Now I Have Two

Two mittens, that is.  Last night after supper I picked up my needles and by bedtime I had Lightning Mitten #2 done, all except for the thumb which I did in a jiffy this morning.  (Lala suggested the name.  I think Lightning is a good name for the way this yarn made up, don't you?)  The next yarn I want to use, yarn that Lala gave to me, is a bit skinnier than the previous yarn so I'm using the same pattern and the same stitch count but smaller needles and keeping my fingers crossed that they'll fit some kid.  I think they will.  I love this pattern because it's only 18 stitches around using big yarn and big needles.  It goes fast.

This morning I realized that tomorrow would be the 14th day of the life of our latest batch of Italian Semolina bread dough so I had to bake it all up or lose it.  (Too bad.)  Durwood and I had to sit in the house this afternoon bombarded by the aroma of baking bread.  (Poor us.)  Now we've got two more loaves of this bread that we have to eat.  (What a pity.)  I'll get the slicer up tomorrow so he can get it all sliced and then we'll put one loaf in the freezer just to save it from being gobbled up too fast.  Oh, it makes excellent toast and Durwood says it's great with homemade raspberry jam.  I'll take his word for it, I'm not a raspberry fan.  I like it toasted with a slice of Gouda cheese on it.

Yesterday afternoon the Sharp-shinned Hawk was back hunting in the back yard.  It learned really quickly that the birds shelter in the birdie tree so it comes and perches on the chair to see what it can see.  It's hard to pick sides in that situation, everybody needs to eat and we love seeing how sleek and focused the hawk is.  I wonder if it's a girl or a boy.  None of the bird books show how to tell.  It's probably a size thing.

January 17--Clark James, Blizzard.  The snow blew across the road in thick bands of white.  Alice's hands were clamped on the steering wheel and her shoulders were hunched up somewhere around her ears.  It had been at least an hour since she'd seen a lighted house or business on the side of the state highway.  All she had for a reference were the taillights of the semi a few lengths ahead.  She had stopped noticing the road signs a while back and hoped she was still on Highway 47, not blindly following the truck to somewhere she'd never heard of.  Too bad her GPS had died six miles away from home.  She took a deep breath and let it out, forced her shoulders back into place, and flexed her fingers one had at a time to get some feeling back into them.

I can still smell baking bread.  Man, it smells good.  Would it be so wrong to have butter bread and toast with cheese for supper, with maybe buttered toast and jam for dessert?  Oh wait, Durwood's making Shrimp Primavera.  Maybe we can feast on bread, toast, cheese, and jam tomorrow night.
--Barbara