One of the cold hard truths I learned when I quit the engineering job and started setting my own schedule was this:

You can’t get anything done on the days when DH is home.

It was surprising to me — after all, why on earth should it matter if he is upstairs in bed sick with a cold?  But it does matter.  Am I wrong?  I don’t think so.  The phenomenon is pretty universal, according to discussions I have had with many knitters.  Just recently, I casually made mention of this curious fact as an aside in a conversation with a new-ish knitter — who first gasped with surprise, then said with relief something like, "Oh my god!  It’s not just me!"

(Of course, maybe it’s just knitters who have this problem.  Whether that is true or not, I don’t have any data — and I don’t care, because obviously I’m stuck with it.)

Anyway — this issue comes up because DH is still on his sabbatical, and he has been underfoot home with me ever since we got back from New Zealand.

Let me repeat that:  I’ve been trying to get caught up from a 3-week absence, not to mention the holidays, and my husband has been home the whole time.

And lately it’s been just maddening.

Some examples:  yesterday, I was getting ready to leave for my Monday evening rec center class, and he looks at the clock and asks, "What time does your class start again?"  OK, it sounds like an innocent question, maybe — but remember I’ve been teaching this class for a good, oh, FIVE YEARS NOW.  Suddenly, he’s all concerned about what time it starts??

Also yesterday, he went out to get some stuff at Home Depot.  He came back saying, "You said something about wanting to stop at Old Navy, so I did, and they didn’t have what you were looking for."

Today, he tried to "help" me get a box of bread machine mix out of the pantry — by lifting a couple of cake mix boxes that I already had my hand on.

I looked right at him and snarled, "Get.  Away!"

His response:  "I’m just trying to help!"

Luckily, he understood just how goofy that sounded, in the context of trying to pull boxes of cake mix out of my hands.  He understands what he is doing, and even why it is annoying — we call it "hovering" — and so he agreed to go out and get some stamps for the Xmas cards.  (Yes, I know it is late January.  Ours are always late.  It has become a tradition.  This year, my sister’s card showed up saying, "I may be late, but I’m ahead of you."  It’s a pretty safe bet.)

After asking "How many stamps do we need?" — answer:  we don’t really need any, frankly, but you’re going anyway, and you’re the one who addressed all the envelopes for cryin’ out loud – DH came back with stamps, a loaf of French bread, and a CD of the Click Five.  I’m a little surprised he didn’t get a haircut while he was at it.  Oh, right — that would be because a haircut is something he actually needs.

But, yeah, I’m keeping him anyway, because the Click Five CD was for me — this is a band I just discovered through the magic that is Youtube, and I’m listening to it right now and it’s really pretty good.  That, and he’s off playing hockey and by now, probably out for a beer with the team, and so I’m able to try to write the blog post that I didn’t have a snowball’s chance of getting done today.

What could this possibly have to do with knitting?

Well, today he also started working on a "project" that’s been hanging out in our living room for several years:  refinishing the antique hutch that we bought to use as a bar.  It has a bunch of nasty wallpaper on the inside, and after we carried the top part out into the garage, he got started on tearing all that out.

Or at least, I thought he did.  When I went out to the garage later, though, the hutch didn’t look too different.

Turns out he spent a couple of hours mostly moving the shop lights around.

I rolled my eyes at first, but then it hit me:  this is exactly what happens when I go into my studio!!  For example, just this weekend I went in there and spent at least an hour or so going through the stack of UFO’s, bagging up new projects that had been piling up on the table, etc. etc.  Didn’t actually knit a stitch, but I did get thoroughly depressed reacquainted with 2 dozen bags of guilt in various stages of un-completedness.

And then I wonder why I never get any knitting done…

…oh, right.  It’s because he’s been home all the time.