Down time

Let's see...This week I finished the first scarf from my lace I class and started on the second one. The brown one is a feather and fan stitch pattern done in Rowan yarn and so is the Horseshoe lace pattern scarf below. I finally learned how to read a charted lace pattern. Luckily this pattern is pretty easy and doesn't require an insane amount of concentration. The week after I had this class, I took the lace II class and started on the Branching Out scarf. That one is going to take my full concentration, so I am working it slowly. The Lace III class actually makes a triangular piece so that will be interesting. While it calls for lace weight yarn, I can tell you already that I will be using fingerling weight yarn. I've already had a run in with lace weight yarn and really don't want to go back there again!

Neither of these have been blocked, so this is not their final look. Blocking will open up the pattern and give the stitches the proper definition. I'm hoping to get the horseshoe lace scarf completed this week so I can wear it. Since our weather has been pretty darn warm lately, I thought I would be working on the scarves for next season, but look what we got yesterday:

SNOW. A LOT OF SNOW...and ice.

This is not a good picture to show just how much, but I think more snow got dumped on us last night than we've had all season. It started out raining ice -- Karen described it on Twitter as raining snowcones...good description! And as it pelted you, it felt like little needles...ouch.

The bad thing was that I had gotten up yesterday with the intention of going to the grocery store before the storm hit. On the way to the store, I stopped in our old neighborhood to see if our old neighbor (that the kids adopted as "Grandma" when we moved in) needed anything. We ended up visiting long enough that the storm had moved in by the time I left. I ended up going to our local Homeland store, which I generally avoid because they are notorious for having frozen food that has been thawed and refrozen.. I didn't buy anything frozen, but I did join half of the town in trying to get provisions.

The sad thing is that I fully realized the storm was not going to be lasting more than a day or two, but I stocked up on canned goods like I was expecting Armageddon! What's with that?!

It was nice to be forced to shut down and stay home knitting all night though.

I had anticipated it snowing and icing all day today, but the sun is out and it is melting...there goes my excuse to putter all day..But I am still hanging out knitting and baking cookies. Hubby wanted peanut butter cookies, so I made a batch this morning. Tonight I will make homemade pizza and look at chicken coop plans. Next weekend we are going to build the enclosure for the chickens that we are going to get. I haven't decided on a chicken coop design, but I'll probably just show hubby what I want and let him do his magic. He's pretty good at that.