It's Snowing

Well, they said it would and it IS Wisconsin and it IS mid-December so yeah, it's snowing.  I think tomorrow's the Winter Solstice (it is, I looked it up, also it's the Summer Solstice if you're in the Southern Hemisphere) so after tomorrow the days will begin to get lighter minute by minute, day by day.  Yay!  Hooray!  We love the light.

I did the damnedest thing yesterday.  I kind of dozed off late in the afternoon (just for a minute), woke up, looked at the clock and saw that it was 5 o'clock.  Closing time.  So I emptied the till, put the money into the safe, turned off the lights, locked the place up, and drove away.  When I got to the corner I glanced at the clock in the car... and it said 4:18.  FOUR eighteen?  FOUR!!!!  So I turned the corner, turned the next corner, turned the next corner, and went back to open the store for the last 45 minutes of the day.  Holy crap, how'd I manage that?  I should have known it wasn't dark enough to be after five o'clock.  The goofiest part is that I'd had no customers all day, just a visit from Mitch, a knitting pal, but I had a customer right before 5 o'clock.  The real 5 o'clock.  I'm hoping that Mrs. Boss is inundated by Christmas shoppers this weekend.  Fingers crossed.  (Evidently SCUBA diving and snorkeling are "out" this year.  Who knew?)

The doorbell rang last night during supper and there was a package on the doorstep.  It was my toe warmers.  Thank god.  I forgot to put them in my boots on Wednesday (I was down to 5 packages) and my feet froze all day so it was a great thing to get a winter's worth of supplies.  I buy them online because even with shipping I can get them for just about $1 a package, totally worth it to have warm feet.

I have a pinkie.  Well, I have two flesh ones, one on each hand, but yesterday I made a yarn one on the glove I'm knitting.  Yes, it's putzy to make all those fingers instead of making a nice roomy mitten but I like wearing gloves and I like having knitted gloves so I am.  Oh, and I will be knitting a MATCHING glove when this one's done.  *gasp* (matching, are you serious?)  Yes, I'm making a pair of gloves like a normal human would wear.  I don't know what's come over me, oh yes I do, I have 3 skeins of the strawberry variegated and only one skein of the black, therefore the gloves get black cuffs and strawberry hands.  That's how that happens.  It's expedient, plus I bought the yarn years ago so there's no way I'll find matching yarn.  I'm trying to knit from stash anyway.  I have all this gorgeous yarn, I should make things with it, don't you think?  (btw, the yarn's a lot pinker, not so orange in real life)

December 20--Mary Cassatt, Young Mother Sewing.  Her hands didn't shake as she sewed.  The silver needle flashed with each sure stitch in the sunshine that streamed in through the window.  No tremor made her clumsy as she sewed a hem in the small dress in her lap.  Her gaze was steady.  Only the quivering of her full lips betrayed her turmoil.  The airmail letter lay folded under the vase on the dresser next to her chair.  She had all day to work out how to tell Charles that there would be no more monthly checks, that from now on what he earned would be all that they had.  Mama didn't say what had happened to her money but Daisy had heard that Papa had invested in a railroad that was never anything more than part of someone's imagination.

It's snowing harder.  I'd better go get Porter for a walk then I can hide in the basement making lotion, lip balm, and a bit of sewing.  Or maybe I'll save the sewing for tomorrow.  At any rate, I'm off.  And not only that, I'm leaving.  Take care.  Stay warm.  Play in the snow.

--Barbara