Post travel blues and random acts of kindness

Well the fallout from my week of travel continues and it sucks. What I thought was just a cold morphed into a full fledged bronchial infection. Having spent days coughing until I thought I would burst I finally made it to a doctor (and don't even get me started about the lack of medical care availability in Massachusetts on a weekend). I know have some antibiotics and some serious heavy duty cough syrup. The downside is that while I wait to recover I have found that any amount of exertion causes a coughing fit. I am most comfortable when sitting on the couch. Even lying down is dubious, although improving. I had to walk up the stairs this morning and paid heavily for the next five minutes. Unfortunately I am still very behind at work from the travel and this is only making it worse. I have been able to do a few things from home but I am looking forward to working the weekend to try and catch up. Yeah. How I miss the days of childhood when you could spend a week in bed with tv and comic books and not have to pay for it later. Sigh. 

So the upside, though, is that I have been able to sit and knit. I cast on a sock with my Noro and am excited to see it progress. Once I get a bit further I will take a picture. Also, once I feel more up to the trip on the stairs to get my camera. But I am enjoying working with the Noro. It reminds me of my handspun in the way it varies in thickness. Also, my new Addi's are an absolute dream to knit with! My Spoiler told me she was tempted to keep them and now I can't say I blame her. I can only hope she gets equally spoiled this summer and gets her own. 

The other upside is I get to Snitch hunt today with the HSKS Quidditch bonus round. I have to say I was taken by surprise by all the emotions surrounding the last Snitch hunt. I guess people's competitive natures got the best of them. Whatever. For me, HSKS5 is fun. I am amazed at the level of organization and effort that has been into this swap by the Organizer, Headmistress Wartbobble, as well as her prefects and head girls/boys. Yes, I would have loved to have found the Snitch but I didn't. Yes, I admit I was jealous of Selena but fair is fair and she happened upon it first. She rocks at Snitch hunting. So I am super happy for her (but her butt is fair game today!!!). Beyond that it is all just good fun. This is also my first swap, although I have joined more since.

 One thing I am learning from swapping, from the HSKS swap, and from the knitting community on Ravelry in general is that there is an amazing number of people who just like to do things for each other. Talk about your random acts of kindness. Seriously, swaps are based on giving for giving sake. There is incredible effort put into making the swap packs the best they can be - at least it seems that way. Whenever I talk to people it seems they are working hard to make it a great package. I know I am struggling with mine as I want to make sure they are liked by the receiver. I think I am doing well but every day I ask myself "can I do better". This is kind of like Quality in general. Quality is really about asking yourself that every moment of every day. I see so many examples of that in the knitting community. Its amazing to know that there are so many good people out there tied together by fiber. 

To top it off yesterday I got the most amazing PM on ravelry totally out of the blue. One of my swap questionnaires I posted mentioned I collect postcards. This is something I recently started with my son. We are collecting postcards from strangers. It is very cool to see the places we get - including my price postcard from Inuvik Canada. I would probably never go to Inuvik, nor had I heard of it before, but now we have a postcard and know more about it. So anyways, out of the blue I get the PM from someone in England offering me a postcard. I love it. Nothing in return, just willing to send the postcard. Best of all was what she said: "It's fun for children to see how nice the world really is." - That says it all. The world is nice and it is nice to have a community of people working freely to remind each other of this is small ways every single day. I know it makes me smile - even though that is about all I can do today!

Go smile and make the world a happy place.