The Hounds of Winter

 

Okay, haven't posted in a while.  I've been a bit aggravated.  Remember the snow rant?  Instead of me repeating the rant, let's just imagine it in your head and increase the intensity by a factor of 8.  So here's pictures of not the last storm, but the last big storm, last Wednesday.  These were taken from the windows where I work.  So of course, when I get home that night, I end up having to shovel a spot out, because god forbid my complex plan for larger storms.  So I sent a email complaint to the complex manager.  Then of course, my karma bites me on the ass, because the following night I spend doing my taxes until late, and when I finally get into bed, I look up and see a wet spot on the ceiling 5 feet long and 1 foot wide or so. So of course it's past 11 pm and I have to call and report it, since there were water bubbles in the ceiling paint.  They tell me to stick a screwdriver through the dry wall and let it drain.  Which was just lovely.  It was a steady stream for about half an hour. The picture is pre-hole punch.  Needless to say I got a whole lot of sleep that night. And of course Shawn was in Minneapolis. No word on when it's going to be fixed.  Shocker. 

So anyway, last weekend (not this past weekend, but the one before that) we had pizza with Mary Kate and Daniel.  Daniel has been experimenting with making pizza dough, and since Mary Kate and I both have dairy issues, he made one using the Daiya vegan cheese.  It was much better than the last time I tried it.  Daniel mixed the cheddar and mozzarella versions together and it definitely made the pizza more cheesy. It was lovely and the crust was really good too.

Last weekend I also managed to do some spinning, working on the second 2 oz roving of the Foxfire Fiber & Designs at Springdelle Farm Hand Painted Cashmere & Tussah Silk Top in colorway Greylock.  I got about half way through the roving, but still it's progress.  I also met my writing 8,000 word goal for January and I now have about 65.451 words.  I'm hoping to have a completed first draft by May.  However, I've been slacking off since, so I have to get it together.

Last Monday I had my doctor's appointment and got set up with a new allergist to ferret out another possible food allergist, and to check out my knee. Good news, my knee cap isn't broken (after having x-rays), bad news, I have to go to an orthopedist to see whether I might have a cartilage tear. Sigh.

This past week, I didn't meet my writing goal. I'm going to try to fit it in sometime this weekend amongst all the myriad other things I have to do.  I did manage to get most of the taxes done while Shawn was in Minneapolis.  I just need to have one more document, and I can pay off most of our cruise we booked for December.  This past weekend was weird.  I did a lot of knitting.  Friday I went to bed early, so of course I woke up at 3:00 am on Saturday.  So I spent most of the day knitting and working on my vintage sock.  There's a picture of the toe leaf, and the toe shaped hole in the toe I had to knit. Then there's the picture of the toe, after I sewed in the leaf.  If I had to do these socks all over again, I'd just knit the toe normally and applique the leaf on the toe.  I think this is a detail that's just too fiddlely and not worth the trouble. 

In other news, Donna D helped me engineer a trade to get around my stash reduction plan rules so that I could get enough Noro Silk Garden in color 8 to do the Kyoto Jacket.  I traded 3 skeins of Noro Silk Garden in color 292 for 6 balls of Donna's Noro Silk Garden in color 8.  So I reduced my Ravelry stash by one type of yarn, my net loss after knitting the jacket will still be 12 skeins as a result of the trade, I didn't buy any yarn, and Donna reduced her stash by 3 skeins of yarn.  Everybody wins! 

Sunday was my birthday, I turned 39.  Shawn and I were going to go out, but it turned out the places he was supposed to call to see if they could accommodate my dairy allergy were all closed, so we just went to Free Range Fish on Second Street and got some lobsters.  I didn't get a sculpture for my birthday.  Just stating that for the record, although Shawn does not read my blog.

That's about it for this segment.  Stay tuned for further updates.