I. COULD. NOT. RESIST.

I did. I did cave. The "Willow Cowl" called and called and I listened. I opened my yarn box and on top was the perfect sock yarn. I cast on 150 stitches and knit. For eight rounds. And I continued. It's not as if I went out and bought more yarn. I didn't. Nor did I go out and buy a pattern. It was there. It was free. It all whispered to me that it would be a perfect match..."try it out" it said. So, I did.

And how could I not when the weather is like this? 

You want that I should have a cold neck?

I am making progress on other projects. The orange wallaby is coming right along. Two sleeves done and part of the body.

I Almost Caved

My neck is cold and I gave away all my turtlenecks. Is that a good enough excuse to make a cowl? I thought so. I found this on -line - willow_cowl - and wondered if I had yarn to make it. Then I realized that I had far too many projects on the needles to even think about casting on another. So I thought I would try to get at least one project a week done from the previous post and see if my neck was still cold. After all, it should be about May before I get these projects remotely close to being finished.

Here's some progress:



I combined two patterns: the "One Day Beret" and the "Baby Pin Wheel" blanket.
I would show you her face but she was brushing her teeth. I did take a picture though - for future blackmailing. After all, she was the one who wanted me to take the picture. And I never said I wouldn't post it.

The fingerless mitts are done as well. LJ wears them and I know they keep her warm at work. It's been -7degrees C (20degrees F) here and we have snow! So anything made with 100% wool has got to keep her warm.

I've been trying to incorporate walking into my daily schedule but since I've been sick since last year I haven't been able to. The girls wanted me to walk up to the mall (about 3 km away) but I only got as far as the corner. At that point I turned and walked home. So my walk was truncated to about 1 km. So all in all I've walked about once since the turn of the year. Keren, I need you. We could walk every morning.

Here's where we parted ways.

The Long Winter

Yep! It's snowing again. We woke up to snow and it's still snowing now. And winter only started two weeks ago! Check out Laura Ingall's Wilder most boring book: the long winter You will find that book perfectly describes the long winter they had where she lived that year. Just like the book itself - long, tedius and boring. (By the way, I really did like her books for the most part and read through them several times). And that describes what we are going through right now only to a less severe degree.

seasons

Just a little snow.

Snow In April!

I've never seen snow in April before. Not that I can recollect. Yesterday was cold and I thought it would be nice to have snow again. But I was really thinking about next year! This morning when I got up snow was flying. Sadly, it didn't last. In fact it's sunny and warm right now. But it was cold enough to make me want to knit again.
Here's what I've been working on lately. Guess what each is going to be?

Snow Again!

Just to let you know...it has snowed again here in the Vancouver area! This is the third major snowfall we've had this season. Although it's not as bad as they expected it will still make getting LJ to school a bear. I was hoping schools would be closed but since they're open I have to go out and clear the "weather" from the car and get it going now.

One Way to Spend A Day

It took us eight and one half hours to make a three hour trip to the SeaTac Airport. The kids' plane landed at 6:30PM--right on time but we were three hours late picking them up! The roads as well as the border were horrendous. Snow and ice and accidents everywhere! And no one knows how to drive in the snow and no one wants to put snow tires on for one mile, take them off for two and put them back on again for five. It was hopeless. Just to get from North Seattle by the 405 interchange to the airport was three hours. The on-ramp alone took us 30 minutes because someone keep slipping and sliding towards a parked bus and thus refused to budge.

It was a relief to finally pick up the kids. I sure miss them when they are away. We left the airpost at 10:00Pm and got home at 4:15AM--only a little over 6 hours this time. But I would do it again in a heart beat because of who was there.

Snowed In!

I really, really, really like snow. For me, it's better than spending a week on the beach of Waikiki.

When we woke up yesterday morning there was at least 10 inches of snow on the roof ofTeegee's car. We live where 10cm (8 inches) was predicted but we got much more than that. It started to snow on Saturday afternoon at 2PM but it didn't look very promising; it was so faint But within 24 hours we were very well cover. We thought of attempting the drive in to meeting but decided against it. We may have made it there but it was still snowing pretty heavily and to get home may have been a problem. G and D stopped by on their way in and we made them coffee to have along with her cookies. (Sort of like a pit stop on the Pony Express.) They were debating on whether to go in or not and finally decided to go. LK went with them (carrying two blankets, just in case!) and called us on the road to let us know the roads were not as good as some had led them to believe. So we stayed home. It never let up.

Later that morning B and I both heard what we thought were the cats upstairs playing but knew it couldn't be so because they were both sleeping peacefully. We looked out the back window and noticed that the fence had been knocked down by a branch of the neighbor's huge tree. (I guess that tells you how rambunctious our cats are when they play!)












 
The afternoon meeting had been moved up a half hour and the gospel meeting cancelled. We were called and persuaded to go to the C house but there was no way B was going to drive! G offered to come and get us and SC brought us back(twice because B forgot his Biblecase). Was I glad I wasn't driving. There are some pretty crazy people with SUV's that think they are invinsible and thus drive like there is no tomorrow. We actually saw someone spin out just turning the corner. Others were barrelling down the road as if they were the only ones there. S tried to stay as far away from other cars as possible, especially those kinds.


My Wallaby models wearing the sweaters I made them.











When we went to bed it was still snowing! The power went off several times in the night and there were more strange sounds. I always get up when I am rudely awakened just to see what it is that's woken me up or maybe it's just a reaction to the sudden jolt. Poor B. I'm always leaping out of bed. This time it was another branch from the neighbor's tree! Hopefully, the tree stays standing and doesn't ever fall on our house. It's probably 100 feet tall.

The "kids" are flying in to Seattle tonight and we plan to go pick them up. From what I hear the border is horrendous. It took Char hours just to get through the Nexus Lane at Peace Arch yesterday afternoon. And that's the fast lane! Maybe we should leave now. Some kind soul left this link a while back for me to check the borders and to give me peace of mind. It will certainly come in handy today.

Teegee called last night at 10:00PM. He asked me if we were in bed yet. I asked him why he wasn't in bed yet. (It's one am in NJ.) "It's the last night of the conference," he said. Pat answer. They had just been at Chelly's house and just got back to the motel. I doubt any of the kids got much sleep while they were away. It's very hard for two of them to get up early in the first place and NJ is three hours ahead of us. I had wondered if they had made it to any 9AM meetings when their bodies said 6AM. Hmmm.