Five Degrees.

I’ve done it. I’ve realized a personal dream. Twinkies are going. (Thanks to Norma for the heads up). It seems that the company is going bankrupt, and if it is true, and the next few months go the way that they should, I will have done something that many other people may find incredible and stunning.
I will have raised three humans who have never eaten a Twinkie.
The Rhinebeck sweater proceeds apace.
rbback
Those of you who appreciated the obsessive ribbing will also enjoy that the cables on the right cable to the right, those on the left cable to the left, and the one in the middle just moves in and out. Nothing like a little symmetry.
I am starting to have some serious concerns about finishing. I’ve decided to completely neglect housework to make more time…(that should give me another 15 minutes a day). I brought up the winter clothes from the basement, so now everybody has more they could wear, thus prolonging the amount of time I can go without visiting my friend “Mr. Washie”. The only real barrier to finishing this sweater is now my real job. I’ll work on that.
In other news, it’s cold in my house. Really cold. It’s been getting down into the single digits here at night ( that’s Celsius people…don’t freak out. It was 5 degrees here last night, that’s like…about 40F) and the house gets really nippy. The temperatures are coming up during the day, but not for long enough to make it ever really comfortable in the house. (To add insult to injury, there has been a period of time during the day when it is warmer outside than inside.) My hands are so cold that I am actually typing slower. I’m thinking about baking bread to warm the kitchen. We’re letting our bathwater stand in the tub until it’s cold so that the room is passively heated. The poor little children went and found their flannel jammies last night, and I’m wearing layers. In the house.
“Why Stephanie”, you ask… “why don’t you turn on the heat?”. I have several answers.
1. Heat is expensive. I am saving money. Put on a sweater.
2. I am a knitter. This period before I turn on the heat mark the weeks when my art is most appreciated. These are the weeks that I look like a genius for making everybody thick wool socks. They are all wearing slippers. They are thinking about full-time hat use. Shawls and throws are over laps and around shoulders. Turning on the heat ends these days of glory. Central heat is my natural enemy.
3. I am Canadian. There is an unspoken and holy contest among Canadians. This time of year Canadians are gripped in a desperate war against nature. As intrinsically peace loving people, this is really the only serious war we wage. Canadians obsessively watch the weather channel and check the thermostat. We say things like “How cold is your house?” . “Did you turn your furnace on yet?”, ” Last year I made it until Hallowe’en.”. The longer you can go…the colder the house gets, the less heat you use….the more noble the fight.
As the winter approaches, you can’t even give up all at once. I heard a mother in the school yard say “I put the furnace on…but only for an hour. I just took the edge off, you know, for the kids. Bob and I can take it.”
Nobody wants to be first.
I’m not turning it on until somebody has to break the ice in the toilet. Put on a sweater.
sky
PS. The Toronto sky…for Sandy, who is planning beautiful mittens…and wants to see your sky too.