What to do when it's too cold to do anything . . .

It's been cold here - really cold. Yeah, I know, you guys always get this kind of weather, but we don't down here and it's cold. It is too cold for man or beast. We had about a half an inch of snow Thursday night, and of course it had to start before the temps dropped below freezing. That left a layer of ice on the roads beneath the snow - which made driving treacherous. So we didn't.

This first pic is some of the snow and Jinglebells, our resident stray cat. Poor thing has been starving since I put the new cat door on the garage, because now he can't get in without a special collar and since he's not really ours, he has none. We felt sorry for him and put a bowl of fresh food on the front porch for him - he ate every bite.

Since the temps on Friday weren't forecasted to be above freezing and there was snow on the ground and ice on the streets, the powers that be decided to cancel school. That meant the girls had nothing to do and were my very own slave laborers for the day. First, I let them have a big brunch - Miss M made pancakes, Miss S made scrambled eggs and I made Bacon. (Casey volunteered to take care of all the bacon grease and did a fine job.)

Then we took all the Christmas decorations off the tree and packed them up. We also took all the garlands off the stairs and the wreaths off the doors. And we gathered up all the rest of the Christmas stuff, placemats, kitchen decorations, candles, bell jars, candy bowls, singing Santa and dancing Mrs. Santa, stuffed santas, etc and packed it all up and then put all the boxes away. The trees are still in the living room but I'm not messing around outdoors in this cold, so there they will stay.

Gratuitous cute dog picture for your enjoyment.

That was Friday. Today I got a wild hair and decided that the bathroom needed some serious cleaning and dejunking. Little girls like bows, ribbons, clips, and headbands for their hair. They like necklaces, earings, jewels and pins too. And they like bath beads, fancy soaps, bath salts, lotions, creams, makeup and all kinds of other smelly, soapy good things. The problem I had was that all these things have been accumulating in my bathroom for the 14+ years we've lived in this house - some we brought along from the last house.

So, first we took all the bath stuffs off the counter. The problem is that as much as the girls love the bath oil beads, they don't take baths. As much as they love all the lotions, they tend not to use them. They love the fancy, pretty little soaps, but they save them because they are too cute to use. And so on. So, we sorted thru the goodies that have been accumulating on the counter and a lot went in the trash. Some went into the guest bathroom for guests to use. Some went into the girls bathroom where they probably still won't get used, but they are out of my sight!



Then we tackled the hair drawer. We still had Winnie the Pooh bows and clips in there. It was so full that it had overflowed - this drawer couldn't be shut at all. The space under the counter where you are supposed to put a small stool to use as a vanity was also filled to overflowing with hair things - bows, ribbons, clips, pins, rubber bands, head bands, curlers, etc. Most of this stuff hasn't been touched or seen the light of day in years. The drawer is now straightened out and can be closed - although it is still pretty full.

The space under the vanity now contains the woofer and a plaque someone sent me. You can see the carpet again (tho it's filthy cuz it hasn't been vaccuumed in years). I did keep all the scrunchies, snoods and other crochet goodies Dena made the girls. I use scrunchies in the summer and thought I'd enjoy them.

Gratuitous cute cat picture for your enjoyment.

On to the Knitting . . . . the important stuff!

This is the blue Mr. Greenjeans sweater that I'm making out of Berroco Lustra. As you can see, the body was mostly finished - I was supposed to work about 8" of the cabled rib pattern and then bind off. I had the 8" but I thought it was too tight - too tight around my mid section, too tight as compared to the rest of the body, too tightly knit, etc. When I put the sweater on, it was too tight and that made the ribbing too short.

So, as much as it pained me, I ripped it out. Now that was a lot of knit and purl and cable and purl and knit and purl. All those cables made my hands hurt. That was a lot of knitting.

It turned out to be a full ball of yarn. Each hank is about 200 yards and I ripped out just over a full hank. That's a lot of knitting. That's a lot of ripping. That's going to be a lot of redo.

And then there is the green top down comfy sweater I'm making. I finally got to the end of the raglan shaping and started the body. I had to knit a few inches of that to make sure it was going to be big enough to go around the bigger parts of me - which seem to be getting bigger every day (all of me is). It was big enough. So then I had to knit a few inches on the sleeves to make sure that they were going to look ok and be an appropriate size for my arms.

They seem to work - I tried it on over another sweater - a tight fitting one that might well end up underneath it when it's finished. The sleeves seemed to be just right. The body seems to be just right. There is just a squosh of something wrong just under the neck - think I must have made the raglan increases too quickly on the chest part there.



Another pic - you can see the extra at the neck, but it's wearable. Miss S says this isn't a good picture of me, but she was nowhere to be found, so I had to use a mirror as my assistant . . . oh well.

And this is Charlotte. She's actually a good bit darker than this picture shows. She still needs her eyes - all 8 of them - but other than that she is done. That's a match box next to her in the second picture for scale.

Isn't she cool?