Baby, It’s Cold Outside

Editor's note: Please use your imagination on the pictures. I have been trying for two days to add pictures to this post with no luck. I will try again later.

At long last, winter has arrived in my little neck of the woods. I use the term “winter” loosely but I use it nonetheless. It has been down in the low 30’s at night and we’ve had to run the heat. I’ve even had icy car windows for 4 days in a row. I don’t have any wintery pictures to show you because if I did, I know I would get lots of comments like “winter-schminter” and “hell, that’s barely even fall” from my colder climate commenters. But it’s all I’ve got, ya’ll, so let me pretend.

Please forgive my long absence. The last three weeks have been simply overwhelming. I can’t think of another word that fits. We have made two trips to Oregon and back. This weekend, my mother-in-law came down to stay with us to attend a memorial service for my father-in-law in Fresno. (Most of my FIL’s extended family lives in that area and weren’t able to make it to Oregon for the service on the 18th.) So it made for a difficult week for both my husband and his mother. It is like rubbing salt in a wound, having to attend a second memorial. Luckily it is over now.

Our Thanksgiving was very nice. It was just me and my husband and his mother and our friend, Matt. It was very peaceful and my husband did some work on some of his father’s projects (i.e. his truck) which I think was good for him. We mostly just hung out and tried to help my mother-in-law gets some things done. All in all, it was fine, emotionally exhausting but fine. And really, under the circumstances, I was pretty happy with that. On the drive up for Thanksgiving, it was crystal clear but had snowed quite a bit the night before.

This is Mt. Shasta on Thanksgiving morning.

We were blessed during the return trip to have snow. I don’t think my husband (who did the driving) was quite as happy about the snow as I was.

It has been almost a week since I’ve even opened my laptop. This is borderline sacrilegious.

As I am sure you can imagine, I haven’t made much progress on my knitting list. I’ve finished the llama. Here is a pre-felting picture.

I’ve yet to take a post-felting picture but it is done. All stuffed and seamed. I’m basically happy with the results but if I make another one, I will use a fuzzier yarn. I used two strands, two colors held together (as per the knitting recipe) and I don’t love the look but it is ok.

And while I’m parading out the knitting pictures, it occurs to me that ya’ll haven’t seen this little fellow:

The grey lamb with black face. He is so cute. I am thrilled with the results. I am currently knitting his inverse cousin. I couldn’t be happy with the results. I was in the midst of photographing this lamb when we got word about my father-in-law’s heart attack. The lamb has sort of been lost in the shuffle.

I am still feeling relatively optimistic about the Christmas knitting. I’m probably delusional but that’s ok. As I have told you before, I am a proud member of the ignorance is bliss club.

Last Thursday, we became the proud owners of a beautiful Christmas tree. A noble fir. We wanted to give it plenty of time to “fall” and acclimate to its new environment so we didn’t decorate it until last night. It is very pretty and smells all happy and Christmas-y. I’ll take some pictures later this week. The house is very festive. That makes me happy. And it tempers my dread a little: Wednesday at 6:00 a.m. (oh yes, really) I have to have an MRI on my ankle to see why it isn’t getting better. Then I get to wait a week for results. It helps to have my Christmas tree. I can just sit and knit and think happy twinkle-lights-and-ornaments thoughts. Fa la la la la….