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They're back in action today, as if yesterday never happened, playing with "Playmo" and the structures we built last week, a cottonball igloo and a cornstarch packing peanut castle (In case you didn't know, you can use them the same as Magic Nuudles.)
This counts for Winter Whites, doesn't it?
Thank you for the get well wishes.
We had two fevering boys in the house again today, and so we settled in to let them run their course unmedicated this time, to nap, and to watch waaaaay too many movies, which has the bonus side effect of a lot of knitting time for me.
Slipping back into the caffeine habit. After the stomach illnesses of Thanksgiving weekend that cleared my body of the need for caffeine, it was a couple of weeks before the first cup of green tea. Then, decaffeinated coffee, but only outside the house at a coffee shop. Then, an inch or so of caffeinated coffee added to that cup of decaf.
Then, one morning, while talking on the phone with a friend,without even a thought towards it, I found I'd absentmindedly brewed a single cup of caffeinated coffee for myself. What???? How did that happen?
One cup sufficed for the last week or so. This morning, it was two, followed by a cup of hot cocoa.
Uh oh.
The linen cloth, thrifted years ago, I seamed seamed and sewed a button edging to. It's been sitting almost unused for 8-9 years. Maybe it's time to quit hoarding and start taking stuff like this out and actually using them. It's just that they're a pain to clean when compared to wiping down a table. Look. I couldn't even bring myself to set my cup of coffee on it for fear of staining it.
Yesterday it rained and rained, washing much of the snow away, turning the rest to slush and ice. Last night it blew like crazy in the middle of the night, but bringing no snow until the wee hours.
This morning, I woke, looked outside the window, smiled, and screamed! Next: grabbed the phone to called my big brother in NYC. He's like a a kid still when it comes to snow. We have an unwritten agreement to call eachother and share things like the first snow of the year and days like today when "It's dumping!"
I don't think I'm quite ready to give up on Winter Whites week. It went by too quickly, so I may continue it on into next week. Thank you all for your comments and encouragement. I have yet to go through all the pics posted by other participants.
Links to these white-ish Flickr favorites of mine here. Whoops. That link should be fixed now.
Down
by
the
creek.
Exploring at the reservoir, a strange mix of ice, sand, and water formed by water, wind, fluctuating temperatures, and, of course, a large dose of human intervention and destruction. We were trying to get out there all yesterday afternoon but didn't manage to do so until shortly before sunset. Then, my camera batteries died not long afterwards. The pictures are a little dark and we didn't stay long anyways, as the already 10 degree F temperature dropped quickly along with the sunlight.
It's hard to believe that we'd be in well up over our heads here if it were summertime when the reservoir is full of water. I've heard what an extraordinarily beautiful valley this was before they dammed and flooded it in the mid 70's, in the process, relocating an entire town out of the flood zone to a new, more planned, and thus likely more stale, version of its former self. There's a sadness to this area for me. There such a feeling of the contrived about it. Still, we try to enjoy it for what it is, for the swimming in the summer time and the wide open quiet solitude it provides in the winter time. The 90 mile long "lake" is surrounded now by (I don't like using this word) virtually all public forest service land.
Stacked things on the mantle shelf by the woodstove:
Sort of silly and whimsical, I know, but it makes me smile to not have things too stuffily and formally arranged up on that shelf. Here's the opposite side of the shelf, and spectrum.
Snowmen made last winter with thrifted wooden beads, a piece of wooden dowelling, and extra knitted pieces from making korkenissen. Sea Urchin shells brought back from Panama last year. Aspen stump, cut off of the base of one of our Christmas "trees" several years ago, and which has lived permanently on this shelf ever since. Stacked fabric tree sewn in December, Candle holders stacked up when dusting the shelf after Christmas. Mushroom knit and felted this last week but not yet sewn together. Hooks still there from hanging stockings.
Go check out the new things in Amber's shop. Cute linen smocks, pretty bags, book marks, and her embroidery! She's just updated today.
A new favorite, useful, and totally unauthorized knitting project. Pattern: Razorshell Neckwarmer. Yarn: 1 ball of Jaeger Matchmaker Merino DK (Sadly, discontinued. Boo hoo!). It's the same yarn I used for this scarf, and almost the exact same pattern, only knit as a tube, in the round, using all but a few yards of the ball.
I had hoped to have this done to wear skiing last weekend but, instead, was finishing the last few stitches of the cast off as we pulled back into the driveway Sunday afternoon. Since then, I've been wearing it almost constantly, aside from blocking and sleeping, and in several different ways.
Only, with how cold it was on the mountain last weekend, this would have been helpful, but maybe not quite warm enough, so I ended up picking up a more practical, but far less pretty, backup.
Oh, I could just knit aaaaall daaaaay looooong with warm, wooly, grey goodness this time of year!
Jack Frost reached right through the windows during the night, and we woke yesterday morning to find our paper snowflakes frozen right into the ice he'd painted there while we'd slept.
There may be some double posting through this week to fit in the knitting stuff, too.
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