Why do I try, try again???

Despite my very good attempts, I'm aweful at lace-knitting. The problem I have, among other things, is that I love, love, LOVE the look of it. I love the airy-ness, the holes (darn yo's!) and I just love how delicate and intricate it looks. HOWEVER, I lack the focus and concentration to complete lace projects and I think that it all comes down to why I knit.
I knit for the relaxation it gives me after a busy day with my girls. I love how it feels on my fingers and I love that for the most part, I can knit w/o having to think too much. It's like the feeling I used to get when I run (which I really need to pick up again-obviously, all of this knitting is having a HUGE effect on my rear!)-my mind goes to a calmer place and I feel so much better. I can think more clearly and tend to work out any issues/problems that I may have while I knit. I come away with a calmer, clearer head and a project that I made with my own hands! How gratifying, right?
So why then do I go and try lace?? Lace knitting, however pretty it may be, is not the type of knitting I like at all. It requires great focus and concentration and it also requires knowing how stitches work with each other to create a pattern. Mess up this pattern and you'll be sorry. Ripping out lace is like folding a load of whites only to drop it in a puddle of mud soon after.
This is all stemming from a teeny tiny project that I decided had to be done for this weekend-actually today-a wedding garter. Found on the OldLaceKnitter's website, it is a very pretty pattern and I thought would be a quick one. No...no it wasn't. I was knitting with 00 size needles and had to do 22 repeats of this seamingly simple lace. It wasn't. My hands felt huge and clumsy and my level of frustration was building quick. The cotton crochet thread I had chosen was super-slippery and even though I was doing a pretty good job, it was going to require a pretty good amount of spray starch blocking for it to look anything like the picture-IF I made it in time....no such luck....
I gave up on that halfway through yesterday, opting to "design" my own garter instead. I thought I would prefer simpler lines on this garter-thinking that the pattern was a little too old-fashioned looking/cheesy. I switched yarns to some cleckheaton mohair-blend stuff (I know, what was I thinking???) and began again. My intention was to knit it all, block it and then add beads. Ambitious?? Yep...Oh, did I mention also that during all this I am sick with yet another virus caught from my youngest who insists on being super cuddly during the most snottiest of times?? Did I also mention that I still have to finish a pair of booties for hubby's coworker AND a HUGE amount of pre-work for an upcoming knitting class that I'm taking? Yes......ahhhhh....the stresses of knitting?
Which brings me back to my first thought-why do I knit anyway??
I laugh a little when I allow myself to get all bent out of shape and stressed over all of the knitting projects that I place upon myself. Will the world really end if hubby's coworker gets her booties at the end of the week? Is it really going to kill me to knit up 18 6 inch squares by 3/14?? I really need to calm down...
Which is what I'm doing now. My darling husband, who was sick-as-a-dog last week, has taken over the household-he even vacuummed!!! He has already fed the kids, brought me coffee, vacuumed the upstairs and is right now doing an activity with the kids while I lay here in bed typing out this post. Yesterday, I caught him folding the girls' laundry.....God, I love this man!!
So, for the rest of the day, I am supposed to catch up on much-needed sleep, drink tea, knit...read some magazines from last month that I never got to...knit...drink tea.....have soup and sleep. Not bad for a lazy Sunday...
Oh-about that garter...finished it and hubby declared it the most unsexy thing he'd ever seen. Good thing I didn't make it to the shower after all. It was today...:0)