I'm Drea.
I'm Meg.
I'm Tina.
And I'm Jess.
And this is Pardon My Stash.
["Pardon My Stash Theme Song"]
Welcome to Pardon My Stash,
a podcast about knitting within the fiber arts
and how awesome it is.
Ooh.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Before we get into the topic for the day,
let's check out what we're working on this week.
Tina?
I am closing in on the end of the-
You are so close.
Ingles sweater by Boylan Networks,
at least for the body.
Almost there.
Yeah, last time I measured,
I was officially measured,
I was two inches away.
I'm pretty sure I am like an inch and a half,
if not an inch away at this point.
Yeah, you're like right there.
Yeah, I just, well, it's not,
it's technically not,
I won't be at the border.
I'm just gonna be,
so the back of the sweater has like a flap,
so it covers my butt.
Nice.
Which I like.
I like that.
I have to do some short rows in the back
just to lengthen it,
and then I get to do the border.
So this is getting to the short rows.
And so, but the short rows are gonna go fast.
Yeah.
So.
It's just a little butt flap.
Little just a little butt flap, yes.
But I am using a string NYC,
Dolceto DK in gray, dark gray, and red.
Meg.
I am almost done with the third pattern repeat section
of my sun drop pullover by Laura Ehler.
After this, there's just one more pattern repeats,
and that's the hem.
And then I get to do the sleeves.
And I am working with Dragon Horde yarn,
gnome tweed fingering weight in the colorway fairy yuletree.
Beautiful.
Jess.
I am on the final sleeve of the sweater of swords
by Deer Ingenue.
And I am using Critical Hit dies yarn in the weight ranger
on Vishka and Morganis.
Yes.
Your death god.
That sweater is like phenomenal.
Thank you.
I'm sorry.
It's just like, the fact that you got it done so fast
and the colorways are like, that's good.
Good sweater.
Yeah, it looks like stained glass.
Yeah, it's beautiful.
Thank you.
No, the colors really help,
because I'm like, ooh, I wanna see it.
I wanna see more, knit up.
It's beautiful.
You're doing a really good job.
Thank you.
Be sure to check out our website, partofmystache.com
for more information as well as pictures
regarding our current projects, patterns and yarns.
Hyperfixation is fun.
Are you stuck on something, Joya?
I am so stuck on so many different things right now.
It's not even funny.
And none of them are knitting.
Oh no.
I know.
It happens.
Wait, isn't there like, don't I have a sad trombone now?
Yeah, you do.
No, no, no.
It's not knitting.
It's not knitting, but you know what?
I think we're gonna talk about how that's okay.
Like.
Cause that is okay.
I know that we have covered knitting funks in the past.
And I know that we've talked about taking a step back
and when to move forward.
Like, I'm not bored.
I'm not.
I'm not bored.
It's just, I have other things that I want to be doing.
There's still craft things.
And I think that is more than fine.
You know, when you're a crafter.
And when you have an idea and problems focusing.
Yeah, but what you're, I heard from a little birdie
that what you're focused on is a craft thing, right?
It is a craft thing.
It's super exciting.
Can I share my craft thing?
Yeah.
So excited.
So this past weekend,
Frank and I were thrifting and tag sailing.
And I have been looking for a few weeks now
for like the perfect desk, the perfect desk.
And guess what?
On Facebook marketplace, it showed up the perfect desk.
For how much?
It was $10.
Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop.
Oh, I have to hold back, sorry.
Yeah.
It was $10.
It's a really old roll top desk
that is in perfect condition.
Well, not perfect condition.
It's in decent condition.
And I'm going to refinish it.
Noice.
I am just so stoked.
So I don't have room in my head for knitting or fiber arts
because all of my focus has been drawn to this desk
that I'm going to be refinishing this weekend.
I'm so excited to sand that thing
and paint that thing.
And-
Well, your mask.
Yes, we picked up masks.
Good.
Yeah.
But I'm just so stoked.
Listen.
I can't knit.
I need to like put all of this energy
into like doing a physical activity and craft.
You gotta do it.
Yeah, it's a different craft, but I think that's fine.
I mean, the hyper fixation
could also be for knitting sometimes.
Oh, it definitely is for knitting sometimes.
I know that I have cranked through projects
really fast when I've been hyper focused on knitting.
I mean-
I mean, that's a rummage.
Yeah.
I was gonna say that's what you're doing right now.
Yes.
Okay.
When did you start that show?
March 17th.
Sweater.
St. Patrick's Day.
I remember you said it was the 17th.
I just couldn't remember which month.
Cause she said she wanted to finish it by Maryl's birthday.
I did.
So you're doing essentially a sweater in three months.
Yes.
Jesus.
I know.
And granted, I got hyper fixated off of it
for a little bit, but only like a day or so here or there.
And it's always come back.
And I've just been like, no, I gotta do that sweater.
Cause I want it.
And that like never happened.
So I'm like, you know what?
The fixation is there.
Use it.
Because it so rarely works in your favor.
It's true.
It so rarely works in your favor.
No, that's really.
That's really, really true.
It's like, I know I should be doing this thing.
And my hyper focus is on something completely just
not that.
Do you ever yell at yourself?
Yeah.
It doesn't do anything.
I did that on, so I had, I forgot to take my medication.
I think it was Monday morning or something.
And maybe it wasn't Monday.
Maybe it was last week.
That was last week.
I think it was last week.
And so I forgot to do it.
And then I was like yelling at myself
while I was walking through my house.
I was like, no, you're going to get a glass of water.
Cause like, I kept like diverting to like the laundry room.
I was like, no, we're getting water.
Well, what about you guys?
Do you guys work with your hyper fixation
or do you guys fight it?
I feel like I.
There's no sense in fighting it.
I know.
I feel like I fight it a lot.
And I think that's why I'm like dragging my feet
and feeling so terrible about falling down on my knitting.
Cause I do feel bad.
It's not a job.
I know it's not a job.
You don't owe anybody a finished project.
That is true.
It's not something like,
I can understand if like you were knitting for a job
or you have a test knit deadline or something like that,
but you don't owe anybody that finished shawl.
Like you weren't even making it for any of,
you weren't right.
I am, but they don't know that they're getting it.
Oh, it's for a person.
Yeah, it's for a person.
So, okay, so it's not like it's got a hard and fast deadline.
I don't have ADHD, but I do have compulsion
and I don't fight compulsion.
There are some that I try to kind of move away from
because there may be detrimental,
but I kind of find it's more,
it's better to just kind of go with the flow
and let it happen.
If my brain is not on knitting,
I'm not gonna open Ravelry and hold my eyelids open
like in clockwork orange and be like,
you will look at patterns until you want to do something.
That's silly.
Nobody does.
I hope nobody does that.
I really hope nobody does that because it's just,
but we're laughing about how ridiculous that is.
And it's kind of the same thing.
Like why, if you are excited about something,
be it refinishing your desk or building some Legos
or watching TV or going to the park,
or there's something that you want to do,
buying new clothes or you're fixated on some new TV show
or something like that, like anything.
You don't necessarily have to do that thing, but why?
Just let yourself immerse in it.
I have noticed this with Jess every single time
she starts to hyper fixate on something.
Like she will spend weeks,
that'll be the only thing that she'll Google on her phone.
That will be the only thing she talks about.
It's the only thing she wants to shop for.
And you just gotta let it ride.
When she gets in that mood, I'm not like,
you really do have that sweater you should be knitting.
No.
Because there's no point.
That's actually a valid point.
Yeah.
Because I would never sit here and tell Jess
that she didn't finish something
and you should be doing this thing instead.
Like I would never do that to you, but I do that to me.
Yeah. And you shouldn't.
I know.
The only thing I will say, the only caveat
is when I see her looking at really expensive shit
for her new hyper fixation, I'm like,
maybe, maybe we try it out first.
When it is an expensive thing,
I do have like a hard stop in my head about the expense.
So I will just research the hell out of it
until I realize I either, okay, yes,
I still want to do this and get the expensive thing.
Or I'm like, eh, I'm bored with this now
before I even buy anything for it.
I never have to tell her not to do it.
It's just more of a, like, I see her looking at something
that's like, you know, like the $500 Rivendell like-
Listen, okay.
And I'm like, I know you love it.
I know you love it.
I'm not going out and buying it.
But that's a lot of money.
I know.
You know, things like that.
But I never am like, okay,
I need to take her credit card away because oh my God,
she's not adult enough to know.
But I, you know, we tend to be a lot harder on ourselves
than we are on our friends.
And you know, you would never come to me or Tina or Jess
and say like, oh, you're doing that thing.
We'll have a sweater in that project bag
that you haven't finished yet.
What's going on with that?
Yeah.
I would never do that to you guys.
You would never do that
because that's such a mean, nasty thing to do.
It really is.
It is nasty.
Yeah.
It's kind of like going up to somebody and being like,
wow, you chose that haircut today.
It's such a, it's just a mean thing to say
and you would never do it.
That's true.
But we do it.
And I realized the irony of me talking about this
because I think I'm the meanest person to myself
that anybody could be.
Me too.
Yes.
So same.
Can I just say that?
So I've been off social media for like a month now maybe
or more, completely like no Insta, no Facebook, no nothing.
And I feel that the compulsion to criticize myself
in the speed that I'm finishing my projects
is like pretty much gone.
I don't feel any pressure to do my sweater.
I have like a kind of a note in my head that like,
ooh, maybe this Rhinebeck, I can wear this sweater.
That would be cool.
But other than that, like no pressure.
You're not comparing yourself to anybody.
There's nothing to compare.
I'm seeing my, you guys, I see you guys working
on your stuff.
Now I see just finishing her sweater.
Now I kind of want to finish mine.
I kind of feel that.
Yeah, no, but yeah, I don't feel,
I think there was kind of this unhealthy sense of production
that came out of a lot of accounts
where they were just pumping out patterns
and pumping out finished objects.
And it's just, it was like almost every week
there was like three or four or five things
like coming out from a single person.
And I'm like, how is this happening?
Like this is impossible.
It kills your own drive.
Yeah, and there's one, I'm not, I won't call them out,
but there is one in particular, and I love her patterns,
but she will like, she'll make a pattern collection
in like two weeks.
That's impressive.
It is.
No, it's extremely impressive.
I mean, if you, and they're not like the same thing
over and over again, like they're mostly garments
and they really do look different.
They have different construction.
But I've also seen videos of her knitting
and it is the speed of light.
It is insane.
Some people are really fast.
How fast she is.
Yeah.
Even with Portuguese style or English,
I still, I'm at a pretty like, that's my speed.
I'm not going any faster than that.
English tends to be slower.
Yeah.
Continental tends to be faster.
English is a slow, is a slow knit.
I do find that the Portuguese is a bit faster.
I think I'm just, I also find that my tension's
completely different with Portuguese.
So I have to, if I start one project English,
it has to finish English.
I can't flip it in between.
Cause I tried to do that here and then I had to pull
out a row cause it's like, well, that does not look right.
It was like in the middle of the body and I'm like,
that doesn't look good.
But yeah, I don't know if it's the social media thing.
I mean, that would make sense as to why that pressure
is gone for me, but I just don't like,
I'm not mad at myself for how fast or slow I'm going.
I'm just doing the knitting when I can do it,
when I feel like it and that's it.
So non knitting related kind of anecdote to go with that.
There was actually a study done years ago in the island
of Fiji before they got media that it used to be
like a compliment to say like, oh, you've gained weight.
You know, you look, you look really good.
You've gained weight.
And then they got television and the number of people
that started developing eating disorders,
like quadrupled the minute that there was media
on the island and the pressure when there was
that outside pressure to perform in a certain way
or be a certain way, people do absorb that.
And it becomes less, it's not even like,
even if it's not directed at you of like,
I have to, I have to be like this.
We tend to internalize that person is doing this.
Why am I not doing that?
And that can be really detrimental.
Even if it's not the, like, you know,
people aren't going around in public being like,
I'm doing this.
Why are you not that good?
But we tend to internalize that for better or worse.
Yeah, we tell ourselves that that is what other,
everybody else is saying to us.
Correct, even though that is totally wrong.
And yeah, even though realistically the person
that you think is doing so well is probably saying
the same exact thing to themselves.
Because they have seen somebody else that they're like,
why am I not as good as that?
There's actually, I don't remember
what the short story is called,
but it's actually kind of that dynamic.
And they're actually looking at each other
and constantly going, why can't I, why can't I,
why can't I?
And then at the end of the story,
they meet on the same train station
and bump into each other.
And they, and you know, somehow the conversation
turns into that.
And they both realize that they've been obsessing
over each other.
And like, it kind of ends with this like, why?
Why are we doing that?
Like that's silly.
I always, yeah, it's just interesting
how that kind of works.
But I, the comparison is a beast in its own.
So I think if you just kind of sit with yourself
and enjoy what you're doing,
rather than focusing on how fast you can do it
or how well you can do it, or just do it.
Because you just doing it is better than 95% of society
that just thinks about doing something and doesn't do it.
That's true.
The social media thing though too, I think does depend.
Because honestly, I don't keep up with my Instagram
probably as much as I could.
And I forget to post for days.
But for me, it's kind of nice for me to be like,
oh yeah, I haven't posted in a while.
I'm gonna like post this random thing that I did
and I'm happy with.
And it's kind of nice to see other people
even just putting a little heart thing on there.
And it's like, oh, they think it's cool too.
And I don't know.
So it depends.
No, I agree with that.
You're like, oh cool, other people think this is neat
as well.
And I think to an extent, again, you have to be careful
because you don't want it to turn into an obsession
or a, oh, this thing only got 20 likes
and this other thing got like 60.
You don't want to turn into a,
I need to perform for these people.
You don't want it to turn into that.
But if you are just sort of like, yay, other people
kind of like this weird thing.
Well, it's nice to be acknowledged.
It's nice for people to feel like people are saying
you did something good.
That's a natural human emotion.
Gotta follow that dopamine.
So yeah, so, but it is natural.
So it's like trying to find that happy medium.
Like you don't want to turn it into a performance A
where you're judging yourself
if you can't get the stuff out,
but you can use it to like, if you are,
I know there are some times where I'm like,
oh, I'm kind of feeling like blah this week
and I'll throw something up there.
I'm like, okay, yay, other people think this is cool.
And it just gives you that little bit of a boost.
And in some cases it does help me get out of like
little funks if I'm like, yeah, I actually have no idea
what I want to do right now.
I think ingesting the feed and ingesting the feedback
are two very different things.
Like what you're talking about is super positive.
And I agree it like when I post and somebody,
but like if you're not necessarily,
like if you're focused instead of on your own posts
and like what people are saying about your own stuff
rather than like going and scrolling through mindlessly
on the feed and seeing everybody else's accomplishments,
so-called accomplishments or what they're doing
and then making the comparison are two very different things.
Yes.
But, and so I think if you're focused in the aspect
that Jess is talking about, it's totally healthy
because that's just, you know,
as long as like you mentioned.
Creators sharing their creation.
Yeah, yeah.
But the comparison, yeah, when you're on the feed side of it
is where it can get you.
How are you guys all dealing with your hyper fixations?
Like when they hit?
Well, for me, I've been,
besides dealing with the medical part of it,
I have this app that I use called Motion
and it's an AI generated schedule.
So you put a bunch of things that you want to accomplish
and you put like, you can put a hard deadline,
you can put a soft deadline, you can put no deadline,
you could whatever.
And it generates what you're gonna do for that day.
And it helps you basically finish things
on the deadlines that you have set.
So I have been using that for a lot of my knitted projects.
And sometimes it helps because if I'm feeling low
about the fact that, oh, I really don't wanna do
the sweater today, I can look at my motion
and sometimes it's like, don't touch your sweater
for like six days, you need to do these things instead.
I'm like, sweet.
I have other stuff to do.
But then like, the nice part about it is too,
is if I do wanna do a session with the sweater,
so it like breaks up.
So say you say a sweater takes you 80 hours,
you can break it up into hour chunks.
So every time you accomplish an hour on the sweater,
you can check off that hour.
And then it's like keeping track of how long
it's taking you to make said item.
So if I see something and I'm like,
I really don't wanna work on that right now,
I can just like kind of skip it and work
on a different chunk instead.
But then at least I have an idea of what I'm skipping
and how, and it will automatically,
if I skip it, automatically adjust the schedule
because it says, okay, well, you didn't do that.
So now you have to do that here.
And like forces me to like kind of face the deadline piece
that I give to myself.
You know, whether it's like a real-
It's really interesting. Yeah, it's really cool.
It's not like a, you can obviously put like,
if you have like work tasks or something
and they do have true deadlines,
but like I have like a separate project on there
just for knitting projects.
Like I put all my whips on there
and like a lot of them are in timeout.
I call them timeout.
It's like you basically turn it off
from being auto scheduled.
So I have a bunch of them turned off.
And then I have like my little brioche thing
and the sweater in there.
And yeah, it just every so often it'll be like,
and then if I wanna work on a chunk of this
or a chunk of that, I just do that and I check it off
and then it readjusts automatically.
So I enjoy that.
I might need to try that.
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
I kinda like it cause it keeps me from,
the biggest thing that I tend to with the hyper fixations
is that I will hyper fixate
and then everything else will not get done.
And then I get anxious
because I didn't do the things I was supposed to do
because I really wanted to do this thing.
And then that anxiety usually turns into stress
and the stress usually turns into depression.
And then all of a sudden I'm in a terrible place.
So I find that if I can just keep it,
if I keep that thing going and I keep it accurate
as to what I'm doing and accomplishing,
like one of the things it tells me to do is on,
Tuesday nights, Wednesdays and Thursday mornings
is at some point in that I need to edit the podcast episode.
Nice.
So like it will just as if I keep not doing it,
it keeps moving it like, okay, you gotta do it here now.
You gotta do it here now.
And it keeps like telling me like, hey, you need to do it.
And it helps me because then I'm like, okay, okay,
I can't do this right now.
I have to edit the, cause at this point,
I know how long it takes me to edit an average episode.
Sometimes it takes me a little bit longer or shorter,
but an average episode takes me a certain amount of time.
So like about an hour-ish.
So I have like this little hour task and I'm like, okay,
I gotta do that now cause it's gonna be 10 o'clock
and I will be passed.
And then if I go past the 10 o'clock mark on Thursday,
it like goes red and it like tells me,
hey, you're gonna go past what you wanted to do.
And it's cool.
I like it.
I feel like that would be really good with giving me
something to do when I'm like,
you don't know what to do.
I feel like all of this week,
I'm not gonna have time to work on the desk until Saturday.
It is Tuesday.
So what do you do?
See, that's my problem.
I am so hyper fixated on this thing that I don't have time
to do yet that I can't do anything else.
Like I come home, I'm doing nothing else.
I'm thinking about it, I'm researching it,
but I'm not like being productive on it.
But I feel like something like that,
some kind of tool like that would give me an idea
of something else to do while I'm waiting
for the time to come.
I mean, research is its own productivity in its way.
Unless-
There's only so many times that I can watch videos
of how to strip things.
I mean, furniture.
They have a different way.
I mean, furniture, really.
No, it's all about the same.
It's all about the same.
Like there's only so many ways that you can do it.
It all comes down to pretty much the same thing.
Well, if your research is postponing something else
and you've already figured it out, then yeah, it can be.
It's repetitive, it's unnecessary,
but I'm immersed in it, I'll get there.
What do you do after you've done the hyperfixation thing?
Oh, I've got plenty.
I have my hyperfixation stagger.
And I cycle through them.
So I'm kind of lucky to an extent
that my job has a pretty,
it's got a routine to it.
There are times, days where I'm like,
okay, this day I have to get this done,
this day I have to get this done.
I have also spent a lot of time setting it up
so my job can pretty much run with just a maintenance
rather than me having to do the same thing every week.
Like I just maintain it,
which gives me some free time at work
to like do stuff that my head focuses on outside of that,
but I'm still getting everything done.
And I have everybody at my work knows
because I have created a system and made it very clear.
If you were adding something to this routine
that isn't routine, you need to write it down
and give it to me because if you just tell me,
it's likely not gonna happen.
I will try to write it down too,
but I've got one guy that hasn't quite figured that out
and he'll tell me something like right when I walk in,
I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
At the end of the day, he's like,
did you do this?
I'm like, no.
I'll do it now, I guess.
I do the same thing with my bosses.
If they're telling me something verbally,
I say I need either an email or a sticky
or it's not gonna get done.
But I will, I have found ways to create,
make my routine almost run itself.
So I do have time when I'm like,
because it happens all the time.
I'm at work and all of a sudden I'm like,
this thing that I need to know right now
and I need to like literally Google it in my office
while I'm like looking at it.
But everything else is done.
So that is okay.
I've also kind of created in my own head,
like a reward system.
So if there is like work that needs to get done,
I'm like, okay, you need to get this done.
The faster you get it done and the more accuracy,
gotta be accurate, it's gotta be fast and accurate.
Not only do you win points against all your other coworkers
who aren't even playing this game.
They don't need to know that.
You're playing this game.
You're the only one that needs to know.
Then you have more time to do the thing
that your brain really wants to do in that moment.
So it's kind of like a racing game.
But again, you gotta remind your brain
that there are rules and some of those rules
are accuracy and correctness.
You can't just like have asked that.
And then I have rules after that, like after work.
Okay, like today I'm gonna go home and do this.
And this is the thing that I'm gonna do.
And a lot of times I'm like, okay, I can cycle through.
I've got like four hyper fixations going on at the same time
and I can kind of cycle through them
either all in the same day or one day I'll do some,
one day I'll do the other.
If I get one that comes up out of nowhere
that hasn't had a spot yet, I will give that a day.
So long again, gotta get the important stuff done first.
But then I give that a full day.
A full day for me to like do whatever the heck I need to do
to like look at it.
And if it maintains itself past that day,
it gets shoved in with the other hyper fixations
and then we schedule it.
And it's not a set schedule
because it's not like I'm okay,
this time I'm gonna do this, this time I'm gonna do this.
It's just a, what do I feel like doing right now?
I'm gonna go do this thing.
I had five options.
And I could, it could be like 10 minutes of it.
It could be all night of it.
It can be like, yep, I'm gonna do this until dinner time.
And I wanna watch this show
and I can't like play my game
and watch this show at the same time.
So that's when I'm gonna knit or draw
or do whatever the heck I'm feeling at that point in time.
I, and I add that reward system to it.
It's again, my own mental reward system
that nobody else is playing this game guys.
Like, so you can make up whatever rules you want.
The biggest rules you should just make sure
that are stuck in there is that if it's important,
it gets done fast and accurately.
And that helps.
Other than that, you can put in whatever rules you want
and however many points.
And you can like have your rival in it
that doesn't even know that they're your rival in it,
but they are.
So you, your point system in your head is a Pokemon game.
Kind of.
Okay. Just making sure there's a rival.
There's a reward system.
It's a Pokemon game.
That file person over in that other town.
Yeah, I'm like 800 points.
I mean, it's not really a competition.
It's really not.
Given the, given the opponents,
it's not really a competition.
I'm ancient.
I know all the things, sorry guys.
I kind of have the grandfathered in a,
but they don't have to know that.
No, oh my God.
No, they don't.
But that is, that's how I kind of like do it.
And it works out for me.
And every once in a while it gets into a point
where I am like, none of these things I want to do right now.
And then that's when I play my crosswords.
Very good.
I do crosswords.
They're phone crosswords, so I don't have to erase paper.
But it keeps your mind sharp
and it gives you something to do.
And when you get bored of that,
usually you're ready to move back
onto one of your other fixations.
You know, the wordle sometimes like does that for me.
Yeah.
Like it resets my brain.
If I'm like, if I'm having like a similar.
If you're having a really.
Yeah, I'm like, oh, I don't know which one to do right now.
Crosswords are good.
Did I wordle today?
I'm gonna wordle.
Any kind of word game is usually pretty good.
Or coloring, I still have the coloring game
that I go into every once in a while when I'm like.
Love coloring.
Right.
And if I'm really not feeling it, I'm like.
I'm gonna color.
Back in the day.
I haven't opened that in probably three years.
I still have my phone.
I still do some of them.
Because every once in a while, I'm like, you know what?
I don't know if anyone else has had this
where like you're looking at something
and just words don't make sense.
Yeah. At all.
And you're like.
Yeah, this.
I get very concerned.
This one isn't happening.
And so then coloring is a good game.
Or one of those like matchy games.
Like just something bright and calm and colorful.
Like a calm colorful one.
And it just sort of helps you reset.
And then when you get bored of it or you're like,
okay, yeah, I'm ready.
Then I feel like it just gives you that nice boost
that you needed to get back into whatever.
And again, it doesn't always work.
Sometimes you just have days where you know what?
You're just gonna be lying there all day.
Like looking at YouTube or whatever the heck.
And that's okay too.
And it happens to me with cable instructions sometimes.
Like it says C4B and I'm like.
Oh geez, yeah, no.
Four or two.
I can't remember. I don't know what that means.
No, I know.
I know what it means.
I'm just, it's just like,
my brain will just like fart at the moment.
And then like the other piece of it is a brioche.
Like, but not looking at a brioche instruction.
Doing the, like, especially when I get to the end of a round
I'm like, wait a second.
Do I go back?
Do I put it forward?
Back forward.
And then if I start doing that,
I'm like, you are going in timeout.
You need to go right here.
I'm just gonna push you away.
Yep.
No, sometimes you're looking at the pattern
and you're like, nah, nah, that's not happening right now.
My brain has said, no.
You're not reading today.
Yes.
Well, I think the most important thing
that we're gonna take away from all of this is that.
Sometimes your brain just don't wanna do it.
Sometimes your brain don't wanna do it.
And you gotta follow that dopamine
and you gotta follow that fixation.
And I think that's fine.
Feed the fixation responsibly.
Responsibly.
Feed fixations responsibly.
I agree with that.
And always know that, I mean, at least I always know.
Old reliable will still be there.
Oh yeah.
I will always go back to knitting.
I don't have a lot of other crafts.
Like this is pretty much it.
So if I'm not feeling it, I put it down
and when I'm feeling it, I pick it back up.
I don't owe anybody my knitting.
It's mine.
That's fair.
So.
I need that on a t-shirt and a sticker.
And a button.
Give me a pen.
It's true.
I don't owe anybody my knitting.
It's true.
Well, I just, I don't know.
It's true, yeah.
Back in the day, I had this excellent therapist,
the one that we used to call Crazy Bruce.
And Crazy Bruce used to say, like, you know,
on days when things are really, really bad
and he was more talking, not about hyper fixation,
but talking about when you're really down,
he would be like, sit down,
make a list of all the things that like,
world ending things that need to be done.
Like if you don't do this,
something really bad is gonna happen.
Like you have to go to work
because you need to pay your mortgage.
You don't wanna get fired.
You know, things that need to be done.
You have a child, that child needs to be fed.
That child needs to be bathed and put to bed.
And you know, make that list of things.
And some days, that list, that's all you have to do.
That's all you have to do today.
And it's just the have to's.
And I kind of look at it in that vein too.
It's like, this is not a have to.
No.
This is a, I should do this if I want to.
And if my brain is going off in a different direction
and telling me that I wanna do something else,
then I should not be beating myself up
because I'm not doing the want to.
Because I don't want to do it right now.
You won't get a lien on your house for not knitting.
Right.
I don't owe somebody.
This sweater is for me.
It's for me.
And you know what?
Even if the project you're working on has a deadline
and you miss it, no one's gonna die.
The world will continue.
It's okay.
Like, you know what?
So maybe somebody gets the baby shower gift
a few weeks late.
Maybe it's a Christmas present and not a birthday present.
You know, maybe you have to tell the test person
that you're knitting for, you know what, I'm sorry.
Be honest, life happens and this isn't working for me.
And you know, usually if you give them an apology,
they are generally very understanding.
But nothing is going to collapse
because you didn't knit or crochet
or do whatever craft you do.
And if deadlines stress you out, don't take commissions.
Yeah.
Or test knits.
I don't, yeah.
Honestly, like don't give it to your-
If that's gonna bother you, don't do it.
I don't.
If you know that like you enjoy making things to sell,
like make them and complete them and then sell them.
Don't like promise someone that you're gonna do it
like by this deadline and then you stress yourself out
because you can't make it.
Yeah, that's me.
I don't do commissions.
Don't do it.
Don't do it, friends.
In fact, I go out of my way to quote somebody
like ridiculous prices to deter them.
If they pay the ridiculous price,
then you're like, okay, this is worth it.
Yeah, yeah.
But mostly it's just a deterrent
so that you don't ask me to do things for you.
Ma'am, how much for those gloves?
$40 million.
They're encrusted with diamonds.
$852.
I started doing that with my kids when they're like,
miss, how much would it take to bribe you
that I don't have to do this work?
And I came up with my top step salary
times 25 years that I will be here
plus the cost of my insurance for those 25 years
for when I get fired because I let you bribe me.
And I'm like, if you can pay that upfront,
I want it in cash upfront, all of it.
In cash.
No checks.
I want my full salary for 25 years plus insurance upfront.
I will let you bribe me.
But if you can't give me that, and you know what?
Surprisingly, I know you're shocked,
none of them have taken me up on that.
None of them just have that?
No takers yet.
They're like, miss, what if I just buy you a coffee?
And I'm like, no.
Totally worth it.
It's not worth it.
Totally worth it.
You know what?
Right, PSA.
For you?
No.
I'm gonna say that next time.
For you?
No.
Yeah, and then you're gonna have somebody going,
what about me?
And I was like, especially not you.
Lost that guy.
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