And you will not want to miss these!!!!!!

1. When you get to your hotel room, get undressed right away! It won’t matter that you left your suitcase in the lobby!!! Not at all!!

2.  When you get to the airport, do not get something to eat, you’ll be able to make it through on one teeny bag of pretzels if there’s a three hour delay and they won’t let you off the plane because you could take off at any time! You will be just fine!!!!

3. Waste as little time as possible and build no wiggle room into your travel plans. If your plane is scheduled to land at 11:00, book your first meeting for 11:15! It will work out every time!!!!

4. Go ahead, wear down your phone battery before getting to the airport, because there will always be time to charge it while waiting in the terminal!!!

5. No need to call the hotel you’re scheduled to stay at directly to confirm the reservation, central booking has got everything covered! Plus, there are always more rooms available on Saturday nights!!!

I hope you will find these useful! Stay tuned for more amazing tips to make your life easier!!!

And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

The first thing is that I’m teaching a class in February, and you should come. The class is at a lovely yarn shop here in Maryland called
The Yarn Spot. 

I’ve decided to teach about emergency preparedness for knitters.

I’m mostly kidding.

The class is called Knitting With Hand Dyed Yarn, and it will run the gamut from how to tell the difference between different dyeing techniques, what your yarn will look when knit up, how to change the look of your finished product, and choosing suitable projects for your hand dyed goodies.

Dinner will be served. Questions will be answered. The class is on Sunday, February 21st, and will run from 5:30-7:30.  There are only 15 spaces available. If you’re interested, please call The Yarn Spot directly (301.933.9550), or email victoria@theyarnspot.com. If you’ve been reading this blog for long, you know that I recently left my first chosen profession of teaching, and am very much looking forward to keeping my feet wet with this class.

The next thing is that I’m loving looking at your projects in our Flickr Gallery. Keep the projects coming. They help me get through the day. I would love to have 1,000 projects in the gallery.

Today was club shipping day. Always busy, always satisfying. To see months of hard work fly away to new homes is incredibly fun.  The studio looks forlorn, bereft even, after all the yarn is gone.

This month’s Stash Menagerie selection was a 50% silk/50% merino blend, and one of the color choices was a dynamic blue color called Mirth.

Serenity was very popular with the Sock Yarnistas.

And for good reason. It’s very serene.

Frolic was born to be something in my mother’s kitchen. She has an extensive collection of blue and white pottery, much of it authentic Delft. I should’ve called this colorway Delft.

And sometimes, when you’re not looking, the skeins from Pick of the Knitter like to mingle. You can catch them if you flick on the lights really fast.

Look at that! Wexford, Lindon, Carys, and Springvale all in one bin. That is a rare sight, indeed.

I do believe this could be the single best club shipment we’ve ever done. The yarn is fantastic, the extra treat is doubly fantastic, and the sock pattern is unbelievably awesomely fantastic.

Sign up for the class! Upload your project to Flickr! Look for clubs on your doorstep!

Thank you for at least pretending to pay attention.

This is my in case of emergency:

I have a well thought out plan. The studio has no windows, and all the doors are toward the front of the building.  In case of a fire in the front of the studio, we could be trapped. If we are unable to make it through the flames, this will save us.

We will just chop a hole in the wall and escape. It’s brilliant.

I actually used this very tool to break into my own home when I was seven months pregnant.

I was locked out of the house. I was locked out of my car. It was 20 degrees outside. I had no coat. I was pregnant. The pregnant part bears repeating.

I would also like to further note that the child I was pregnant with weighed over ten and a half pounds at birth. Just to set the scene accurately.

I tried every door and window. Like a good homeowner, every entrance was locked.  I couldn’t shimmy through a basement window even without my giant belly. Most of the other windows were too high off the ground for me to climb through. It was either the French patio door, the front door, or the back door. I went to the shed and got a crowbar.

I went for the French patio door, thinking it would be the least expensive to replace, and that I could just hit the lever-style doorknob off, reach in, and slide the door open.

No.

I succeeded in bending the doorknob, but still could not get in. I went back to the shed and found a hammer. I decided to try the back door, which had nine panes of glass separated by small pieces of wood. I hit the window over and over with the hammer, to no avail.

I went back to the shed and found this ax. I was getting desperate. I was crying and still pregnant and freezing and late for an appointment. And locked out.

I took a big swing at the back window with this ax. Nothing. I swung at that back window over thirty times. It was apparently made of shatterproof glass.

Never mind that my house was on a slight hill and that every neighbor in kingdom come could look right at me on top of that hill hitting the back door of her house mercilessly.

When the glass finally broke, it splintered into forty million tiny round shards, and I then had to use a hammer to clear out the little pieces of glass from the door frame.  Excruciatingly, I discovered  that there was a second pane of glass on the other side of the broken one.

Everyone should get one of these doors, they are nearly indestructible. A cold pregnant woman with an ax can’t break them.

By the time I finally was able to reach in and unlock the door, it was forty-five minutes later. My first call was to the midwife, whom I had kept waiting. I tried to explain that I was late because I had to break into my house with an ax, but gave up and just used the, “I was locked out” excuse instead. She was nice, mostly because I was crying, and because she dealt with crying pregnant women all day.

My second call was to my husband and work, where I had to inform him that I had taken this:

this yellow handled ax stored in the shed, and spent forty-five minutes smashing out the windows in our back door and damaging the handle on the patio door.

My husband is one of the good kinds of husbands.

His first words were, “Are you OK?” His second sentence was, “Don’t worry about anything, I’ll take care of it.”

I told you he was one of the good kinds. When he got home, he laughed. He took one of only two paths available to someone like him in a situation like that: you can find it funny, or you can be furious. He helped me clean up the 60,000 remaining shards of glass inside and outside that I had trouble getting to, he taped plastic up onto the door, and he went right to the Home Depot and bought a new window.

He didn’t say anything about the $400, I saw the receipt in his wallet. That’s because he’s one of the good kinds of husbands. By the way, he’s also the kind of husband who will go to Dairy Queen for you any time at all. And he rubs your feet, too.  He also didn’t say anything about the $90 he had to spend replacing the special handle on the patio door.

Having been a woman on the brink of emotional breakdown, heavy with child, I can say with confidence that I will be able to wield this ax and escape to safety into the tea shop next door should there be a fire.

I also have one of these, just in case:

And some drain opener, because you never know when a slow drain might strike.

Everyone should get this Plan B set. I should sell this Plan B set. What am I thinking? Yarn? Forget it. PLAN B is hot for spring.

Day One as an FTY.

I don’t got no manicure.

Why waste the money, when this is what my arms look like?

I ain’t got no manicure, and I’ve got me a bad case of glove arm.

The dye collects where the gloves stop.

It’s attractive.

Guys dig it.

I’ll tell you what else I’ve got: another couple o’skeins for my inaugural CYSD stocking.

Lilypad.

I’ve been on a green kick lately.

What you don’t see here are the 420 million other skeins of yarn I dyed today. They’re purty. 

Being an FTY is not good for the hair, or the skin, or the nails, or the clothes.

But it’s fun anyway.

Today marked the end of an important era in my life.

This is the desk I sat at for years as I planned lessons and graded papers.

This is where I made many Powerpoint presentations for my students, emailed parents, and typed up assignments.

Like many large American high schools today, teachers often have to share rooms because of space constraints. I taught in different classrooms during the day, but always had this office space to come back to.

This is where students could come find me to ask questions about the 14th amendment Due Process Clause or the roles of interest groups in American government.

This is where my colleagues would come to ask me a random question about the Great Lakes or synthetic motor oil or the middle name of Britney Spears’ younger son, and see if I knew the answer.

This is where I brought twelve years of teaching experience to the table, where I talked students down off emotional ledges, where I administered makeup tests, and just last week, where I informed a senior varsity basketball player that he wouldn’t be eligible for the rest of the season because he failed my Law class. Not every moment of teaching is triumphant.

This is where I came when I got up before sunrise each day, where I looked out the window and crossed my fingers that it would snow, where I shut the window when I discovered a hornet’s nest living in the eaves just outside.

This is where I laughed with my friends every day, where I played practical jokes, where I yelled, “NOT IT!” every time the phone rang.

This is where the papers piled up, where the student projects overtook my shelves, where I put my feet up while grading the 180th essay of the day.

This is much cleaner than it normally was.

This is what my office looked like after I finished cleaning it out today.

This is where I turned my head and swabbed at the tears beginning to form, pressing hard so they wouldn’t have time to run down my face.

This is where I hugged the 13 other members of my department, good friends, allies, and talents.

This is where I typed my leave form, letting my supervisors know that I would be taking a hiatus from the classroom at the end of the semester, when students change teachers anyway, and when the impact on my school would be minimal.

This is where I met with my replacement, handing over years and years worth of materials and hard work.  Where I talked about how to teach the difference between fiscal and monetary policy.

This is where I said goodbye to an era, the era of High School Teacher.

This desk was my home for a good time, a good long time. This school was my home for more than half of my teaching years.

Today I am mourning the end of an era.

Tomorrow begins a new era, the era of Full Time Yarnista.

Today was hard, but tomorrow will be better.

Full Time Yarnista, I like the sound of that.

I dare you to make these.

Double dog dare you with whipped cream and cherries.

Behold, Carassius, the Socks of the Kissing Fish.

I will send a skein of yarn to the first person to make these and send me a picture of both completed socks. The colorway doesn’t matter, although I would recommend a light-medium solid or semi-solid. Beads or no, doesn’t matter. 

They’re kissing goldfish, who wouldn’t want a pair of these? They could represent you and your sweetheart, they could represent you and your little one, they could represent your real life Carassiuses. (Carassi?) 

Your time begins now: 8:37 pm on Sunday, January 24th. If you don’t already have a copy of this pattern (which is amazing, painstakingly edited, with charts and written instructions), you can get one here.

GO!

I need a higher purpose. I need to feel that I’m involved in something great.

Something like the Olympic games.

Just look at from whence I came:

I’ve overcome great adversity. All I need is a little guidance, a little push in the right direction.

All I need is to be adopted by the right family.

The winner is actually me. I am the winner for having such creative customers! Yay! I get the one of a kind skein of yarn!

Good night.

I am such an endless tease. I can’t help it.  I was born teasing people. I can’t turn it off, I’ve tried. Well, I can turn it off when needed, but it makes me froth at the mouth slightly.

I’m going to start with the honorable mentions in the Name That Stocking contest. The honorable mentions will each get a $5 gift code to use on whatever they like in our store.

Honorable Mention #1:  Adopt a Skein. I love the ideas of all of these parentless yarn babies needing homes. Deb, I’m going to send you a gift code! Great idea!

Honorable Mention #2: Instock and Ready to Rock. Kristin, I love the way this trips off the tongue. It’s really fun to say: try it. I’m sending you a gift code too!

And now for the winners. I combined two ideas to come up with something I am tickled with. I really liked Jennifer and Victoria’s suggestions and decided on:

Carpe Yarnem: Seize the Dye

I’m excited! Great ideas, Jennifer and Victoria! Since I have two skeins from this batch, I will send one to each of you! I will also keep using exclamation marks! They convey emotion!

We will have our first Carpe Yarnem stocking soon. I will announce it ahead of time so you will be able to program the alarm on your cell phone.

Now, I’m going to get all motherly and lecture y’all for just a moment. I don’t want these stockings to turn into a competition and have everyone arrive with their claws out, hissing at each other.

Don’t make me turn these stockings around. I will then be left with no choice but to be creative all by my own self, and I’ll keep all the yarn for me. OK? OK?

OK.

Carpe Yarnem! Seize the Dye! Coming Soon! Exclamation Point!

However shall I choose?

There are too many funny and wonderful options!

I went through every single one of your suggestions and compiled a list of the possibilities.

Then I slept on it.

If you want the real truth, what really happened was that I went upstairs to label vast quantities of yarn while watching Project Runway, and then I fell asleep ten minutes later.  (Don’t tell me who won. Seriously.)

But I do think it sounds better to say that I slept on this important decision.

When I woke up, I looked at my list again. Then I started Googling. I had to scratch off the names that I liked that were already taken by other people and books.

Then I bought a bunch of domain names.

Then I added a bunch of ridiculous stuff to this confirmation screen picture to amuse myself while I’m waiting for the coffee.

You wouldn’t begrudge an old Yarnista some Photoshop frivolity in the five minutes it takes for the coffee to brew, would you? I promise I will work every waking minute for the rest of the year.

I have it narrowed down to three different concepts.  I will decide between them today! I will! I will!

Now I have to go finish labeling the vast quantity of yarn that is going to be shipped today.

Yarn is usually better when labeled, I’ve found. People prefer it that way.

I could just continue to sit here blathering on, or I could label yarn. You pick.

That’s what I thought, too.

See? Kindred spirits, you and me. 

The contest is now closed, and I will make a decision soon, I promise! I am having a great time reading all of these.

In the meantime, here are some yarn pictures to tide you over:

Alpine Spruce:

Greener Pastures:

And Mountain Cathedrals:

February’s club picks!

So today, I was just

You know, like every other day. Sittin’ around. Doing nothing except rocking in the ol’ rocking chair and admiring the view.

And I thought to myself, “Self, you oughtta give away a skein of yarn.”

And then I answered myself.

I said, “Self, you are correct. I shall see to it at once.”

I love it when I listen to myself.

This skein is not just any old skein.  It has magic in it, old magic. Creative magic. The magic of Creativity.

Sometimes the mood strikes me to make something new and different. I often have to ignore my friend Creativity, much to her chagrin.

But sometimes I can’t ignore her. She begs and stamps her foot and sticks out her lower lip. She beckons, and I am helpless but to follow.

This is a one of a kind colorway. It is part of a small dye lot, and can never, ever be recreated. I didn’t write down the recipe, I didn’t follow my usual methods, I just dumped and mixed and tasted until it was right.

Here’s what I’m thinking. Sometimes, I will let Creativity have her way. I will make special colorways that have never been seen before and will never be seen again. Colorways like this:

And once in a while, I’ll put this never-to-be-seen-again colorways up for sale, just for fun.

This will let me be creative and will let you get something extra special.

I already have about 25 special creative skeins ready to rock. Instock and ready to rock, just the way they should be.

But I want to have a name for these special stockings, so I can say, “Super Duper Creative Yarn Stocking Tomorrow!” or, “Wednesday will be a Special Spectacular Skein Stocking!”

This is where you and the giveaway meet. If you can give me a name that I like for these stockings, I will give you this skein of yarn:

It’s Adorn Sock. It will never be seen again after this Awesomely Amazing — or whatever I end up calling it — stocking that I’ll have in the near future.

Here are some ideas that I have so far:

Serendipity Skeins

Batch of the Day

Yarn du jour

Something along these lines.  You leave a comment with a suggestion. If I pick yours, I’ll send you the yarn.

To clarify, this isn’t a suggestion for the name of the colorway, you’re suggesting a name for the ongoing series of stockings I have planned with one of a kind colorways.

I will take suggestions until 7:30 pm Eastern tomorrow, and will choose something tomorrow evening. Feel free to enter as many times as you like, I need all the help I can get.

Help! Creativity will wait for no woman!

Which is obviously not me.

But I do have the singular pleasure of being the Yarnista for a team of Knitting Olympics peeps, and I’m sure they have many Michael Phelpses competing with them. Never mind that these are the Winter Olympics and that Michael Phelps is a swimmer. Pretend that I’m painting an appropriate metaphor.

This is what they chose for me to make:

I like it. It’s subtle, with butterscotch, gray, white, and brown. It’s kettle dyed so the colors are all splotchy throughout the skeins. Splotchiness equals random color distribution when knitting. The lighting in my drying room is less than ideal, and Ms. Olympics was not pleased about being photographed under such circumstances. I assured her that I would take her picture after she was made up so you could see her in her prime.

She only agreed to have her pictures posted here if you all promised — pinky swear! — not to judge her by what she looks like right now. Wait until the stage lights are on and the medal is around her neck.

When I first agreed to participate, I didn’t know the Olympians would be so enthusiastic. One hundred and twenty five skeins later, these are being wound and labeled as we speak, and will be shipping to the Michael Phelpses of the knitting world later this week.

What shall I call Ms. Olympics on her label? She needs a name.

The first is this:

The second thing is to say:

I’m sorry.

I ask you to imagine a stack of papers this tall:

And on each paper was at least one skein of yarn. Some of the papers had two skeins of yarn, some had twenty. That pile represents 6,000 pieces of paper. Six thousand separate orders. That’s how many orders were placed on our site in a three week time period in July and August.

Six thousand.  So I want to say

again.  Thank you for buying yarn from us. I hope you’ll love it.

for being patient. It took me a long time to make all of that yarn — too long. This experience has convinced me that yarn people are some of the nicest people in the world. Most people waited with exceeding patience and then had the kindness to email and say things like (and these quotes are taken directly from emails with the permission of the writer):

“I just want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for the amazing yarn — I have never seen anything like it, and it was absolutely worth the wait. THANK YOU THANK YOU!”

“I was doubtful that any yarn could be worth waiting months for, but you have proven me wrong. I am amazed, speechless, really. I will be back again and again.”

“Thank you for being the best thing in my week. I can’t tell you what this package has meant to me — you are truly a gifted artist, and I want to thank you for sharing your talent.”

I don’t share these out of vanity. I share them to applaud you, some of the bestest people in the world. These are the kinds of notes people send us after having waited for so long for their yarn.

I also want to share a couple of things with you. The first is that we made many of you wait a long time for your order, and while you were kind about it, it was still an inconvenience. I want to apologize for any inconvenience we’ve caused you.  I know this was a sacrifice for some of you, and I don’t take that lightly. Thank you.

Next, I want to answer a few questions for you.

Q: Why didn’t you know how long it was going to take to make my order?

A: For a couple of reasons. The first reason is that we have a very unsophisticated shopping cart system. We are in the process of upgrading the shopping cart system now to something that has a lot more functionality. The additional functionality also means that it’s more complicated from the back end, so it’s taking us a little while to get everything done. Our current (unsophisticated) system does not compile orders. It cannot tell me, for example, “Hey, Yarnista, you’ve had 6,000 orders.” Or, “Hey, Yarnista, 7,200 skeins of Georgia Peach have been ordered! ACK!” It wasn’t until I began to sit down and print out every order one by one that I was able to count and see how many there were. The printing alone took me dozens of hours over the course of many months. It’s a good thing I use recycled paper.

Secondly, having not mass produced any of the colorways that were contest winners, I significantly underestimated how long it would take me to dye them. And not just dye them, dye them and wash them and dry them and wind them and label them and package them and ship them.  It took me much longer than expected to complete all of these tasks. I have no one to blame but myself. I take full responsibility for underestimating this, and if this inconvenienced you in any way, I am so sorry.

I also want you to know how hard I worked on these orders. Not so that you’ll feel sorry for me, because I love handpainting yarn. But just so you’ll be aware that your order was not lost or misplaced or uncared about. When I say I worked seven days a week, sometimes 14 hours a day, I mean it. When I say I had staff in the studio with me at least six days a week, often working overtime, I mean it.  Please don’t think your order was unimportant to us because it took a while to make it. I promise that the opposite was true — I was and still am deeply committed to customer satisfaction, and I hope that every one of you loved what you received.

Q: What are you doing to make sure this doesn’t happen again?

A: Good question. The first thing that we’re doing is upgrading the shopping cart system. When this is in place, it’s going to allow you to do things like log in and see where we are with your order. Imagine that! (Another feature our current system lacks.) The new shopping cart system will allow us to provide you with an upfront estimate of how long your order will take before you even get to the check out. (This will be made possible by the fact that our new system will actually compile orders!)

We are also increasing the number of retailers that carry our yarn, so you’ll have better access to instock items via your LYS or your favorite web retailer. This will mean instant yarn gratification.

Our new system will allow you to choose a shipping method as well. You’ll be able to select the cheapest option, expedited shipping via UPS/FedEx, etc. This will also give you more control over your orders.

We’re adding two additional staff members in the coming months to help us better keep up with the flow of orders. This will help prevent a log jam from happening again.

We’re going to be increasing the amount of instock items we have on hand, just in case you need something right away. You can contact us, and we’ll see if we have something we can send immediately.

The good news is that all of the backlog from the Dye for Glory contest has been cleared, and we’re now going to be focusing on quickly catching up with the rest of our orders. If you’ve been waiting for something, you’ll be seeing it soon.

We’re going to be closing to new orders for just a little bit (except for club members), but we’re not going anywhere. We’re just getting ready to finish up the shopping cart system, which we’ll then test to death to make sure it’s as bug free as possible. When we re-open, we’re going to be debuting some new colorways and new products.

So,

again lovely, lovely customers and friends. I am so grateful to have you, and so grateful for your support.

… you might be a Yarnista.

If you paint your utility room your favorite shade of brown…

… you might a Yarnista.

If your foyer is wholly ensconced in bins containing a rainbow of colorways…

… you might be a Yarnista.

If you have an entire external hard drive full of yarn pictures…

… you might be a Yarnista.

If you spent 350 hours fixing up your studio so you would have a place you would be happy working every day…

… you might be a Yarnista.

Or, you could just be really, really weird.

Not the TV show. Working at a place like Dundler Mifflin would make me want to become a flammable mammal. I would sooner hurl myself off a persimmon tree.

But I do like my office at the studio. It has brown. A nice warm brown makes me happy.

My computer is brown, too. I couldn’t resist. Black is unthinkable when brown is an alternative. This is the truth of the universe.  Brown is much more common in the natural world, and the superior color in nearly every way.

Obviously.

If you do not agree, that matters not. One does not have to agree for something to be the Truth.

Plus, the wall is already brown, so it’s too late to argue with me anyway.

I love this drawing done by one of my employees. Little skeins of yarn in a rainbow circle. Sign me up.

I believe my middle daughter to be a talented artist.

I love the directionality of the water and the texture of the scales on the fish. And I like having pictures that my kids made me on the wall.

This is one of the winding stations where we help make sure that your yarn minds its manners and behaves itself when it arrives.

The door on the right goes out to our “garage”. Outside of that door is a small storage area that leads to a large bay door meant for people who get cargo container-sized deliveries. Unfortunately, the pink wall you’re seeing directly in front of you is blocking the bay door. Even if someone wanted to deliver a cargo container of something, they’d have to squeeze it through the regular sized door on the right.

You can see the white board that I’ve started covering with pictures and notes. I have lots more to print and put up now that we have our super duper photo gallery.  It warms the valves of my little heart to see people enjoying the yarn and to read the lovely words of thanks and encouragement that people send. My peeps also like seeing these — because most of them are not knitters, it can be hard for them to envision what something looks like knit up.

What you can’t see in these pics, because I am lame and neglected to photograph them, is the couch and coffee table that I’m standing in front of, the microwave that we use to heat our sustenance, and the DVD player that I used to occasionally entertain my children. Being a yarnista only takes a five year old so far. Sometimes Princess Ariel is warranted.

We are running out of space in the studio! If I keep this up, soon I will be blogging from the top of Mt. Yarnimanjaro.

Anyone want to join me? Anyone? Anyone?

Inside this room is the magic powder.

The magic powder is very messy.

The magic powder is not for people with OCD. It would make you twitchy.

Inside this little room, the magic powder is mixed with water and other magic powders to make stock solutions. Stock solution is the cocktail of dye, water, and auxiliaries that we use to dye our yarn.

Once the stock solution is ready, it gets poured into smaller containers for ease of use.

These are much easier to handle than a gallon jug when you want 1/8 of a teaspoon of something.  But when a small container like this gets dropped, it can send a splash all the way up to the ceiling. Now imagine a gallon jug of dye on your floor.

Yeah, it’s happened to me. Royal blue, 2008. You never forget.

No one ever said being a yarnista was for the faint of heart.

Gone the sun

From the lake, from the hills, from the sky

All is well, safely rest

God is nigh.

One solitary skein left after a hard day’s work. One skein left all alone for the night. Shiftless. Worried.

Sorry, man. It’s not that I don’t care about you, because I do. Really, it’s not you, it’s me.

You can just take a nice little snooze here on this nice little bed.

I know, I know, I have to go now, though, OK?

Did you hear Taps? At the beginning of the post?

The day is done, dude.

GONE THE SUN.

GOD IS NIGH, that means I gotta go to bed, all right?

I’ll come back and hit you with some color in the AM, you feel me?

Man, the sun is not even in the HILLS! Or the lake!

OK, all right, we cool? OK.

You rest safe. I’ll come back for you, I promise.  No, forreal forreal. I’ll be back, back tomorrow. Rest safe and sound, safe on this nice, fluffy little bed. 

G’night, man. It’s gonna be OK. Forreal.

Right outside the studio door, in a splotchy remnant of our Christmas snowfall.

I almost didn’t pick it up, because it looked fake, and I realized that I had never before found a cardinal feather on the ground.

When I looked closely, I could see the imperfections.  The tiny places of asymmetry — those were the most beautiful part.

Its irregularities made it real. 

I can’t bear to throw away this tiny, real, thing. Should I keep it in a special place? Should I set it free, like the feather in Forrest Gump? 

Maybe there’s a reason this little feather made its way to my door.

I’ll think about it.