Winter Came Today

There was a little snow on the ground when I got up this morning and it was still falling.  It hasn't stopped yet.  I went out and ran the snowblower up and down the driveway and it only took me one pass to figure out which way to blow the snow.  Of course I was plastered with wet snow from the top of my head to my waist on the upwind side of me.  AND I forgot the first lesson of snowblowing, which is "take your glasses off."  I had so much melted snow on the inside of my glasses lenses it looked like I was walking in rain.  Durwood had a dental appointment this afternoon and I had to go around the block again after I dropped him off because the snow on the driveway was too slick for me to back out of the garage and drive back in.  I love winter.  No, I don't.  I especially don't like it when it snows and blows like it is today.  I'll go out after supper and clear the driveway again and in the night the snowplow will come by and shove a nice, heavy drift across the bottom of the driveway and I'll be out there again in the morning.  Just think of all the steps I'll have on my Vivofit from this storm.  

Instead of sewing today I went to the grocery for fruits and veggies and to Kwik Trip for bananas and to Fleet Farm for on-sale ice melt salt.  50# bags are heavy.  I've been working on the Black & Blue Shrug, trying to add a couple rows while I watch TV in the evening.  I'm almost to the place where I put the sleeve stitches on waste yarn and start knitting the body.  I'm wearing the first sweater I made with this pattern right now and it's snuggly and warm.  I know a person can buy sweaters, socks and hats too, but I really like making them.

December 13--Henri Rousseau, Portrait of Pierre Loti.  The man in the fez had a cat in his pocket.  Not a kitten, a cat.  The cat looked perfectly happy to be perched in his jacket pocket a smug look on its face.  But to be honest don't all cats look smug and self-satisfied?  I wasn't sure what to make of the fez-wearing man either.  There didn't appear to be a convention of Shriners in town.  There were too many young women about and any self-respecting mama kept her daughters at home when the Shriners convened in their city.  I think the man was French.  He wore a gold pinkie ring and was smoking one of those smelly French cigarettes.  And then there was the cat in his pocket.  He had to be an eccentric Frenchman.

And that's it for my day, mostly spent dealing with snow and fetching nutritious food and driving on slick streets trying to keep the snow from pulling the wheel out of my hands.  It's good to be tucked in safe at home.  Except for having to go out and blow snow again before bedtime, that is.
--Barbara