Friday, January 26, 2007

Nesting...

Nesting...

How strange is the nesting instinct? I spent three years, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and all my remaining energy for the next decade on graduating from law school and passing the bar. I should be thrilled to work as much as possible, flex these legal muscles and experience the power of my new license.

But no... I am nesting, I feel that each hour spent on law is one less hour spent hand crocheting baby blankets or hand quilting soft books to chew on. All I want to do is stay home and move all the furniture in the house, clean the walls and floors, pack away all the clutter, and arrange hand made baby items into a cute little nursery of calm for my son.

I want to buy a rocking chair and sit in it while I painstakingly learn to knit. I find myself more entranced by Jo-Ann fabric's annual post christmas sale than I do any legal texts or cases. I want to make tapestry to bring color into my house and homemade fleece blankets to wrap his warm little body in.

I want to learn what each setting on my fancy sewing machine does, and employ it somehow.

The nesting instinct kicked in two weeks ago, when I made curtains for the guest room, continued into last week when I placed plastic weatherproofing stuff over all the bedroom windows, and hand stitched a fleece curtain for Monkey's room. It has now grown to the point that I have panels of fleece, flannel, and batting for a number of projects that call to me every day.

"Don't go to work! Measure, cut, and sew a receiving blanket!"

It just goes to show you that all the education in the world can't halt the power of the instinctual self. It is a force of nature, and far more powerful than anything we can create. It pushes aside the logical self, insinuates itself into the emotional self, and leaves you craving knitting needles when you should be reading over the parol evidence rule.

I wonder if the court would accept motions in cross stitch format.

4 comments:

ellen said...

Nesting is an interesting phenomenon. Daniel came home one day to find me cleaning the corners of the kitchen floor with a tooth brush. It needed to be done, didn't it? :)

Anonymous said...

Catt, I've told you about scrubbing the basement laundry room floor on my hands and knees when 8 1/2 months pregnant with you. With Shane it was mulch: I knew I was having a C-section and wouldn't be able to weed my flower beds. Therefore I needed mulch. Every weekend I'd send your dad off for more mulch, and then I'd arrange it like furniture around the various plant beds: a little more here, a little less there. I was quite mad. You never know how it'll take you. Your activities at least result in beauty throughout your house. And why wouldn't any judge want that motion in crossstitch?
Love you,
Mom

The Observer said...

(I have returned).
Do you recall how we discussed the idea of reading Holmes, Warren and Ginsburg to children at night and see what came of it?

We miss you guys back here.

Anonymous said...

I totally know what you mean about nesting. Lately, I've been feeling like Charlotte from Sex and the City. There are days when I feel like I could be perfectly content being a mom and a wife and staying home with my kids.

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