The Ritual is Always the Same

Earlier this week I got my PNG bill. The ritual is always the same: 1) I open my e-mail ; 2) I see the notification in my in-box; 3) I wince; 4) I open all and any other e-mail, reading each one thoroughly; 5) I pour myself a fresh cup of coffee; 6) I check Facebook; 7) I play a game or two; 8) I look at the clock and discover that it isn’t yet time to go to work; and 9) I finally take a deep breath and open my bill.



There in bold letters were the words: Credit balance. Do NOT pay. right next to a small – but very negative – balance owing. Cool.


On Friday I went to the post office. The ritual is always the same: 1) I go in to the post office and exchange the out-going library mail for the incoming library mail; 2) I wish the clerk a good day and head back out to the area where the mail boxes are; 3) I park Zippy (my mail cart) and open my mail box; 4) I close my empty mail box and go to the library mail box... Okay, so this time it was different. There was mail in my mail box. I reached in and withdrew the latest Knit Picks catalogue.


With shaky hands I started flipping through it. I’ve been waiting for this issue for several weeks and was very nearly ready to give up hope that it would ever arrive. There on page 10, in the bottom left-hand corner, was a photo of my daughter’s feet! And they were – still are, actually – wearing a pair of my socks! My original design was featured as in Independent Designer Pattern for Palette yarn! Super cool!


Today I woke up and began the ritual that is always the same: 1) I stagger into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee; 2) I stagger back to the bathroom and have a shower; 3) I walk back to my bedroom and get dressed; 4) I walk out to the living room and start up Alistair (the laptop); 5) I pour myself a cup of coffee; 5) I settle in to check my e-mail and Facebook; 6) I review my to-do list; 7) I pour myself another cup of coffee; 8) I pick something on my to-do list to do; 9) I sip my coffee and think about it while I waste time playing time-wasting games.


Eventually, however, I do get up and get things done. Today my thing to do was post some new patterns on Raverly. The ritual is always the same: 1) I log into my account; 2) I open the Help page for posting patterns; 3) I read the Help page for posting patterns; 4) I attempt to follow the directions on the Help page for posting patterns; 5) I get frustrated because the process is about as long and tedious and convoluted as a process can be; 6) I utter a few choice words; 7) I pour myself another cup of coffee; 8) I accidentally click on the right thing and something magical occurs that causes my pattern to be posted; 9) I become overly pleased with myself for having achieved this simple goal; 10) I repeat steps 4 through 9.


By then I’d had too much coffee and a pee break was in definite order. What followed the pee break was more of steps 4 through 9 – a veritable roller coaster ride through valleys of aggravation and peaks of joyous relief. Eventually, though, I got four patterns uploaded and linked to my Ravelry store.


And by then it was time for a real break and I made myself some lunch.


While I was eating lunch and browsing the ‘shelves’ at Netflix for my next viewing choice, the tab in my browser for my e-mail account flashed. I looked up to see that I had mail. I opened the tab and there, in my in-box, was a notification that I had sold one of the patterns that I had just posted. Not even an hour had passed since step 9 and I had a sale. Bloody groovy!

Someone bought this pattern from me today!

So far this year I have sold 72 patterns, bringing my grand total for professional designing income to $146.30. Damn that feels good!


To re-cap: 1) a small, but welcome credit on my gas bill; 2) one of my patterns featured in an international knitting catalogue; 3) near-mastery of Ravelry’s pattern posting process; and 4) another pattern sold!


Maybe the ritual isn’t always the same...