I’m not that kind of girl

It’s true. There are the Alisons of the world, the ones who knit selflessly for others and rejoice in spreading the knitterly love. Then, there are people like me.

I am not one of them. I am, in fact, the meanest knitter you’ll ever meet. When people ask me to knit for them, I either respond with my hourly rate (which is that of an educated professional, thank you), or I say, “There are some things I do for love, and some things that I do for money.” Sometimes I just say, "No." Sometimes I taunt them until they cry.

Sometimes, I am a sucker. This is one of those cases.

I’ve blogged about my in-laws before. Andrew comes from a Big Roman Catholic family. Five siblings total, eight nieces and nephews, and all of the sibs are married. That’s eighteen people with JUST his immediate family, not including any future children we plan to have. As with all families, each sib (and their spouse) is as different as the next.

We spend most of the major holidays with my BIL (The Entrepreneur)’s family. His parents couldn’t be nicer people and they routinely open their home and hearts to the extended in-laws (he is married to Andrew’s sister, TE isn’t Andrew’s brother). TE’s Mom is a knitter. She’s incredibly cool, very friendly, and thinks that my knitting is the cat’s meow.

TEMom has been pretty sick. In and out of the hospital. Major surgery. (Details spared here. You can thank me in the comments section.) On Easter, TE and I were talking about TEMom, and he mentioned that he thought it would just be great if I could whip up a pair of “get well soon” socks. I may (or may not) have had a couple of glasses of wine at this point, and thought it was a terrific idea.

I called Purlescence, who pulled some Casbah off the shelf for me, and I cast on the socks the next day. Despite my loathing of “obligatory knitting” (because when there is a due date, it becomes obligatory), I worked through it, and finished them as quickly as I could stomach.

The minute that the toes were grafted, I called Andrew and told him to call TE to let us know when to drop off TEMom’s socks. No call back. Rinse, repeat. Get annoyed that I put hours of work in on his behalf.

I looked up their mailing address, and shipped them myself. With a card. Wouldn’t you feel better if you got this in the mail?

I know I would.