Just One Sunny Day

Despite the way it looked as the sun came up, by the time I got around to doing yoga there was a very thin layer of clouds covering the sky.  It's still bright-ish but cloudy.  *sigh*  Yesterday was very nice.  Yesterday afternoon when I hopped into the car to go deliver a package my dashboard thermometer read 57 degrees.  This morning, while the grass against the retaining wall is greening up, the roofs, grass, and birdbath were frosty indeed.  Yeah, yeah, I understand that it's the end of March which in this latitude means it's usually still wintertime but it hasn't been very winter-ish around here lately, well, not without the winter parts being interrupted by mild, spring-ish parts.  I heard a TV weather person say the S-word about tomorrow morning and nearly fell off my chair--until I looked at the calendar and remembered shoveling a blizzard one May 2 a few years back.  Okay, quite a few years back but still...  We've had snow in May so March snow shouldn't faze me.  Right?  Right.




Speaking of yesterday's sunny warmth, look what we saw when my assistant and I went out to fill the bird feeders.  Crocuses!  Blooming!  And as I left for work this morning I noticed that more are joining the party.  Hooray!  Flowers!







This morning Mr. & Mrs. Cardinal came to the feeder together.  Do you think that means they're getting closer to building the first nest of the season?  Maybe.



Last night after supper I knitted the last 10 rounds of Anklet #6's foot, rearranged the stitches according to the pattern, and got the first toe round knitted.  So that's my goal for today--to finish the toe of Black to White & Back to Black Anklet #6 so that the series is complete.  I realized last night that I'm not in danger of running out of yarn so the toe of #6 won't be as black as the heel of #1 but that can't be helped since there won't be enough left to knit a #7.  The next time I decide to knit something with an unraveled sock blank I plan to unkink the yarn first.  I feel like my tension and gauge has been all screwy knitting with this kinky yarn.  Good thing it's superwash so I can toss it into the washer and dryer to even things out.  (yes, I know you're not supposed to put it into the dryer and I don't with my fancier socks but my usual loose tension PLUS the kinks make it about mandatory with these)


March 29--Emeterio the Monk, Animals inside the Ark.  Laura took a second look at the end papers of the old atlas she had pulled out of a pile of books on the thrift store floor.  The atlas itself was huge, 24" by 24", and it was so heavy that she cleared a space on a nearby table to rest it on.  She loved maps.  When she looked at them she saw houses and people, families and businesses.  She imagined how it sounded and smelled, and how it felt to live there.  The old maps in the atlas had sea monsters in the oceans attacking sailing ships and countries she'd never heard of.  But it was the end papers that caught her attention.  The paper itself was very old and the illustration was hand-drawn and -colored.  It looked like Noah's Ark with pairs of animals on separate decks.  She knew that old bookbinders used even older book pages as end papers.  This might be a real find.  She checked the price on the atlas, $7.50.  She decided to risk it even if the book was a reproduction.  She loved the maps and she had a feeling about those animals.

Allrighty.  Now the sky is a uniform pale gray and there isn't a glint of sunshine to be seen.  Granted my only view of the outside is through the door of the dive shop but it's not sunny out there anywhere, I can tell.  At least there was yesterday and it was my day off so I could go out into it and soak it up.  Maybe there'll be more sun tomorrow.  Or Friday.
--Barbara