Wintry Wonderland and New Knitting

I woke up this morning to a wintry wonderland.  And more shoveling — sigh.  I tried to take a couple of photos, but they didn’t turn out well.  I think we got about 5 inches of heavy wet snow overnight.  And it snowed off and on all day.  And now COLD COLD and windy for the rest of the week.

Hunting socks

This is a photo of one of my current projects.  Brown Wooleased and tan alpaca.  I have 5 inches done on the cuff of the first sock.  I am knitting these on a US size 4.

The weekend went by fairly quickly.  Saturday I picked up a few groceries and went to the library.  I couldn’t get into Anne Tyler’s new book, Noah’s Compass, so I took it back.  Maybe I will finish it at a later date.  I have done that before with books.  I picked up some new reads — Classic Knits by Erika Knight, Italian Shoes by Henning Mankell, The Recipe Club by Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel, and The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl.

I got the family room re-organized for the first time after getting new carpet.  I got my laundry and ironing caught up. I re-organized my bins of yarn.  Listened to music.  Did some cooking.  I made a spicy cauliflower soup, eggplant parmesan, black bean salsa to eat with tortilla chips, potato soup, and walnut date muffins.  I won’t starve this week!

Foggy Start to the Week

The fog is back.  We did get snow last Thursday night and Friday.  About 7 inches.  The side streets are still bad in places.  I don’t know how long the snow will stick around.  I think we have a warm up coming later in the week.

Saturday I worked around the house in the morning and then did some grocery shopping in the afternoon. 

I worked on the hiking socks for a bit off and on over the weekend.  I have about 4 inches done on the cuff of the first sock.  Yesterday afternoon I got out some cream colored organic cotton yarn and cast on for a baby sweater.  I need one finished this month for a baby girl that is expected in March.

I made some roasted vegetable soup and had a bowl with croutons in it on Saturday.  I also made a few deviled eggs.  They tasted so good!  I am on a soup kick lately, and I am trying to decide on spicy cauliflower or potato leek to make tonight.

Tonight’s the Night

That the snow is supposed to arrive.  The forecast has gone from 2 inches to 6 to 8 inches. Hmmmm. 9 times out of 10 it goes around our fair city.  But who knows? 

The temperatures certainly dropped a lot.  I had to turn the furnace up a bit last night. 

I had a bit more productive evening last night.  I cleaned up the kitchen.  I made two batches of hummus — one for me and one for the worship leader.  I will take his to practice with me this evening.  My dinner last night consisted of four meatless stuffed grape leaves, some hummus, and a bit of labneh, and two pieces of pita bread.  It was very good!  The pug likes hummus, so I gave her a bite on a small piece of pita.  Lately when she begs for treats or sits at my feet staring up at me while I am eating a meal, I give her a baby carrot to satisfy her.  Much better than the cheese and peanut butter that the fashionista always gave her.  Of course, if I chose to discipline that behavior I would not have to feed her anything.  But she gives me that longing sad look with her one good eye — and I melt.  Eh.  The pug has grown on me.

I washed my bedding last night and remade my bed.

I measured the socks the worship leader gave me and wrote down the measurements so I can give his socks back to him tonight.  And then I started rummaging through bins of yarn.  I was searching for two skeins of dark green wool that I thought might be nice paired with the tan alpaca that I was also looking for.  When I found the dark green yarn, it turned out to be an acrylic, so back in the bin it went.  I did find the tan alpaca — two skeins — perfect.  Then I went digging through the sock wool and couldn’t find a thing to go with the alpaca for these hunting socks I want to knit.  Then I remembered that I bought some organic wool a while back that might be nice.  It was upstairs in my bedroom, so I went searching through the yarn in my room.  The organic wool — 6 skeins — 3 different colors — all wrong.  Then I finally spied two skeins of dark brown WoolEase — not my favorite, but it will work with the alpaca and be sufficiently thick and warm.  So I got out my size 4 dpns and cast on.  I worked on the ribbed cuff while listening and half watching the State of the Union last night while the pug chewed on a toothbrush at my feet.

I measured the red/white ball band cloth last night and it is in my bag for lunch time knitting.  Two more pattern repeats and then I can bind off.  I think I will do a single crochet edge around it just to finish it off.

So, my mantra for today is snow snow stay away.