The attention span of a goldfish

That's what I have, and it's pathetic. What I mean is that I have yet to be able to get more than four rows into a lace pattern without screwing it up and starting over. It's really starting to kill me. I have cast on this scarf NO LESS THAN 20 TIMES and have failed (miserably) with every attempt. I've tried different patterns, easy patterns, hard patterns, ones with lace every row, ones with only one row of lace, and I just can't seem to do it. I've checked knittinghelp.com to see if I was doing something wrong. I mean, honestly, if you knit fine normally, how is it that you can drop a stitch every row, and not be doing some stitch wrong? Apparently, I have found a way. Unfortunately, I don't know what I could possibly be doing wrong, other than spacing out mid stitch and screwing up. I mean, I know my mind wanders, but this is ridiculous. And, anyone that has ever tried lace knows that there is no friggin way to knit back or rip back without losing various YO and intentionally twisted stitches (or adding them, that is). That means, that every time I screwed up I'd have to rip back to a k or p row, which generally meant going back to the cast on, if I was lucky. Mostly I would get frustrated, rip it off the needle and cast on again. I'm really sick of casting on. Really.
Thankfully, through the wisdom of knittinghelp.com I have discovered the beauty of the "lifeline". See here. So I will definately be using this technique. Seriously, every row I can. That will spare me soooo much pain. Even if it's only that I don't have to cast on again, I'd be happy. I'm so sick of spending so much time trying to knit back or pick up stitches. That's where the real frustration comes. If I could take out that aspect (which is what this concept does) then I could spend more of my time (hours and hours at a time) working the pattern and less, trying to get the needles in the right loops.
So tomorrow, after I buy some new needles, I'm going to cast on this pretty thing, only slightly less wide. I want it to be a scarf and not a stole, and I want the fewest possible repeats as possible. Especially since it seems to be somewhere in the repeats that I space out and screw up. I say that I need new needles because I bought Skaecel bamboo circs thinking they would be Addi Turbos, but bamboo, and in my world, better. But I was mistaken. They are fabulous, unless you're working with fingering weight or smaller yarn. The join at the metal that hold the cable and the bamboo has a small indentation. Now I've yanked the yarn over said indentation several times, and it's not sharp, but it's a HUGE pain in the keister. Getting distracted trying to get the yarn up the needles is really not helping me keep the pattern. So I'm just going to buy some crystal palace straights at my LYS. I have a pair of 6s and they are fab. Hopefully that's some incentive to keep me going.

But having said that, I'll be spending much of my time until the end of the month working on my mystery project. So, there won't be tons of pics here. I will certainly show you my knitpicks order IF IT EVER FRIGGIN' COMES!!

Begin Rant

I can't tell you how infuriated I am right now at the post office. That order was supposed to come on Friday, but it was a gov't holiday. NOT that the post office is part of the gov't anymore, but I guess they consider themselves part when it's convenient. But, I considered the holiday and figured it would be fine and I would expect my package on Sat. Or not. My mail usually comes at 11 am. I think that's great. Not too early, not too late. However, I spent all day waiting around for the mail to come so that I could take Heather her part of the order. Only to have the mail person come (as slow as she could) at 4:30 in the afternoon. I was highly annoyed, until I looked on the doorstep....and there was no order. Then I was pissed. I thought "okay, fine, be that way", I'll just take Monday off and I'll show you! And I did. Take Monday off. But I didn't show them, because the order did not come. Not at 4:30 with the mail. Not ever. If it's not there when I get home tonight, someone is going to hear about it. I really don't know who, but someone. And they're not going to like it.

End Rant