New Years Blizzard 2011

After spending about 5 months in CT, enjoying Christmas with the new baby and his family in Florida, dropping our oldest son off in Duluth, MN we are stuck in Moorhead, MN in a blizzard. This is the 2nd night we have had to stay over and probably will tomorrow also as I-94 will probably be closed. We are supposed to get about 12 inches of snow and winds at 35 miles per hour. The wind chill is in the -20s to -30s.  Brutal.  If we could drive for about 1.5 hours on 94 we would drive out of the storm but no such luck.  Florida continues to look better all the time. At least the first night we were stuck in Walker, MN at a casino, although it did cost me some money it was still fun. You would certainly pack differently if you knew you were going to get hung up for a couple of days in a hotel.  Thanks goodness I have my knitting with me.

Working on my knitting goals for this year but need to get home to finalize them and then will post.

Danielle and John are with me, moving to ND and she hates cold weather. We'll see how long this lasts. Hopefully a good long time so she can get a productive life going.

They're gone

I'm sad.

Getting Done

I found a really easy, plain, uncomplicated, non fussy hat for my son Chris for Christmas. He doesn't like cables, bumps, decorations, colors, patterns, etc. Just plain. The most boring kid to knit for, but at least it makes for quick knitting.

The color is black, although the picture looks charcoal gray. I am playing with a new camera and haven't gotten it all figured out yet.  Unfortunately I think it may be too big on him but we'll see. He will appreciate the gesture even if it is too big. I have plenty more yarn so can scale it back, or I was thinking on the next hat of adding an inch of K2P2 ribbing to make it a little tighter. I'm not convinced that would look the best but may try knitting a sample.

Yarn:  Galway Worsted (Purchased at Black Sheep Yarn, Kent, CT)
Needles: Size 8, 16 inch circulars, Clover
               Size 8, double point, Susan Bates
Pattern: The Boyfriend Hat

It rained and poured today, cats and dogs. At this point at least it is not snow. Actually all of our beautiful snow is gone.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

What an eventful week. New grandson is home and doing well, as is mama.  Tina said he sleeps more during the daytime than at night, so we'll see how that goes.

We are having a horribly rainy day which we are hoping beyond belief will not turn into any of the snow the Midwest has gotten. Mom, you guys can keep it. I have traveling coming up!!

Spent about 4 hours last night knitting Chris a hat for Christmas, about 2/3rds done.  When finished I will take a picture with my new handy dandy Canon. It has been fun trying the different settings and learning what to do. Still would love to take a class and get better.

Finally It Looks Like Christmas

Finally, finally, finally we got some snow.

I love New England stone fences.

I love how the house looks all decorated with snow.  The tracks in the driveway are mine, I shoveled the whole darn thing.  Took two hours. Who needs the gym? It is snowing again tonight so tomorrow may be a repeat.

Our lane in the quiet of the morning when the sun was trying to rise.

Okay, last picture.... (of snow)

Lots of hungry little birds. I had already scared some away unfortunately.

Finally finished one of Alex's gifts (Tina's unborn)

Kind of silly but I had fun with it. The mitten pattern was actually from a WorkBasket magazine from the 1960s.  Since they are in Florida I made this out of sock yarn so it wouldn't be too warm.  The baby sleeper has 3 buttons sewn on but I need to go back to JoAnn's and get more of the bigger buttons. I made the buttonholes to large so rather than sew them partly shut I just decided to use bigger buttons. It looks cute.

Danielle is winding down school, two weeks left. She will then have to take a class starting at the end of January, on-line, and will receive her diploma in May. I am so pleased she decided to do this.  AJ, her husband, is coming on Thursday and they are all leaving a week from Friday to spend the holidays in North Carolina.  Then I have to clean like a crazy person to get the house ready.