Outfoxed

First let me say that we had a great Thanksgiving. We had lovely guests and great food and it ranks up there with one of the best Thanksgiving's we've had thus far. Ben and Milo were a little squirrely, but that happens when you hold them off lunch too long. Well, actually, it just happens sometimes.

Thanksgiving was followed by Friday in which Chris and Max left for 24-hours of boyscouting in sub-freezing temperatures and I entertained my mother and her friend for about the same length of time. I also did some workwork, which is what I'm off to do here again, soon. I have eight pages to finish before bedtime.

This is a hard time of the year knitting wise. You want to give everyone on your list something handknit and there just aren't enough hours in the days remaining even if you could quit your job, stop sleeping, and neglect your children. There are even fewer given that you can't quit those things. Just now I had just put the turkey casserole in the oven to heat up and I sat down to do a couple rounds on Max's socks. I thought about all that needs to be done by Christmas. There's the little pink thing for cousin Sofia, Max's socks, Chris's socks, Max's sweater, Milo's mittens, Oliver's mittens, and a couple of sample lace pieces for the yarn store.

I had really wanted to go into December with only Max's sweater and the mittens left to do, but I don't know how possible that is given that tomorrow is church and then we're decorating the tree together, and then I have a workweek so full of deadlines that our supervisor on this project is already sending out nice, but clear, "get 'er done" emails.

So there I am, sitting in the green chair in the living room, chewing on my lip and working away at this sock, trying to triage the knitting projects. It occurs to me I can't do the button bands on the pink thing until I have the buttons and I start mentally reviewing the known buttons at my LYS, rejecting each, when I suddenly remember BUYING the buttons for this sweater already. And they were perfect. They were little "Peter Rabbit" buttons and I bought them at Peight's in Belleville. They were in a little white bag and I remember unpacking them at home and tucking the bag and buttons away somewhere until I needed them. But for the life of me, I can't remember where. I have torn the stash apart looking for them (having become acquainted with others stashes on Ravelry, I can now say with some authority, that I do not have much of a stash. I've seen 20-yr-olds who have already achieved Stash Aquisition Beyond Life Expectancy there. I could knit up all my yarn in under 12 months if I needed to.) and they are nowhere to be found.

I'm really bummed. They didn't cost a lot and I'm pretty sure if I went back to the store, I could get them again, but Belleville is a half-day errand and I'm looking at my calendar and thinking that I have absolutely no idea where I'll get that half day between now and Christmas. And besides, I KNOW those buttons are here in the house somewhere. I just have not a smidge of a clue about where.