Stash and Burn Meetup

So, on Sunday I made the trek up to Nine Rubies in San Mateo for the Stash and Burn meet-up. Remember how I posted last year about my stash having reached CYM (Critical Yarn Mass)? I also may have mentioned something about taking a hiatus on yarn purchases.

I am full of crap. I love yarn. I love buying yarn. I love the newness of the yarn, the thrill of the purchase. I'm sure it is a feeling akin to that of a new relationship. I went home with a heart full of shame, and a bag full of this:

It's not * that * much yarn. Not really. Especially since half of the orange is for Colleen. So it's really this much:

Seriously, I can't buy any more yarn until Rhinebeck. I have only been finishing socks, and at a fraction of the speed that I can buy it at. What is up with that? Clearly I need to knit faster and sleep less.

Part of the More Knitting Solution (notice how I'm not calling it the "Less Yarn Solution") is carpooling with Andrew- giving me about 40 minutes of knitting time that I normally wouldn't have. He also is driving on all of our longer trips- on Easter I finished two socks during the drive. But I digress.

I went to the meet-up, and met Jenny and Nicole, of Stash and Burn fame. They were both friendly and super-cool. I chatted with Nicole about FileMaker (I know, I am such a nerd) at length with Janice about general stuff. I met Lisa, who kindly let me hold Darwin (her baby) for the better part of an hour.

I never posted about this, but until about two weeks ago, I had baby phobia.

[NOTE: If you have a weak stomach, skip down to the next bolded section.]

On Easter my in-laws relayed a story about one of their nephews eating two magnets (from the recalled Magnetix toy- which is super-fun to play with, by the way) on two separate days and the tale of how they met in the middle. The result was magnets tearing through two parts of his intestine trying to meet.

Nephew-in-law (what else do you call your in-laws' nephews?) had to have surgery, and a gastro-something nose tube while the intestine healed. I was convinced that there is no way I could both have a child and keep it alive, despite the fact that I have managed to keep my dogs from eating what can only be classified as "weird shit".

[Weak stomachs can resume reading here.]

Mom assured me that Sam and I never ate our toys, although Sam chewed up my markers (rainbow diapers, but nothing worse than that) and stuck a dried pea in his ear, nothing worse than that was done.

When I told people in public that I was terrified of having children because "They eat magnets!", people felt compelled to tell me TERRIBLE stories about the mishaps, accidents and odd ingestions that they dealt with when their children were little. They would always end the story with something like, "See? My kids survived, you'll be fine." This didn't help.

I told Andrew that the dogs were enough, because I'm obviously too neurotic and crazy to be able to cope with magnet-eating/ bodily harm / anything bad. With the dogs, I'm already constantly checking to make sure they're still breathing and healthy. I check poop (not too thoroughly, don't be gross), and when there is dog barf, I take a glance at what may have caused it. The vet has assured me that I am a conscientious (not neurotic) owner.

(Note: The Minions keep telling me that children are great and I'm convinced that Julie keeps bringing her terrific kids in order to inspire us to get on with it and have some of our own.)

In any case, holding baby Darwin got the "babies are awesome" feelings flowing again.

So, to summarize:

I backslid on the goal of buying less yarn, but we're back on the "babies are cool" track.