Un-fiber, Un-TIF

Ah!  So many comments on recent posts that it's scary.   I am beginning to feel pressure, not only to complete my challenges but to post regularly.  So, since I am still working on that Hanne jacket and I am home for one last weekday, I will blog on another topic:  perfection.

I am waiting for my kitchen floor to dry.  While I was mopping, I got to thinking about Jane Brocket.  Ms. Brocket writes a blog called Yarnstorm.  My Tulsa sister put me onto this blog about two years ago when she said, "You've never read "Yarnstorm?" (in a tone that implies everyone involved in fiber must be reading this blog.)  So, I wrote down the address and got officially hooked.

Ms. Brocket is, I think, England's answer to Martha Stewart, only she is far more insidious.  Martha Stewart complicates every household activity beyond belief and has no shame in hiding that fact.  Ms. Brocket makes it all look easy.  And that is what is dangerous for us "normal" moms.

Whenever I want to visit a foreign land, I plonk in Yarnstorm on my keyboard.  For a few minutes, I get to envision a perfect life in a faraway land.  And not just far away in mileage.  No, far away in lifestyle.  A lifestyle that is so unlike what my son experienced, I wonder if he will sue me and his father one day for the cost of psychotherapy.  He never got homemade blueberry muffins to take to school; he got store-bought cupcakes that I rushed to the store for, cursing all the way about how I was going to be late for work.  Ms. Brocket's children get not only homemade cupcakes, but beautifully hand-decorated ones to boot.  She even takes the time to photograph them!!!!

In fairness to my own competencies as a mother, my son's childhood photos show a smiling face.  And that is why I will not allow into my house Jane Brocket's new book, "The Gentle Art of Domesticity."  Best my son not know there are functional families out there, where the mother not only has time to blog and write books, but make fabulous sweaters for her kids and take them abroad on wonderful vacations.  Better that he thinks he comes from a typical American family that is quirky but normal.  I suspect that, after four years in college, he knows this, having visited enough friends to see how they live.  But why take chances?

So, I guess what I am trying to say here is that I appreciate Yarnstorm and Jane Brockett.  I may actually purchase her beautifully written and photographed book, but I will keep it in my travel collection.  It's a nice place to visit but, all in all, I think I like where I am and where I've been and am not particularly anxious to leave just yet for a town called Perfect.