To knit or not to knit

Ah, that is a question! I learned how to knit in a kinda/sorta way from my grandmother years ago. In college one of my sorority sisters taught me how to crochet and I whipped up a few terribly ugly scarves that several very sweet ladies wore for a whole freezing Massachusetts winter. Somewhere between then and now, I have forgotten it all.
This is not to say that I haven't tried! A few months ago, I converted my old Vera Bradley diaper bag, which is just too pretty to languish in a closet, to a knitting bag. I dug through closets and boxes to gather up all the balls of yarn, knitting and crochet needles and various instruction manuals I could find. It is a sad collection of squares and rectangles that I started as "practice" and never got more than a few inches into the project before getting distracted.
I think one of my problems is simply that I begin knitting a square to remember what I'm doing and then lose interest because there is no end project in sight. When I'm knitting I really enjoy it, and it keeps me from zoning out in front of the laptop while I'm sitting on the couch watching tv once the boys are in bed. I'm not the only one who does that, right? Even worse are the nights that my husband and I are both doing that while sitting next to each other. Ahh, technology.
So here's a little round-up of knitting projects I found (where else?) on Pinterest that might just inspire me to finish what I start.

This is a sky scarf from Whipup.net. The idea is that you knit a row every day in the color of the sky, and at the end of the year you'll have a way to remember the sky. I'm probably a few days too late to start this, since I wasn't paying attention the first two days of the year to go ahead and start now. It also would require me to know how to knit with 7 colors at once. Hmm.

I wish I knew how to knit in the round to make these hats from PurlBee. Maybe after a beginner project or two I could give it a try.

One thing I really have my eye on is an infinity scarf. There's a pattern here that looks a bit complex, but it's gorgeous! Here's another pattern on Etsy that I really like, but again...too soon? This one looks more manageable, but the pattern seems to be gone now from Etsy.

When I decide on a project, I'll post here, and do some updates so I can be accountable to someone for this!

Anyone have good beginner knitting advice or projects? I've got a couple good books, and a good friend who knows what she's doing, so hopefully that will be enough to get me through!