Not Just A Light Dusting

Now it's just snow.  Snow that I have to SHOVEL because the %$#^& snowblower wasn't fixed after all and didn't get "back to you in a day" like the guy promised.  Grr.  Good thing Durwood bought a scoop shovel years ago that glides along the pavement, slides over any pile at the side, and just gets tipped up to empty it.  It's much easier on me than lift-and-carry shoveling.  Much.  He will be calling the fixit guy today, you'd better betcha.

I got the nursery curtain panels completed yesterday and I'll deliver them (along with the latest knitted hats) after work today.  I used just about every inch of the fabric and lining; I hope they're how DIL1 imagined they'd be.  I remember those days of intense "nesting" before each of the kids was born so I want my contribution to be what she wants it to be.  This is a very stressful time for her and I want to smooth as much as I can.  It's not the magic time that everyone tries to tell you it is (you know that if you've had kids)  it's one long, uncomfortable slog (with random moments of glow) and right now her new baby keeps kicking her in the ribs and doing headstands on her bladder.  Not fun at all.  I'm sending welcoming vibes to the little darling so that it comes out to see us soonest now that it's grown enough to be happy out in the world with the rest of us who are so eager to meet (and spoil) it.  Come out, come out, tiny human.  Please?  (can I complain that I managed to poke myself in three different fingers, poke myself well enough to bleed twice, while making the curtains?  I don't think I got blood on them though, but ouch.)

I cast on another baby hat yesterday but I also got working on another sock for me.  This is the skinniest sock yarn and the smallest needles I've ever used.  It looks like this sock will be completed for NEXT winter.  *sigh*

December 9--Navajo, Wearing Blanket.  The setting sun cast red gold light on the rough ground that stretched from the porch to the hills.  Even the road was painted over so that the blacktop looked less unyielding.  Terese stood with her arms wrapped across her chest trying not to fall apart.  When the phone rang an hour ago she had no thought, no premonition that the message it brought would play in her head over and over for the rest of her life.  A man's deep voice told her that there had been an accident, a crash.  That Cale's plane had slammed into the side of a Costa Rican mountain before dawn and they had found no survivors.  Dawn, the man had said.  That meant that she had run errands, eaten lunch, and had her nails done all while her husband lay dead or dying in a Central American jungle.  She hadn't known he was gone forever.

Now it's time for me to bundle up and move some snow.  Wish me luck, I'm going in, um, out.  Gah.
--Barbara