To say that I am unhappy with the recent WordPress 3.9 update does not begin to get at it.

The “improved” version of my blogging tool has “issues.” Every night I blog, it seems a new issue reveals itself. I switch from one browser to another, I clear out my cache, and I read various articles about the nine thousand steps one should take (and in what order) if one encounters difficulties with the new and improved “features” and “widgets.”

All I can say is thank goodness I have crochet.

While, at the moment, my blogging tool often fails me, my crochet hook does not, and taking hook to yarn has done a lot over the past two weeks to ease my aggravation, and science is beginning to better understand why crafting is so helpful.

In the article “This is your brain on knitting,” psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes the magic that draws so many of us into the vortex of our chosen craft as flow — “a few moments in time when you are so completely absorbed by an activity that nothing else seems to matter.”

The past two days, in between seemingly innumerable errands, and the aggravation I have encountered trying to use my new and “improved” blogging tool, I managed to pick up my hook here and there which not only gave me relief from the hurly burly and frustration, but also added three more rows of the six-petal flowers to the shawls I am working on.

Two of the rows were added to the shawl I think of as “shawl Number One” (for a grand total of nine rows):

and one was added to the shawl I think of as “shawl number two” (now just 31 rows shy of completion):

I know that eventually I will get the problems with my blog straightened out, but until then, I am glad that I have my crochet to give me succor and bring me joy.