I told myself that I would start this year’s afghan on August first, and I woke up this morning only to find that that day is today.

Having determined that this year’s afghan will be comprised of 961 squares, I have committed myself to finishing the squares during the month of August, so that all that is left for the month of September and the first week of October is the panic and late nights that accompany assembling the squares and weaving in the myriad ends.

As I have mentioned previously, I decided to celebrate figuring out what I was going to do for my state fair afghan by making another project entirely, and I spent most of the day working on the sleeves of a circle jacket from Drops Design. By the time 6:22 pm EDT rolled around, I reluctantly set aside the circle jacket to begin work on the afghan.

I started with squares that I had completed on previous days in an effort to get some extra squares made for those days I didn’t get 31 squares made. Here is what I had:

One hour later, it was time for dinner, but I had managed to add nine additional squares to the total for a lucky 13:

As I crocheted, I listened to the sound track of Legally Blonde, and drew particular inspiration from the song, “Chip on My Shoulder.” It is at the point in the musical when Elle is overwhelmed at how badly her plans have gone and she wails “I just need to prove to everyone that I’m serious,” and Emmett counters with “What you need is to get to work.”

So, heeding Emmett’s advice to Elle, I got to work and managed to complete nine more squares (at an average of 6 &2/3 minutes each) before it was time to make dinner.

At that rate, it looks as though I have two hours of work ahead of me before I go to sleep tonight.