've seen. It is great because, for some, investing that kind of time, energy, and money into something like a shawl or a stole without knowing the potential outcome is a bit daunting. Not so with socks. Way cool!!!