Last week was incredibly busy for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that I traded in my truck and got a 2011 Volkswagon Jetta TDI station wagon. More on that in a moment, but first . . .

ERRATA ALERT

I hate mistakes, but alas, I am not perfect. There are two mistakes in the Winter issue of the newsletter, and they both have to do with some excess K1's that got past me:

• In the Fence pullover instructions, row 5 of the chart has extra k1's on either side of the make 1 symbols. Those should be black squares instead of knits. And row 5 of the written pattern should read: K1, p8, [M1R, ctr dbl inc, M1L, p6] twice, M1R, ctr dbl inc, M1L, p8, k1.

• In the Cuculla pattern, there is an extra k1 at the end of rows 6 and 8 in the written instructions. The chart is correct. Rows 6 and 8 should read: *K1, yo, sl2—k1—p2sso, yo, k1, yo, sl2—k1—p2sso, yo; rep from * around.

Mea culpa.

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Knitting is still happening. I had a very fun class on Saturday at Camas Creek called UFO Sighting. The premise of the class was that students could bring a UFO (unfinished object) that's been languishing for whatever reason, and I would get them back on track. I had three students ( I wouldn't do more than five in a class like that) and we had a good time. Then yesterday I joined about 30 other women at the Conrad Mansion in Kalispell for an afternoon of knitting hats for charity. That was great fun. The Mansion is normally closed during the winter, so it was fun to have the place to ourselves for a few hours.

For the past 2 months or so, I've been working on a prayer shawl during our Sunday School class at church. Prayer shawls make good knitting for meetings and classes because they don't require a whole lot of mental attention from me. I was using Lion Brand Homespun in the Fiesta colorway. The woman who sits next to me in class would periodically lean over and pet the shawl and say, "What a pretty color this yarn is." About halfway through, I decided that she needed to be the recipient of the shawl. I love it when people admire what I am working on. So I fringed the shawl Saturday night and gave it to her yesterday morning. She was just tickled.

Our Sunday School class is doing a book study on Living More With Less. This book was originally published in 1980, and has been updated and expanded in a 30th anniversary edition. There is a companion cookbook (the More-With-Less Cookbook) which is a standard reference book in my kitchen—the African Groundnut Stew recipe is one of my favorites, made with chicken and peanut butter. Yes, peanut butter.

This is a challenging book and a challenging topic. I thought the husband and I were living pretty simply before, but the mere fact that we live in the United States means our standard of living far surpasses that of most of the rest of the world. We really don't know what simple means. My friend Susan's daughter is living in Chad right now, and reading about her life there makes me realize how much we take for granted. Visit her blog today—she has a wonderful post on International Women's Day.

Simple is certainly not a one-ton pickup truck, no matter how much I might like driving it. I decided last Monday that I needed a different vehicle, and by Monday night the husband and I had settled on a Volkswagon JettaTDI wagon from the local dealer (we both really wanted a diesel, and I really wanted a stick shift). Amazingly, there is quite a market for used full-size pickups here in Montana (even the less fuel-efficient ones), and we had no trouble selling the truck to the Dodge dealer for an excellent price. I am waiting on the check to arrive so I can pick the wagon up from the Volkswagon dealer. I used to have a Saturn station wagon. It was a great car and did fine here in Montana.

Living More With Less is full of all sorts of wonderful information. Alas, one of the dangers of studying a book like this is that it can leave a person paralyzed with guilt. It doesn't take much to push me into the deep end of the guilt pool where I will flounder around for a while until someone pulls me out. The husband teases me about being so conflicted. I have to keep reminding myself that guilt is only bad if it doesn't motivate you to change your behavior, so I am trying to focus on all the positive changes we've made to live more simply (and we've made quite a few). It's a process, and there are no easy answers. For instance, the husband thinks that my homemade tortillas are a thousand times better than the ready-made ones from the grocery store (and they are cheaper). The problem is that the homemade tortillas are a fair bit of work to roll out and fry up. That's an hour of my time that could be spent working on a knitting design. How does one make those choices?

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I seem to have worn out my keyboard, and I've only had it for about six months. I noticed today that it is being flaky—letters won't appear on the screen, or they appear on the screen out of order, and I have to push a lot harder on the keys. I am going to have to shop for a replacement tomorrow (so much for simple). My transcription homework took me twice as long as it should have today.

I leave you with a quote from the More-With-Less cookbook: Put dismal thoughts aside . . . because this book is not about cutting back. This book is about living joyfully, richly, and creatively.

Creatively.