The agony of Olympic defeat

Marathon runners hit the wall. This is my wall. I didn't hit it--my kids did. With the ends of a wooden baby gate, meant to keep the dogs out from upstairs. There were two large holes in it.

And here's part of my downstairs bathroom ceiling. Where there was water damage from the leaking upstairs tub/shower my son and I fixed.

What do walls and ceilings have to do with Olympic knitting? Well, once I got started, I was a bit over confident in my knitting skills. So much so that I thought I would have plenty of time to finish my Cinxia once I repaired the wall and the ceiling. Plus, my family was tired of tripping over the wallboard, joint tape and compound sitting in our livingroom. I knew I'd be much more comfortable knitting without needing to tend to their injuries.

This should have been a fairly quick and easy job. Only my son took all his cool tools with him when he left. Let me share something with you...though it is possible to cut wallboard with a steak knife, it is not recommended. It took some time and creativity, but I fixed the holes.

And then I sat back down to knit. Until I was again hounded by howls of pain. Wouldn't you know they'd manage to trip over the cans of primer and paint?

Putting down the needles again, I picked up brush and roller. See that taupe-y color on the bathroom walls? They used to be yellowish. With a border. Ick. The bathroom looks all fresh and loverly. I even bought new hand towels. And started working on a knitting project to hang on the wall.

But then I remembered my Olympic knitting. Must. get. back. to. Cinxia. I checked the calendar...only the 16th, plenty of time to finish. Ten whole days.

Kait's voice interrupted my thoughts of Olympic gold, "Mom, Jen's baby shower is on Sunday. She's having a boy. Can you make something?"

Um. Sure. I can whip up a baby afghan in a few days and still have an entire week to finish Cinxia, right? Of course I can. I am an OLYMPIC KNITTER!

The world's largest dishcloth...er...diagonal knit baby blanket nearly did me in.

It just went on and on and on and...

I didn't finish in time for the baby shower. It didn't matter anyway. Kait was too sick to attend the shower. She was nice enough to share. The twins were diagnosed with strep right before I gave in to my second bout with pneumonia this year. It's fortunate the kids had the following week off school for mid-winter break. Here's where I spent the better part of that week...

With only a few days left before the torch was extinguished, my dream of Olympic gold was dead. There was no way I would finish in time. Not if we were to have such luxuries as meals and clean laundry.Not if I were to get enough rest to recover. Not if I were to preserve my arthritic hands.

Saturday afternoon, the day before closing ceremonies, Kai spotted the discarded Cinxia on my desk. "Did you finish your project, Mom? Did you win?"

How could I give up? What kind of example would I set? I picked up my needles and knit. And knit. And knit. From 1 PM Saturday. Through Saturday night. I went down for some sleep at 8:30 Sunday morning and got back up at 1 PM. And knit. And knit. And knit some more.

My hands hurt. My arms hurt. My shoulders hurt. Whatever body parts didn't hurt were numb from being immobile. I got up and shook it off, pried my hands out of their claw shapes and went straight back to knitting.

Around 1:00 AM, Monday morning--after the deadline, already disqualified--just short of the last decrease row before the collar, I ran out of yarn.