The Fluffy Kind of Snow

We had more snow overnight.  You can see how many inches by looking at the roofs of the bird feeders.  One thing I like about fluffy snow is that it's lightweight to shovel.  Even the plow drift this morning was no match for me and my scooper shovel.  It pains me to say this but I'm glad I don't live in Door County this week.  Ephriam got 18 inches of snow overnight when the storm from the west that hit us joined forces with a band of lake-effect snow from the east that didn't make it this far.  Lucky them.

I was very frustrated, computer-wise. yesterday afternoon.  I picked up a book on CDs from the library and, as I have in the past, downloaded each disc into iTunes in preparation to loading it onto my iPod so I could listen to it.  I don't keep them, that would be stealing, but I don't have a working disc player anymore so I convert them to a format I have the technology for, listen, and then delete.  Well.  It's been a while since I needed to download an audiobook that way and much to my consternation my computer wouldn't recognize my iPod.  I googled how to fix it, followed the instructions, and was unsuccessful.  Bah.  I called Amazon but there's no way to convert something on iTunes to a format that can be loaded onto a Kindle.  I was stuck--and frustrated.  (ask Durwood)  After I shoveled the driveway this morning I tucked my laptop and iPod into a carrier and went down to Cyberworks, the place that rooted out all the viruses I had acquired, to see if one of their smart guys could help.  On their computers iTunes recognized my iPod.  He uninstalled and reinstalled iTunes on my computer, still no dice.  He and I were chatting and I asked if there was another program I could use.  He said all of his music is on his phone.  I said that I dind't have an iPhone, that I have an Android phone.  He did too so he fetched his phone, I pulled mine out of my purse, and he showed me an app to download and how I could attach my phone to my laptop and fong all of the "music" from my computer onto the SD card in my phone.  I thought it was all in a separate iTunes file but it's all just in the music folder.  Hooray!  I cast off the Apple chains, I even uninstalled iTunes.  Ha!  Take that Apple.

At the Bay Lakes Knitting Guild meeting on Thursday night the program is about knitting for charity so we got an email with a pattern for a baby hat and a request to bring along yarn and needles to knit one.  Well, I have a favorite preemie hat pattern and a whole bag of brightly colored yarn so I decided to cast one on before the meeting and work on it.  When I was looking through the yarn & project bin next to the couch I found the preemie hat project bag but there was also a stray skein of white acrylic yarn.  I've never made a solid color preemie hat much less a white one so I decided that I needed to.  This is as far as I've gotten so far.  It'll probably be done by Thursday.  Oh, and I can't forget to swing into Aldi tomorrow to pick up a few cans of food for the food bank at the church that lets us use their room for free.

In other knitting news, I'm about halfway to the ribbing of the first sleeve of the Black & Blue Shrug.  I felt very proud of myself last night when I figured out how many stitches to decrease when so I'd have the correct number to make the Knit 2, Purl 2 ribbing without fudging stitches.

 
Just as the sun started its way toward the horizon I looked out to see snowflakes falling.  The horizon was clear so the pinkish sunset light colored the air but there was a cloud over us sending a snow flurry to go with it.  It was very pretty.  I had the devil of a time capturing it

until I realized that the neighbor's brick orange house was the perfect backdrop to make the flakes visible.  Thanks for painting your house that color, M & T.

 


January 16--Chogogo, Caribbean Flamingo.  The big pink birds with their upside down beaks and knees that bent like elbows stared at Jake.  He had parked near the lighthouse and walked into the Flamingo Sanctuary on a road that ran between salt ponds.  He ignored the "No Trespassing" signs that leaned drunkenly on rusted posts driven into the hard ground.  There was only one other place on the island to photograph flamingos.   On the north end they congregated on an island in the only lake on Bonaire but he had no way to get out to the island.  Here on the south end he could walk up to them.  He didn't drive because the dust plume would betray his presence and probably bring some officious flamingo police down on his case.  All he wanted were a few shots of the birds and to maybe see one of their gawky gray chicks if he was lucky.  He raised his camera and focused when he heard the gut-tightening sound of a gun being cocked behind him.  "Didn't you see the signs?" a deep, accented voice asked softly from behind him.

Our diving friends brought back a Bonaire week-at-a-glance calendar for me and sent it over so I'm using the pictures in there for nightly prompts.  I feel like I'm cheating on the Art Gallery Page-a-day calendar but I can't stop writing about the Bonaire calendar pictures.  I'll go back to the art when the warm place pictures run out.  I promise.

--Barbara