My Parents Love Me

A Heavy Package came in the mail yesterday; on the wrapping paper was a card filled with my mother's handwriting.  It read, in part:

...So your daddy & I walked down to the Farmers Market.  On the way, we stopped by [the brand new only LYS in town!], open for business and beckoning us.  You will love it!  She even has big, comfy chairs where you can sit & knit & enjoy a cup of chai & chat...

My hometown finally finally has an LYS and it's beautiful, apparently -- yay!!  Now, you can tell already that my parents are wonderful.  What you may not know: up until, oh, five months ago, they were a little in-the-dark on the extent of my knitting habit.  Knitting was my favorite hobby, of course, and I had supplied them with scarves, hats, etc etc blah blah for over ten years.  But my parents "have known me a long time" (sometimes my mother reminds me) and when I lived with them, there was no stash to speak of.  Zero yarn lying around.  Each skein in my possession was promptly knit and the product given away before the next shopping trip.  Let me repeat: I once was a knitter with no stash.

June 2011 featured a weeklong visit that could be cast as some bizarro Clue answer: the Parents, in the Guest Bedroom, with the Stash.  At the time, I didn't think much about it, which could be considered a victory for one attempting to breathe more and worry less... no stash-revealing anxiety, no fear of some Mississippian moths fleeing their luggage and find a warm home in a nest of sport weight merino.  In fact, the full meaning of the meeting of the 'Rents and the Stash didn't dawn on me until I got the aforementioned Heavy Package.

Now they know.  I knit.  A lot.  I am a knitter.  It's my thing. And so...

The contents: a beautiful handmade yarn bowl, signed by the potter, and a Knit Kit, perfect for on-the-go projects.

look! a crochet hook, a tape measure, a row counter, a thread cutter...

...stitch markers, point protectors, a darning needle, and TSA-compliant collapsible scissors!

 What I'm trying to say is, my parents love me.  My mother gave birth to me when she had no idea what to expect and my father changed his first diaper ever that night.  They helped me concentrate on school and reading and music and important things until I finally realized that I'm not as unfortunate-looking as previously thought and who gives a hoot about that anyway.  They endured my angsty adolescence and came out the other side to raise my brothers. They have traveled by car halfway across the continental US more than once to spend time at the hardware store and make me pancakes and take my daughter on walks and enjoy falafel.  And now I receive perfect presents in the mail, just because, during the Great Yarn Diet of 2011.  I don't need any proof of their love, but they keep delivering it, and for that I will always be truly truly grateful.