A Few Flakes

Ok, so more than a few! Yes, that’s a yardstick, showing how many inches of snow we had in our yard this afternoon. The snow started with a quick shower at about 10 a.m. on Friday, and then began in earnest at right about noon. The kids got out of school early and John didn’t bother to go in since we pretty much figured he’d have to turn right around and get them anyway.

The snow blew fast and furious through the night, in a way that I don’t think I have ever seen in my whole life. Blizzards are a rare thing in these parts! The last storm with this much snow all at once happened more than a hundred years ago. 30 to 38 inches was common all over the area. We had just under three feet, I think, and goodness knows when we’ll be able to emerge from the house again. The driveway is slowly getting done but it will be a bit more time before John can dig the vans out.

It’s all good… we’ve got Netflix on Demand, lots of hot chocolate, and no shortage of toilet paper around here. I’m reminding myself often that this is the sort of thing I’ve been wishing for, a few days where I have no choice but to stay home and make myself enjoy it. And enjoying it I am!

The one downer is that my wheelchair charger failed last night and so my batteries are rapidly dying. I do have a spare chair but it hurts my back in an awful way. It’ll probably be the end of the week before I can get to where the wheelchair place is, which is about an hour from here. There always has to be something…

Here’s a gallery of photos of the snowfall around our house. Please do ignore the fact that I did not do my hair or my makeup this morning… I figured no one would be seeing me today. This’ll teach me! (As usual, click on the thumbnail to see a larger photo.)

And here’s our video of the snowfall:

The rest of the weekend (and probably Monday, too) will be for cleaning up and digging out. And more digging, and more digging… but that’s ok. There’s a steamy pot of chili waiting.

Ode to a Missed Deadline

Ok, I’ll ‘fess up.

I missed my Christmas knitting deadline.

Thank goodness it wasn’t a gift, but I was hoping to be able to wear my funky elf hat in Christmas morning photos. The same thing happened to me the last time I knit this pattern. I should know that starting this pattern in November just isn’t enough time, at least not at the Holiday Season. I mean, with everything that goes on at this time of year, there were days when I never even knit at all.

And this is why I don’t knit occasion gifts. I never make my knitting deadlines. So, I’ve for the most part decided just to never have any.

The thing is, I’ve started the decreases now, so soon enough the rounds on this hat will begin to go quickly. So will I wait til next Christmas to wear this hat? No way! Let everyone think I’m crazy when I show up wearing it when it’s done. (I was thinking of attaching jingle bells on the pointy end of the hat… maybe I’ll wait til Christmas for that part…) My coworkers already know that I’m weird, what with the other Santa hat and my eyeball scarf. So this one won’t be hard to wear to work, for sure. Except that it clashes with my purple coat. Oh well…

The weather has been really cold here! Ok, so we’re not below zero like a lot of folks in some parts of the country, but our area has relatively mild winters and it’s cold here! Our old drafty house isn’t helping. almost think I can feel the wind coming right through the walls sometimes. Yesterday was everyone’s first day back to school and work after the holidays, and even though the weatherman swears to me that the days are getting longer now, I don’t believe it. Not even the sun wanted to get out of bed yesterday morning. It’s supposed to get colder before we see normal winter weather again. I can definitely say I’m not looking forward to the rest of this week.

One thing I’d like to share before I go… my favorite Christmas gift. The kids went on a cruise with my in-laws this summer, and they had a photo taken while they were gone:

I love this photo. It’s on my mantle, on my computer wallpaper, and now on my blog. Now I can look at it anytime. I’m such a proud mama.

Goodnight.

A Big Surprise at Knit Group Today!

It was really cold today. So cold, in fact, that I actually considered for a moment staying home and napping instead of going to knit group today. (Please don’t tell my family that I am so easily swayed… they’ll order cold weather every time.) Everyone was slow getting out the door, me included, but out we did go, into the wind. The cold wind. (Can you tell I hate cold?)

Boy I am glad I decided to go! By the time I got there, there was a long row of tables already set up, and it was already mostly full. I couldn’t believe it! Was I that late?

I sat down next to two newbies, Cathy and Susan? It was their first time joining us, and they were trying their hand at the Knit Picks tote bag kit. I own this kit myself but have not started it yet. And then I looked over and who should I see?

JENNIFER!!

Jennifer is someone I met through Ravelry, I think the first time was in a thread on the boards about blindness and accessibility of websites. Yes, we talk about just about everything on Ravelry. (She’s jinniver, a prolific Raveler whose post count would take me another 10 years to match). I’m lucky to have her as a regular reader of this blog, and she frequently comments when I post, which truly is the juice that keeps me going. (To think that for years this blog was actually a static website, and I never did receive the added energy from getting comments. Nowadays, I could not imagine that!)

Jen and her husband recently moved to Virginia from Texas and so of course I said to her once that since she was in the area, she’d have to come check out our group sometime. Now, she’s about an hour away, and I never really thought she’d actually ever come. In fact, she came today without telling me, so that I’d be surprised. (To further the surprise, she threw me off by commenting on my blog at nearly midnight last night and didn’t mention that she’d be coming…) Wow! What a treat for me! And I immediately discovered that Jennifer is not shy and she just jumped right into our group as if she’d been coming all along. How cool is that?

But of course, Jennifer wasn’t the only person at group today. In fact, we were rather crowded for such a cold, blustery day. Here’s a gallery of photos from today’s Knit Group. As usual, click to embiggen:

I wish I could say I got a photo of everyone, or that I even remembered everyone’s name today. Sadly, I am remiss on both. But the photos above give the flavor of the many activities of the group and show, I think, how our group just “clicks” and people help each other. A lot. It’s one of the coolest things about our group. Today there were people paired off winding yarn, helping with knit fixes, teaching new techniques, and mulling over patterns yet to be cast on. It’s the kind of thing I was hoping for when starting a knit group. People coming together over yarn and coffee, and getting energy and inspiration from each other. It’s great!

Time to leave came too soon for me, as usual. But, I’m glad that starting in 2010, we are now having regular meetings twice a month instead of only once. I know I won’t be able to make every meeting, but knowing that they’ll be there again in two weeks? Awesome. I already can’t wait.

There Once Was a Girl from Nantucket…

Nantucket Road, that is.

This is the story of the place where I grew up, and the people who lived there. It was the 1970s. The neighborhood had sprung to life in the late 1940s and early 50s. In fact, my grandparents had moved to this very street when they left Washington, DC in 1951, when my mother was about to turn six years old. My grandparents still lived there, too, when my family moved into the house across the street in February of 1973. This was the house I lived in:

I of course thought it was huge. It was bigger than most in the neighborhood, because it had an addition on the back with a larger kitchen (with brand new, state-of-the-art, avocado-colored appliances). There were three bedrooms (also a luxury in that neighborhood) and the typical single bathroom that is barely heard of in today’s American homes.

Nantucket Road was a really cool place. Lots of other families with kids our age lived there. It was the kind of street where there was always a kickball game going on when the weather was good, the ice cream man always came because he knew there’d be plenty of takers, and neighbors would sit out on their porches until well past bedtime on a sultry summer evening, because it was cooler than being inside.

Nantucket Road was not a quiet place. Many of us had squeaky chain link fences that announced a neighbor stopping by, the recently completed Washington Beltway was practically at the end of the block, and all in all, it was a pretty busy street when I lived there. But what I remember most is the sound of the children. The laughing, the playtime, the imaginations running wild.

I didn’t live there long… within a few years my parents had divorced and were remarrying, and I went away from Nantucket Road in April of 1977. Still, I consider this little house the place where I grew up, the place where the people who were my childhood friends lived, and the place where most of my memories of being a child still reside. Over time, each time I went back to visit my grandparents, we would hear that someone else had moved away. Most of the kids from Nantucket Road are now people I hadn’t seen in more than 30 years.

Until Tuesday of this week, that is.

Enter Facebook. Someone that I don’t even know started a group for people who grew up in my part of town, called “Hollywood”, though it’s not nearly as glamorous as the name conjures up in most people’s minds. Slowly but surely, I’ve been able to reconnect with lots of friends who I thought were Long Lost. Billy lived next door to my grandparents and since he would be in town for the holidays, decided to have a Nantucket Road Reunion. I jumped at the chance to go.

Some of the folks had kept in touch with each other all this time, while others had not, but you would never have known the difference. It was as if this group of people all came together and picked up where we left off, laughing and joking, and sharing stories that really couldn’t have been from 30 years ago, could they? No matter. It was a blast. I stayed longer than I thought I would, and truly, I wish I didn’t have to leave. Before we left each other for the evening, we posed for a group photo while our spouses kindly served as photographers:

We took lots of photos, and there were hugs all around. As I made my way to the door of the restaurant where we met, a blast of cold air hit my face, but my heart was warm and full. We promised to meet again, to not let another 30 years go by. I hope it’s true. And I hope everyone in the world has the kind of memories I do with friends like these.

Below is a gallery of other photos from the evening. Click on the photos to see bigger images.

So… I Have a Sock Question

I’ve started a pair of socks.

Ok, now that you’ve recovered from that bit of shocking news, let me tell you about my sock knitting experience so far. If I’m gonna knit socks, they’re probably going to be a big ol’ pile of the craziest socks you could imagine. But I didn’t quite know what that meant. Then I saw a YouTube video of Brian Kohler knitting a week’s worth of socks all at once, and I “had” to find the yarn for the American flag socks he was making. The yarn is Schoeller Fortissima/Socka in colorway 1776 Stars & Stripes. Crazy socks? here I come. See? This is what I have so far:

Actually this photo was from two days ago. Today, it looks like this:

Which leads me to my question. I did a figure-8 cast on and I’m doing toe up on Magic Loop. I do four increases every other round, one stitch in from the edge stitch on each edge. Try as I might to pull the edge stitches tight, they look all big and loose and wonky. How do I avoid this so that they look all nice and even? I’d appreciate the practical tips from all you who have knitted a thousand pairs before.

Thanks for the help! I eagerly wait your wisdom.

Yours in Knitting,

The Sock Knitting Knoob.

Next Page »