Fate Made Me Do It

Or maybe just a series of coincidences led me to go snowshoeing this afternoon.  Last night at supper with my diving friends we talked about snowshoes since he lent me his (more than a few years ago) to try out which led to me buying my own with my Christmas bonus.  Then Lala called this morning and said she plans to go snowshoeing tomorrow since she's taking the day off work.  Then I was reading a magazine in the bathroom and look at the title of the crossword!  I had to go, didn't I?  Good thing it was bright & sunny with very little wind and 3 degrees above zero.  ABOVE zero.  As a nod to the temperature I wore fleece pants instead of leggings or jeans and stretchy gloves inside my mittens.  If I stood still I got a bit chilled but was plenty warm moving.  I drove to Colburn Park pool a couple blocks from here, walked from the pool to the tennis courts and back which is probably close to a mile.  That was far enough for my first snowshoe outing of the season.  I snowshoed instead of going to walk at the Y and I drove to the park instead of walking the two blocks because I took the frames to St. Vinnie de P afterward.  I tried to donate the car seat base there but they won't take it either.  Guess I'll put it on NextDoor.com after all.


 



Look at this Bluejay.  Could it puff up any more?  I was looking at it and thought that it had gotten fat but realized that it's bitter cold and the way birds get warm is to puff up their feathers to trap air in them.  When it flew to the peanut wreath it slimmed right down.



 

When I got home from my errand and my fun tromp in the park I had a bowl of chicken soup with some of the sourdough bread that AJ brought yesterday.  It's real crusty and was hard to slice so we ended up with inch-thick slabs of bread but I brought up the slicer after breakfast (thanks again, Durwood) and sliced it into nice normal slices. 


 

Once I'd warmed up I nestled into the couch and knitted on the Keltic Beanie.  It's coming right along and I'm much happier with the size of it.  I do like the colors in this yarn.


27 January--Tropical Obsession.  

It looks innocent, the mound of broken coral pieces shoved up by the waves, but try to walk across it and you find out different. The stuff rolls and slides, never firm, never stable. Jack clambered up toward the blue Caribbean sky arcing cloudless overhead. He felt undignified and awkward which made him angry that Manning was forcing him into this island-wide scavenger hunt. He got to the top, flushing a pelican as he did, and stood up staggering a bit on the shifting coral rubble and looked around. Nothing. No Manning, no merchandise, no further instructions. Oh wait; something was fluttering stuck to a piece of driftwood. Jack slipped and stumbled over to grab the paper before the ever-present trade winds blew it to kingdom come. Not just yet was written on it. "Damn him." Jack crumpled the paper and threw it--into the wind, so it blew back in his face. He caught it and shoved it into his pocket; looking around sure that Manning was somewhere nearby, laughing.

Evidently the storm that's supposed to arrive around midnight is a doozie.  I watched 60 Minutes tonight and there was a crawl across the bottom of the screen and all schools within the viewing area from Sheboygan nearly to the Upper Michigan border are closed tomorrow.  They're even postponing garbage pickup tomorrow so that the garbologists can drive snowplows, I presume, plus the plows won't have to avoid knocking over trash bins and scraping them down the streets.  I have nothing on my calendar for tomorrow so I can stay home, stay in my comfy clothes, and play with yarn or fabric or both.  Hooray for me!  I enjoyed taking shadow pictures.  I look tall for once.
--Barbara