So it’s snowing. Still, more, again with the snow forever. We are trying to make the most of it. (Yes. that is a tomato cage on the snowmans head.) This photo was taken last night before we got another 15cm.

but I have to tell you that even if the kids think they can go on…(Psst…Elizabeth D. Check out the hat on Sam’s head!) I’m about ready to bury myself in a snowdrift and wait for the thaw to reveal me.

Here is an abbreviated list of things that I am sick of:

1. The bottom 10 cm of everyone’s pants being wet all the time. I hate this. I keep forgetting that the bottom 10cm of my pants are wet and then tucking a leg under me when I sit on the couch and wetting the couch and my arse. I have been doing this for 4 months. I am clearly not going to learn, so the snow must go.

2. Stepping in puddles of shmutz everywere I go. These slushy puddles of road filth, slush, snow, ice, salt and the spit of demons are at every single intersection and there is no defence.

3. Drying a perpetual and unceasing number of boots, mittens, scarves and hats on every single heating register in the house the whole day long. (This smells as good as you think it does.)

4. I would like to just go for a walk. I would not like to spend five minutes considering what paraphernalia I may need to do so, (Shoes? No, too cold for shoes, Boots? Yeah, boots, hat with earflaps? Scarf? Mittens or gloves? Thrums or not?) and then searching all of the heating vents to find my chosen garb, and then going outside and discovering that I’m cold anyway.

5. I would like a decent tomato. I do not know what winter tomatoes are made of, but it is not tomato. They are pink and strange and tasteless. The weak pink winter tomato is a metaphor for all that is wrong with late winter.

6. I am tired of dealing with the potential for “Snow Days”. Every-time there is a storm we get up and listen to the CBC in the morning with mixed emotions. I am praying that the schools are open, the children are praying that they are closed. There is no happy ending. No matter what the CBC says, someone will be heartbroken. (It is better if it is me. I only cry in the bathtub).

There are other issues, but let’s simply leave it at: There is no Spring here.

There is no reason at all to go outside, but plenty to stay in.

Carolyn sent me these

which entertained me to no end. I also enjoyed that Carolyn pointed out that my name is an anagram for

which is really not true, but very funny. (We will not discuss how much time I spent trying to make my name spell other words.)

I started a little bit of mohair fun…It’s a scarf, but you’ll have to wait and see what kind.

I would have taken a better picture of it, but my backdoor will only open about 6 inches, due to the amount of snow blown up against it. Oh, wait…

7. I am sick of the weird vortex effect that deposits all snow in the neighbour hood on my property. There is a woman down the street that I believe has not shovelled (maybe swept…I saw her with a broom) this entire winter. Her share of the vortex is the wind whipping every single snowflake off her property and depositing it on my steps and against my back door. I toy with asking her to do a little snow removal at my house (it is her snow after all) and in some particularly bitter shovelling moments…I think about returning it.

Finally, Evelyn (fully understanding my obsessive nature and interests, mailed me this book…

It’s Latvian Dreams: Knitting from weaving patterns By Joyce Williams. (Note: I have provided an Amazon link for illustrative purposes only…I remind you to support your local independent bookseller as you see fit, though this book is a little hard to find). I am obsessed with this book. Obsessed. The book begins with an extremely useful and interesting section on technique, and not a single paragraph made me feel confused or nervous. Very, clear thinking there, and well explained for even those of us who bore quickly and have a low threshold for this sort of thing. (Most tech articles and books leave me cold. It takes about three minutes before everything I’m reading stops making sense. I try and read it, but it all sounds like the teacher in Charlie Brown…”Whah wah, wah wah wah…”) This book would be worth it for the technique section alone. The sweaters are very, very cool, though not quite to my taste…but the charts? The charts are an opus. There are several that are just begging to be mittens (but really…what isn’t?) and there are some that are so stunning that I feel a thrill of Joyce’s brilliance when I see them. These are, no matter what your mind tells you…two colour charts. The shading effect is from the way that Joyce has charted the two colours.

See that? See how it’s…, well, the best word is “interesting”. Really, really fascinating. Doesn’t it boggle your mind? Don’t you wonder what the risk of stroke is, should you decide to knit this? It’s the whole big world if knitting, and people are up to the damnedest things. Behind these charts are page after page after page of beautiful, useful, completely do-able charts, should you think you’re not up to the above. Joyce is a goddess.

Joyce is not screwing around.