Yesterday, while driving to the bakery, I heard a snippet of a story on NPR. “It’s not that bad,” the storyteller said. “I know it sounds bad in the pit of your stomach, but that’s mostly the acoustics.”

Holding that thought, I completed all my errands, thoroughly cleaned three rooms, finished my book and the Christmas gift I was knitting, and made sauerkraut for dinner, over the protests of my sons.

It was cool enough to enjoy the boiled wool throw I made from recycled sweaters in the summer. I was idly musing on a joke Dweezy told last year. A state trooper sees a woman driving along, knitting all the while. He zooms up to her and shouts “PULL OVER!” “No, she shouts back,” it’s a cardigan!”

That’s when I remembered a couple of pure wool cardies in the Salvation Army box. Frayed cuffs and little holes had forced me to get them out of the closets, but they would make great borders for the throw. So I felted them up and cut them in strips, and I will sew them on today. I am still sorry that the cables in the pink and blue fabrics disappeared into a slight general texture and the Fair Isle cardigan melded into a vague stripey mush of color, but the throw will be very cosy.

And the scraps made an absolutely perfect coaster. The search for the perfect coaster, the Philosopher’s Coaster, may not be one of the most important things you will think about today. However, the discovery of a solution to any of life’s little problems is worth celebrating. How many coasters are absorbent, firm enough to support the cup properly, heatproof, attractive, and free? This one will also give you a use for your old Backstreet Boys CDs, or the many many CD-ROMs that come in your mailbox urging you to change your internet provider. You can make one yourself. Here’s how: I took scraps from the felted fabric and a discarded CD, cut circles just to fit the CD, and blanket stitched them around the edges, with the CD inside.

I intend to pull out the bag of felted scraps and make some more, too. There is also the throw to sew up, the Hallowe’en table runner, the second DNA scarf, which is currently just an inch or two on the needles, the funny hat #2 daughter requested, a dozen Christmas gifts yet to make, 5 more rooms to clean, and — never mind. We all have more to do than time to do it in, don’t we? I also must go to my dad’s booth at the art fair, take the boys shopping, and get to church on time. So perhaps I should get off the computer and to work.