Yesterday #1 Son and I, along with E, my brother J, sister-in-law L and niece Z, attended our traditional yearly visit to The Trail Band Christmas Show at the Aladdin Theater. This will be the ninth year that #1 Son and I have attended this concert, a benefit for Friends Of The Children, and I never get tired of it. If you live in the Portland area or will be visiting next Christmas, please consider attending.

Buy your tickets early.

Unlike me. Usually I buy my tickets as soon as they go on sale. The tickets I buy for J, L and Z are my Christmas present to them. This year I waited to get tickets until L called me one night and mentioned that she thought the tickets were almost gone.

We don’t need to mention the words that came out of my mouth after I hung up the telephone.

If you are paying careful attention, gentle reader, you will note that there are six of us that go. And, strangely enough, we sort of like to sit together. Since the tickets sell out fast, the choices can quickly be reduced to single seats in widely scattered locations.

The next day was spent tracking down tickets. I managed to get the last six ticket for the last show of the last day of the concert series. And, needless to say, they were not the best seats. But the theater is small enough that no seat is truly bad. Unless, like me, you are short and end up sitting behind my son, who has tall hair. I had a wonderful view of the back of #1 Son’s neck through most of the show. Those around me who could see the stage tell me that the view wasn’t bad. The music, as always, was wonderful!

But I digress.

Before the concert, we all had dinner at Salvador Molly’s in Hillsdale. I had a wonderful lamb curry. Those of us who are omnivorous decided I made the best entree choice. Those of us who are vegetarian voted for #1 Son’s stuffed eggplant. For dessert, J and I shared a slab (there is no other word) of pumpkin bread pudding. It was heavenly.

At dinner, J, L and Z presented me with my Christmas present: A BCD clock (that’s Binary Coded Decimal for all you geek-challenged readers out there). It tells the time in BCD using little blue LEDs. For example, the time on the clock in the picture is 07:17:27.

Of course I had to play with it a little bit to figure out how to set it, how to make it a 24-hour clock, etc.

It is now sitting on my desk at work, with the seconds flashing away in little blue dots. People walking by have said: What is that? Is that a clock? Is that a binary clock? Cool!

I work among geeky types.

On Saturday I added printer-friendly versions of the Freebies pages so that the recipes and patterns can be printed out in black and white sans sidebars, etc.

I also finally finished playing Myst V: End Of Ages, which I will review sometime later if I get around to it.

I tell you all of this, gentle reader, to explain why Sock Scarf Two remains unfinished. I only have one stripe repeat plus the ribbing left to do. That’s about 50 short rounds on whopping big needles. That’s it. Then kitchener together. And done.

But I’ve hit The Wall with this project.

You know The Wall. I hit it with every project. It’s the place where I’ve sworn to myself that I will work on no other project until Project X is finished. So I slog on, looking for distractions trying not to get distracted because I would rather be doing almost anything else just love working on Project X. I eventually (usually) get past the wall and love Project X by the time I get to finishing. But sometimes the wall is high and thick and very hard to penetrate.

Sock Scarf Two is the current Project X. I know I’m going to love this object when it’s finished. It’s cute and funny, I love the colors, etc. But right now I hate the sight of it and I’d rather be cleaning the cats’ litter boxes outside naked in the dark and freezing cold with rain dripping down the back of my neck and icicles forming on my nose than to work a round on Sock Scarf Two. I have to force myself to pick up the needles. I’m going to try really hard to get the damn thing wonderful project completed tonight.

Do you ever hit The Wall with your project, knitting or otherwise? How do you motivate yourself to keep going?