Neglecting My Kids: Of Course It Was Terrible The BMV Was Involved

So last night my 17 year old, my straight A student, my responsible one, my first in her graduating class, my legit being invited to apply to Ivy League colleges daughter

Turned to me and said "My drivers permit expires on Thursday so we need to go tomorrow morning to renew it."

Cue the swearing in my head.

Cause I have nothing better to do right?

But I'm a good Mom. And I'm a stay at home Mom for just this kinda thing I guess. We went online and filled out all the forms we needed, and gathered up all the various documents we have to have to prove she exists, and we checked what time the BMV opened, to be sure we had time to get it done before school started. Thank goodness Wednesday is late start for the high school.

Which is how I found myself awake and dressed and made up at 6:30 this morning so we would be there as soon as the doors opened.

We got there ten minutes after the doors were said to open. But it didn't matter because instead of facing a line out the door (as we did with our last trip to the BMV) instead we found ourselves in an empty BMV parking lot with a sign that stated "All metro BMV offices will open at Noon today."

Suck monkey!

I guess the BMV wanted to have late start on Wednesdays as well. But I had other commitments today. First thing in the morning was really the only time I had to do this.

There was much swearing in my head.

As I drove away I remembered that there are private companies where you can get these kind of things done. They just cost more. But I needed it done. There was no getting around it. We were going to have to pay the too-busy-to-deal-with-this-nonsense tax. Quickly I pulled into an empty parking lot and googled (cause I don't google and drive y'all. That stuff if dangerous). Yay for us there was one in the same city we were in.

I tried to call them to ask if they did permit renewals, but then I remembered my cell phone doesn't make phone calls anymore. It will take a call now and then, if it feels like it. But it doesn't let me dial out.

There was even more swearing in my head.

I need a new phone. A water proof phone. A Queen Bean proof phone. But that is neither here nor there. Desperate to get this over with I plugged the address of the super expensive private licensing company into mapquest and told it to start giving me directions. I was just going to drive there and hope for the best.

It just kinda beeped at me.

Cue even more swearing but this time I think it was out loud.

Then I realized the empty parking lot I was sitting in was right next door to a strip mall which contained the aforementioned super expensive private licensing company. I moved the car 200 yards and "You have reached your destination."

And that was just the start of my day.

All of this is to say I got up and dressed and left the house this morning which means I was semi-presentable, which means I have a finished knit to show off.

Photos are courtesy of Bird. I think the last time I let her touch my camera was in 2007 when she broke my camera. She's improved her camera etiquette since then.

Pattern: I've dubbed this "The Good Sweater" It is a franken-knit created using the pattern Isabel but modified to more closely resemble this picture.

I think I did a pretty good job

I love this sweater!

Mine is definitely a lighter weight sweater than the inspiration sweater but since I am not a lawyer in Chicago, I am instead a kept woman in a mild climate, it works.

Of course the finer details of the sweater are all fuzzy now. Ravelry tells me I used a size 4 needle. And I knit the 41.25 size. I used four and a half hanks of Knit Picks Bare Gloss, which was less than I anticipated needing, so I still have a sizable amount left over. Not enough for another sweater for me, but maybe for Sweet Pea or The Queen. Gloss is a merino wool/silk blend, so the feel of this sweater is divine. Soft, and yes, silky. I adore it.

When modifying the original pattern I eliminated the short rows at the bottom of the sweater. I also didn't want the A-line shape, so I cast on for the number you would have after all the decreases were worked for a straighter silhouette. And I extended the rib pattern by 20 stitches on each side (I only know all this because I made good notes on Ravelry in the beginning).

I did some other mods. I remember it involved math but honestly I couldn't tell you what they were. I stopped keeping good notes on Ravelry. Sometimes I suck. But even if I could explain what I did you wouldn't want to duplicate this part. After knitting the body I put the sweater in a time out for a few months even though I only had the sleeves to go. Imagine my surprise when I rescued the sweater from the yarn trunk in my bedroom (which is quickly becoming a satellite office for The Abyss) and I discovered I had bound of twenty stitches for one armpit, but I had bound off FORTY stitches for the other.

There was much swearing.

Out loud.

I made it work.

I couldn't tell you how.

But I made it work.

Sometimes I even surprise myself.

Speaking of surprises, this was the moment the bushes behind me moved and I realized I wasn't alone in the back yard.