We interrupt this program...

Sometimes I try to force myself to learn a technique that is not intuitive or comfortable. Knitting two sleeves at the same time is one of those techniques.

I’ve attempted to knit both sleeves at the same time on most of the sweaters I've knitted. Each time I’ve abandoned the attempt for the following reasons:

1. I forget that I have two sleeves and keep knitting across the second sleeve as I watch TV or talk. I thought the solution to this problem was to place a marker between the two. Nope. I always lose the marker between the sleeves.
2. I forget that there is a second sleeve and continue to knit back and forth on the first sleeve.
3. It’s a much slower method for me than knitting one sleeve at time for the reasons listed above. Which makes me wonder why I thought I would like knitting two socks at the same time?

At this moment, I have nearly completed one sleeve and have more than enough yarn for the second. I thought I’d get a lot done today but staying up until almost 3:00 AM Friday night totally squashed that plan. Around 2:30 this afternoon I found myself completely exhausted. It probably was a combination of a serious lack of sleep earlier this week; my sleep disorder has not been cooperative even with the change in meds, and the mountain of stress I’ve been dealing with at work.

One thing is certain. Anytime I take a nap and it lasts longer than 2 hours, I’ve passed the napping stage. That’s the time when I enter the "dead zone". Absolutely nothing arouses me from sleep. I slept for over 3 1/2 hours. So much for staying up late to catch up. Later this evening I incurred an additional time penalty when we went to Wally World to pick up ingredients for an Oriental themed meal. The meal didn't happen either.

In light of these events I’ve reached a compromise with myself. If I finish fine, if I don’t at least I’ll have a nice Spring/Summer sweater to wear when I get back.