Too OCD for hand-painted socks?

Okay, so remember back when I was just visiting Seattle looking for a place to live and decided to buy myself yarn? I chose the color in honor of Project Spectrum. Right, right, I know, not exactly ALL orange or ALL yellow... kinda actually maybe about as little orange and no yellow as I usually wear. I come from too many years of all black, forgive me as I begin my adventures in color on the small scale :). Yup, this was sock yarn after all.

I've cast on for a new pair of socks, who knows, this time they might actually fit MY foot. If not, my mom's birthday is just around the corner :). I decided to do both at the same time for two very important reasons (to me and my anal-retentive borderline OCD ways). #1 that dreaded SSS I was having with my last pair, and #2 I wanted EXACTLY THE SAME SOCK as sock #1 in my last pair. This made knitting STRESSFUL and not the sanity therapy I've come to expect. This was bad bad bad bad. But if I begin both socks at the same time, this problem should be completely solved, yes?

Right. So I looked at these lovely hand-painted center-pull ready to go yarns and I freaked. It took me almost a week to cast on. THEY DIDN'T MATCH! (I know, I know, hand-painted is quirky that way, it's not gonna match, yadda yadda yadda. Others of you have already come to accept the whole "hand knit socks don't match" mantra... even Andy had to remind me these are hand-painted (rubbing off on others...oops :).) I had not.

I am still in the "pairs are pairs only if they match" world. I wore white ankle socks for 12 years of my school career. (And really, cuz I'm el cheap-o, I wore them until they were threadbare up to 6 years later than I needed to.) Each week my mother lovingly washed and paired 5 pairs of identical white socks, and when she gave them over I sat and re-paired them with their "correct" partner. This was every single week for 12 very long years. My mother and I even got into a screaming fight about "lost socks" and "singletons" that literally led to all the socks getting trashed and 5 new pairs of ankle socks bought to settle the issue.

Yes, I know, I've reread that bit a couple/few times now and I agree, I am one sick individual. I also hold a Master's Degree in Education from Stanford and have permission to teach in both Hawai'i and California (soon Washington), be afraid, be very very afraid :). I wake up screaming sometimes too.

Moving on; a week with the yarn all around me and trying to figure out a good starting point that would keep my nerves and OCD in check, success! They will be similar. If the eye twitching starts I might have to frog them and make similar hats instead. Yes, I have made hats using sock yarn. Yup, takes FOR-EV-ER to get a beanie out of it, uh huh, I'd do it again. I'm sick that way too.

Do note what I had to go through to keep the hives from appearing:One center-pull ready to go yarn had to be completely rewound to match the colors coming out of its partner. And the helpful arrows (orange in honor of Project Spectrum), point out the differing ends. While one end is about 3 inches long, the other is indeed almost 30. Well, 20 at least.

I hear they might have pills for people like me.