Like many people, I hated winter and cold weather until I thought of it like a season-long puzzle: how do you fix being cold? Cold outside = warm woolly gloves and hats and scarves. Cold inside = warm sweaters and rice warmers and hot water bottles. It could also be related to the milder Maryland winters, but I think mostly it was just that, until recently, I was never dressed warmly enough. I never wore a hat, rarely owned a warm coat or gloves, and walked through snow in Chuck Talyors. Ok so maybe many of those issues were also affected by knitting. But in any case, once I figured out how to leave the house and still be comfortable, winter wasn't so bad. Now I'm thinking about this further, and it's like you just have to get back to the mindset of a child. Kids freaking love snow. Snow to them means snowmen, sledding, and no school. Little kids are typically bundled up by their parents. They don't worry about hat-head or looking silly in snow pants. They also don't have to worry about driving in the snow either. So: bundle your ass up (regardless of smooshed hair), drive something with 4WD, and go build a snowman. And quit bitching. After all, you can always put more on, but you can only take so much off (which is why winter is better than summer)(so nyah!).
I've made some progress on my afghan. It is pretty hideous, in a seventies sort of way, but I love it nonetheless. It's about 18" long now, and I might have enough yarn to finish it. After the first few stripes, it seemed like one skein would only get me 2 stripes, but it turned out that I can get at least 3, maybe 4. I have 3 skeins of every color except the dark green of which I have 6 (since it comes up twice in the color sequence). Each stripe is about 1". So 3 stripes per skein x 3 skeins x 8 colors (counting dark green twice) = 72 stripes/inches. It is roughly 73" wide, so that would be perfect. I really don't mind working with Red Heart. I guess I'm a terrible yarn snob, but it seems cozy enough to me. I'm sort of excited about crocheting more Red Heart blankets. I could make little ones for the pets! Omg I am one step closer to becoming my Aunt Ev.
My Aunt Ev taught me to knit. She was tough but not brash, and made awesome Stollen at Christmas. She and my uncle would spend their summers in Minnesota, and after his death she still made the drive up there every year. I hope that when I'm seventy I still have it in me to pack up a summer's worth of crap and a dog, and drive a Suburban 600 miles by myself while fighting two (!) cancers. While she knew how to knit, Aunt Ev was mainly a crocheter. She made a blanket for every wedding and every baby. She was also crafty in other ways (toll painting like my mom, cross stitch, etc.), and (also like my mom) had a craft room that looked like it could land her on an episode of Hoarders. A room that smelled just like walking into a Michaels, and was packed with enough boxes and bags to be a fire hazard. I love those rooms. Sure, they might signify a mild craft-shopping obsession, but they also contain so much promise... It's sort of amazing to walk in as a kid and imagine all the amazing things you could do. Yarn! Paint! Stick wreathes! Oh, the endless possibilities! Anyways, she was a great lady, and I hope one day to also create a zillion afghans that my family will remember fondly even if they are oh-so-very [insert decade here].
Our holidays were nice and relaxing- I had 10 days off, thanks to a mandatory shut down. We didn't have to go anywhere or do anything (well, poor Scott had to work...). It was awesome. I made beer bread and watched movies most of the time. Scott got me a new laptop- a MacBook Pro! It is teh sexy. I loves it. It's super fast and easy to figure out (for someone whose Mac experience consists of once typing a paper in the Mac lab in high school). I didn't get the MS office suite; instead I downloaded OpenOffice for free. It can read all my Word documents from the old laptop, no problem. I also installed Sophos Anti-Virus for Macs (also free). The only other thing I'd like to do is install Firefox instead of Safari. Safari is not my favorite- it doesn't feel as intuitive, bookmarks aren't as quick to access, and it doesn't remember my Ravelry username.
And last but not least, if you're in the DC area and up early: Scott will be on 105.9 The Edge on Wednesday morning promoting the DC Tattoo Expo! He and his boss will be on The Kirk and Mike Show. The show is on from 6 to 10 am, but I don't know exactly when they'll be on. Go listen! Wednesday!
