It took me ten minutes to find my camera.

But that's okay with me. Because I am calmer now.

The secret to calmness?

I made my mother go back to her house, where she can obsessively clean and talk to herself just quietly enough that I have to yell out every five minutes -- "What?" -- but I have to yell quietly enough so as not to wake up Robb, who is valiantly trying to sleep the day away in the next room. I also do not have to listen to her make gently (and not so gently) cutting remarks about the fact that he hasn't packed (I asked him not to), hasn't taken the cans to the redemption center (he'll do it before we move, and then I really do not care after that), hasn't, generally, lived up to her expectations of her ideal mate. Since her husband doesn't either, I sometimes manage to remember to take all of her huffiness and motherly concern with a grain of salt. Sometimes, the walls are a little thin, you know?

So when Mom announced that the kitchen was clean and packed, and what could she move on to next, I said, "Really, I think that's the biggest thing you can help me with." She started to protest, and I said, as lovingly as I could, "I think everything else is really fiddly stuff, small things that I'm sorting through as I go, and I think we'd just drive each other crazy with the rest of it. I'll get it done over the next few days, but right now, I need to have the rest of my day off."

Two reasons I love my mother. First, because she came over and cleaned and packed my entire kitchen. Second, because she understood when I said I was done.

So, some things I want to show you!

This is my apartment.


See how everything's in boxes? Yeah. Most of the yarn is in there. I rather purposefully did not label the boxes that contain knitting books. I thought about it, and decided against it. Decided it was unwise. If I want to get packing done, anyway.

The cats are...unhappy about this packing thing.

Jilly has this to say:

Clearly, it came to her in a kittyflash that if she just stayed on top of the duffle bag, then we would be unable to move the bag, and therefore, we would put the apparently mean smelling boxes (she keeps trying to attack them) away, and then this nonsense would stop.

Actually, the funniest thing about this picture is that Robb took it, and then told me about it later. "Jilly was on the dufflebag, it was so funny," he said. "I took a picture because, you know, I thought you might want to blog about it." All nonchalant. It was really, really funny. I suddenly remembered this post from early-vintage Yarn Harlot when she was talking about her family suddenly starting to discuss whether or not something was "blogworthy".

Oh, and remember how I said that my LYS was having a sale on Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Potluck?

Well, I stayed within my limit.

I only got three skeins.

I suppose I could have not gotten one of the purple ones and stayed a little truer to my New Year's Resolution-of-sorts, but I do love them, and love them all -- just in very different ways. The top two are begging to have beads, and the bottom one wants to be something more all-over patterned. I think.

We'll see, after I move.

Also, thanks to Karin and Alison...the caring evident in both of your messages helped remind me that I don't have to panic, and that I could, in fact, send my mother home, curl up in my popasan (or however you spell that), and then go back to bed for another two or three hours. It helped much much more than you know.

Much love to all.