Maybe The Cutest Baby Hat To Date

I finished up the Snowberry Leaf Hat last night and I have to say that I think it's the cutest thing I've made in a long time.  There's a lot of hat rolled up in that brim so it'll fit little Baby Malcolm for a long time.  (One of Mom's high school friend's mom wasn't named when she was born, everyone just called her Baby, she chose her name "Helen" when she was six.  Mom thought it was hilarious when as a teen she helped with a card party or bridal shower and all the aged aunts called the 45-year-old Helen "Baby" the whole time.  I am confident that DS & DIL1 won't be doing that to our baby [which can arrive anytime, just saying])  I took the other hat, the one I'm making with the remaining yarn from making its sweater, to the Christmas concert we went to last night and got 3/4 of the way up only to find that I was running out of yarn.  Drat.  So when we got home I pulled out the creamy white left after the Snowberry hat and I'm finishing with that.  It'll be an at-home hat but DIL1's talking about having hats for the babe to wear indoors because it's winter.  Makes sense to me.  (I have to confess that I've got a couple more hat patterns in my queue, non-standard ones too, this baby knitting's fun.)  The concert was good Christmas fun.  It's the annual Baylanders chorus concert with Lutheran bellringers and the Sweet Adelines, it's in a big Catholic church and it's free for a food donation or a little cash.  We try to go every year.  I personally sing along under my breath, I don't know about anybody else, although I did see a guy a few pews down conducting the chorus on one song.

When I walked into DS & DIL1's backyard yesterday all of the chickens were in the chicken house, but when I unlatched the door to the coop they paraded out in a row in pecking order.  I wasn't quite fast enough with my camera but I think you get the idea.  Porter and I had an abbreviated walk yesterday partly because the trail was snowy and I wore the wrong shoes, partly because it was cold and windy there by the river, and partly because she balked at the north end of Sunset Park so rather than working to tempt her onward I just turned around. I took a video of how much fun she was having running in the snow, you can hear me puffing along (hey, it was cold and I was hurrying to keep up with her so she didn't fling herself into a heap at the end of her leash) but it was fun.  I'll post it on FB later so you can watch if you want since I can't for the life of me figure out how to imbed one here.  As I suspected she was completely thrown by having to get into the wrong side of the car.  When I picked her up it wasn't bad, she tugged to go around but I insisted so she jumped in, she loves to go walking.  She didn't seem to understand that it was the same place, she turned around and around and looked at me as if to say "okay, how do I work this thing?" but by the time we'd gone a block she was sitting happily.  Getting her back into there was another story.  She first tugged to go around, then she'd look at the seat then at me, she put her front paws on the seat, backed up, turned around, tugged again, but I stood firm (because the other door was stuck, turns out it was frozen) and eventually she jumped in.

I stopped at Dell's on my way home from our walk to have them look at my rear driver's door and there was nothing wrong with it.  John gallantly said that my squirt of silicone on Thursday "must have fixed it."  I think it needed to be in the warm for 5 minutes and to have a mechanic's menacing greasy hands give it a talking to.  Whatever the case it's working now, but then it isn't -6 degrees anymore either, it's a balmy 22--and snowing.  When I opened the curtains this

morning this squirrel was out there digging for seeds and it amused me to see how the snow was building up on its fur.  I just noticed that the young single guy across the street's out shoveling his driveway with his 3 darling tiny children (2 mothers, 1 an ex-wife).  I took a couple pictures because it was so cute to see those tiny people just shoveling away, although the tiniest one was mostly leaning on his.  (I bet he'll grow up to be a highway worker)  I'll offer to email the neighbor copies if he's interested. 

December 14--Lewis Hine, Steamfitter.  That last bolt did it.  The door was sealed and no one would open it again.  Dale screwed a plaque onto the door warning that it needed to stay shut for one hundred years.  A hundred years might be long enough for memories to die out, for the consequences not to matter.  At least he hoped so.  He didn't want to live through another year like the last one, he'd had enough of cries in the night, bad dreams, and people with a crazy gleam in their eyes.

I can't decide what he's walling up--a toxin, a photograph, a person, a mirror?  Dun-dun-dunnnnn.  Haven't got a clue.  Durwood's made me a 3-store shopping list for today so I'd better get a wriggle on.  There'll be shoveling too, I'm sure.  Most important may be making party mix since I'll be acquiring the remaining 2 ingredients, ooh, better get some Worcestershire sauce to make sure we have enough.  Good thinking, Babbums.  Toodle-oo.
--Barbara