I Feel So Responsible

In a good way.  Durwood just reminded me that yesterday was Social Security payday so I needed to hop on the bank website, put part of mine onto the mortgage principal and the rest into the vacation fund.  Two good things!  I think it's the height of luxury that we don't "need" that money to live, that we have the luxury of putting it where it'll both work hard and pay for fun instead of needing it for our day to day living, and it's all to Durwood's credit.  I say that I'm the grasshopper and he's the ant in this relationship and it's true.  I keep trying to get in touch with my inner ant but my first instinct is to go have fun with that money, I won't.  The thought that in a little over a year we'll have the mortgage paid off and that every month I can make our trip to Yellowstone in August that much easier, well, that puts a little salve on that "eager to spend" feeling.  A little.  I struggled not to go back to Hancock before last night to buy up all the rest of the bolts of linen at $2.97/yard but I didn't go so I'm calling that a win for the ants and "a lesson learned."  (hey, I take credit where I can, wins like that are few and far between, I have my mother's genes after all)

They said it's supposed to be warmer today.  Right now it's -19 with a -34 degree wind chill (that's the "feels like" temp), not warmer, people, not.  It has to be about 40 degrees warmer for me to go walk Porter tomorrow, and I want to go walking.  I promised her that I'd be over on Friday morning to pick her up and that we'd go to the field and I'd put on my snowshoes and we'd walk.  I felt kind of bad when I stopped to see LC yesterday on my way to work because Porter was so excited to see me until she realized that I wasn't going to get her harness and leash, then she went to her bed and flopped down with a big sigh.  But look who I got to hold, and she kind of had her eyes open for a minute there.  DIL1 had gotten out the blankie I made for her so she was wrapped in it with the too-big hat draped over her head when I got there.  Awww.

Tonight's the January Bay Lakes Knitting Guild meeting and the program is about yarn storage, so I dug out one of each size of zipper bag I use to store my yarn and projects.  I'm not sure I like the first cable I swatched but I'm not quite done with the sample, it might grow on me.  I also need to cast on an inspiration pattern to see how the designer made the thumb hole; I think I just need to bind off one stitch and then cast on another to make the gap but I want to follow the pattern to make sure of the technique.  (ooh, waste yarn.  I could use waste yarn in that line of stitches then remove it and live stitches would pop out.  brillaint!  I knew I'd get it, thanks for listening.)  This designing thing isn't so easy but it's pretty fascinating.  As I knit on the first cable possibility, additional ideas or rather tweaks of my original idea keep popping up.  I'm using my new abacus row counter too, I like it.  I cast on the cuff of the second Strawberry & Black Glove at work yesterday.  Mr. Boss put some of those high-intensity puck lights over the desk and that makes knitting with black so much easier.  Thanks!

January 9--United States, Spindle-Back Armchair.  Gracie loved Meemaw's kitchen chairs.  They had woven reed seats and spindle backs.  They were nice and high so she could see what was on her plate, and the back of the chair was fancy enough that she prentended it was a throne.  Turned around the chairs made good jail cells when she or Mason got arrested when they played Wild West or Al Capone and Eliot Ness.  Meemaw didn't let them play with guns so Gracie used a clothespin and Mason had a pork chop bone that Skip the dog was done with.  The chairs made a good post office or bank window which was especially good for robbing the payroll.  Mason tried to make Gracie be the teller all the time but, since Skip the dog would only let her ride him to make a getaway not Mason, she got to be the robber about half the time.

Poor Skip the dog, they stole his bone and made him into a pony.  I foresee similar trials in Porter's future.  Miss LC is no shrinking violet, she's already trying to crane her head to look around while her parents try to bathe her.  I missed that but saw the video.  She cried and they bumbled a bit (they're all new at this) but the end result was a cleaner, less poopy baby (she's the queen of poop right now) so all went well.  Their pediatrician told them on Monday that LC doesn't know that they're rookies just figuring this out so they're the best parents she's ever had, they can't really do anything too wrong.  That's good to hear when you feel so inexperienced at this parenting thing.  I'm not so far removed from it that I don't remember that feeling.  Stay warm today.  It's supposed to get up into the 20s later.  Woohoo!  That'll feel like spring.
--Barbara