A New Year Brings New Dots

I'm beginning to run out of clever ways to introduce bulleted lists. As if I had clever ways in the first place.

• Should I be worried that I'm in the throes of mid-winter malaise and I'm not all that concerned about it? That I spend my days being all hausfrau-y and then when all is clean and tidy I knit like crazy. Then when my tennis elbow flares up, which, of course, is certainly not caused by me playing tennis - I haven't played tennis since Carter was president - I read. Thank goodness B got me a lot of books for Christmas because my elbow has been rather bad lately. Thing is, I think I should be worried about the lack of enthusiasm or get-up-and-go-ness or spirit of adventure but honestly, I'm feeling very homebody-ish lately and I'm dug in like a hedgehog.
  
  
• My birthday is in less than two weeks and my MIL asked me what I'd like to have as a gift. I'd like a new bedside lamp for my bedroom so I suggested that for a gift with the idea that she'd say "Oh great! Let's go shopping for it next week!". Instead Gerd piped up and said "We should go to that store that's down there behind blahblahblahblah - they have nice lamps.". No mention of me going with them to pick out a lamp that I'd like. Now I'm sweating that they're going to pick out a lamp that I think is ugly or isn't a style that I wanted. My only comfort is the fact that the way the bedroom is arranged, the lamp wouldn't be seen by anyone but me. In the pre-Gerd world my MIL and I would always shop together for stuff like this. I'm definitely in the post-Gerd world now.
  
  
• I took a package for one of my neighbors today. I always take packages for my neighbors. I'm home most of the day and it's no skin off my nose to do it. Plus it gives the added advantage of being known in the building as the very nice neighbor lady. I like being known as the very nice neighbor lady because being known as the assholey, grouchy neighbor lady can cause you to have crap - perhaps literal, perhaps not - tossed in your mailbox and no one will hold the elevator for you. Anyway, neighbor dude came to get his package - no idea what it was but it was one heavy, awkward-to-lift SOB - and I must have made his whole day. He was so freakin' happy that I took this package for him and that he wouldn't have to wait another day to get whatever it was he got that I thought he was gonna dance a jig at my door. What really got me was that he acted like I'd done the biggest favor in earth for him. I thought about that after I closed the door. Is it good that someone can show his appreciation so readily or is it so sad that being a good neighbor seems to be rare enough that when someone does another neighbor a kindness it's treated like a rare event?
  
  
• I think my eyelashes are getting shorter. I mean I've already come to the conclusion that they're getting more sparse but now I'm thinking they're actually getting shorter.
  
  
• Here's the sock I'm working on - the pattern is seeded ribbing check. I'm using a different method for me to knit this pair. This time I've cast on for both socks on two different sets of needles. I knit one for a while and then switch and knit the same amount on the other sock and then back to the first one again. I think I'll be much more likely to get the second socks finished using this method. Of course it doesn't look like I've knit all that much but that much is done on the second sock of the pair.

If mid-winter malaise keeps up and my elbow holds out I may be finished with a whole pair of hand knitted socks in record time.