Papa

To his grandkids, my dad is Papa. To Lauren, we're all Papa. We realized Monday that she was calling my mom Papa as well. Yesterday she was calling me Papa. It's cute, though. When one of us walks in a room or catches her attention in some way, she gets this little grin on her face and says, "Papa!" in that breathy little girl voice only small children can do. Yesterday Allyson and Lauren were at the kitchen table and I walked in. Lauren looked at me and said, "Papa," and Allyson said, "That's not Papa, that's Jessica!" It was really cute. So, now I'm Papa, too.

Well, it's Christmas Eve and the knitting is officially done. I still have to weave in ends and steam block the edges, but that shouldn't take too long (I seem to say that a lot about these last projects...). Three more presents to wrap: Donna's vest (once the weaving and blocking is done), Allyson's Tinkerbell suitcase, and Michael's last present which was supposed to be here Monday and isn't yet. The snowstorms between Portland and here delayed its arrival, but according to UPS it should be delivered today. Just in the nick of time.

On Nieces, Christmas Knitting, and Snow

Well, it's been a busy few days around here. The snow has continued to pile up. Justin and Amy and their girls arrived safely yesterday morning at about 3:00. I spent most of the day at my parents' house visiting with them and Michael came over after work. I'm still finishing up a few Christmas presents and was working on a hat yesterday. "What're you doing?" was a frequent question from both girls. Mom gave Allyson some short wooden needles and some scrap yarn so she could "knit" too. For her this consisted of wrapping the yarn around the needles again and again until it was an unrecognizable mess. When I asked her what she was making she said it was a sweater for my daddy, but it was kind of small. When Lauren asked what I was doing and I told her I was making a hat her response was "Ooooooh." She then proceeded to tell me something, but I'm not really sure what it was. They're funny little girls. Allyson warmed up to me pretty quickly this time. I think it helps that she was old enough to really interact with us when they came to visit last October. Lauren's in a mommy phase and doesn't really like anyone except mommy or daddy. Yesterday my mom was playing with Allyson in the bedroom they're sleeping in and Mom said, "Hi, Lauren!" Lauren looked at her and started wailing. She likes to look at Michael and I. At one point when she was wandering around the house I held out my hand to her and she gave me five, so I took that as a good sign.

They're fun little girls and it's good to spend time with Justin and Amy. This will be a busy, fun week. The Christmas knitting is nearly done. I finished the bulk of the knitting for the vest on Saturday, blocked it out that night and left it to dry all day Sunday. I started the hat Sunday and finished it yesterday. The picture I took of Allyson wearing it with my phone didn't save for some reason. I've started putting the vest together. I have one more side and shoulder seam to sew, then the edging around the collar and armholes to knit, which shouldn't take too long. I should be able to wrap it tomorrow (hopefully).

Here are the promised pictures of the snow from the other day.




This is early Thursday morning. It continued to snow until around 4:00 that afternoon. The snow did settle some on Friday, so it was more dense and less deep. It snowed more Sunday and yesterday. When I was getting ready to go to my parents' house yesterday morning, it took a good half hour for me to get my car out. Michael had cleaned it off Thursday morning around 9:00, but there was still about a foot of snow on my car yesterday. Plus, I tried to shovel our walk, since it snowed Sunday afternoon and yesterday morning, but only got about halfway before I decided it was too much work and was taking way too long. I did have to shovel some around the car. The snow had drifted up almost over the wheels. Plus, all the snow that was on my car ended up in front of and next to my car. I had to dig a bit from in front (I was backed into the parking space) so I could pull out without high centering the car. I did all this with jeans on, which was not the most brilliant idea. By the time I was done, my jeans were covered in snow from the knees down. I had to come back inside and change before I left. Yay for snowpants.

Walkin' In a Winter Wonderland

Today is officially a snow day. The Idaho State Police have issued an advisory that non-emergency vehicles should stay off the road. Does this actually stop people? Not really. Last night around 7:30 Michael shoveled our front walk (for the second time) and when I went out to check on him, it made me want to play in the snow. All my childhood snow cravings came back in a rush. So, once he was done, I bundled up in all my snow gear and we headed out. We went for a walk, which sounds crazy but was actually a lot of fun. I tried to make a snow angel just behind our parking lot, outside of the gate that keeps cars from coming in that way. That was not the greatest idea. I'm not used to snow this fluffy. It's been so cold lately, that the snow's moisture content is securely locked in crystals of ice. This means it's not suitable for making snow balls, snow men, or snow sculptures of any kind. This also means that, despite it's depth, it's not a good idea to fall backward into a snow drift on top of asphalt. Now, I didn't really hurt myself, but I was definitely expecting a softer landing. The walk was really cool. Christmas lights in a snowfall are so pretty. Michael took a couple pictures with his phone that I'll post later.

It snowed all night long and all of our plans for the day have been cancelled. I was supposed to have lunch with my friend Juanita, but that didn't happen. We'll reschedule, though. But I was looking forward to that, for sure. It snowed all night. I think we've broken records. And there's no sign of it letting up anytime soon. Michael has shoveled five times since this started, and probably needs to again. We actually walked to his parents house (they don't live all that far from us), but that was the longest walk to their house I've ever made. The waist deep snow made for slow going. It's fluffy, but it's deep. We've been camped out here since about 10:00 this morning. Michael's being nice and snow-blowing his parents' driveway. It'll be an interesting walk home, that's for sure.

Wool Socks

I love wool socks. They are wonderful. Wool tends to get a bad rap, and many people think of wool as a synonym for "itchy." While there are definitely wools that are itchy (especially if you're allergic to wool, which I, fortunately, am not), but not all of them are. There are some very nice, non-itchy wools. And socks made from this type of wool are the best socks in the world. Particularly if you live in a northern climate (such as Idaho) where it snows and temperatures can drop below zero for days at a time. Sadly, I only have two pairs of wool socks. My first pair of adult socks are made of a variegated green wool and keep my toes nice and toasty. Here they are:


The other pair I finished a couple months ago, but I'm not crazy about them. They were my first experiment with double knitting, where I knit both socks at the same time. Because of this, they are knit from thicker yarn than is usually used in sock knitting and they don't match. This is intentional, so that I could tell the socks apart as I was knitting them. The more experienced double knitters use the same yarn for both socks so that they end up with a matching pair, but since it was my first time I did not do this.


As you can see, they're a bit odd looking. I didn't weave in the ends because I don't really plan on wearing them. Although, I did wear them on Sunday under my boots when it was ridiculously cold. My other wool socks were in need of washing and I was desperate for wool socks to keep my toes from freezing. Fortunately for me, I now have enough sock yarn for at least six pairs of socks. My mom got me a bunch of sock yarn for my birthday. I started one already, but I only have the toe done.

Thoughts

I've now been on my Christmas break for about a week. Traditionally, I use this time to catch up on sleep. Strangely, that it not happening this time. I like sleep. Sleep makes me a happier person. For some reason, sleep does not always like me. The last couple nights have been not good. I even took something to help me sleep last night, and I was really sleepy, but took forever to fall asleep, and I still woke up a lot. Then I woke up at 5:30 or so and couldn't go back to sleep. I did finally sleep a little more from about 8 - 9:30. I don't like this. Normally I would try to exercise more, or something, but it's ridiculously cold outside, so I don't really want to go for a walk. Though, today is warmer than the last couple days, that's not saying much. According to weather.com it's 9 degrees Fahrenheit right now and actually feels that way, too. The last couple days the windchill has been pushing us down significantly below zero.

In other news, I finished one of my last Christmas present projects. It only needs to be blocked, which I will do tomorrow. The vest for my mother-in-law is progressing nicely. I think I'll probably finish the left front today, which puts me ahead of schedule. I'm at the armhole shaping point right now. From here on to the end of this section goes more quickly. It looks like it'll get done in time for Christmas after all.

Christmas time is here!

There are officially ten days until Christmas and counting. And I'm not done with all the presents yet. There are two still on the knitting needles. One is nearly finished, which is good. The other, a vest for my mother-in-law, is less than half done. Considering I just started it on Friday, though, I'm doing pretty good. The right front is finished and I'm about to cast on for the left front. According to my calculations, I'm right on track. I managed to stay this way by staying up until 2:00 in the morning to finish the right front, but that wasn't entirely by choice. I went to bed at 10:00 and got back up at 11:30 when I was no closer to going to sleep, and in fact feeling more awake than I did at 10:00. So, I got up and finished the right front. Since I'm not using a pattern, but designing this myself, the neckhole shaping was a bit of trial and error. Now that I know what to do, the left front should go a little more quickly.

This vest is my second venture into knitting something I've designed myself. The first was a hat commissioned by a lady from church for her daughter for Christmas. The daughter was wanting an earflap hat, but her mom couldn't find any in colors her daughter would like. So, she asked me to knit one for her in pink, purple, and white. This is what I came up with:




I'm pretty pleased with it, I must admit.

All of my actual Christmas shopping is done, though. I did order one more thing for Michael last night that he'll really like. According to my calculations, it should be here around the end of the week.

Hiking

Spring has finally arrived and, as usual, is very finicky. Since the weather has been so nice lately I've been wanting to go hiking. As I'm sure you know, North Idaho has lots of great hiking places. There are even some right in town. It would help if I actually knew how to get to them. Having grown up here, you'd think I'd know. Sadly, that is not the case. Last year we found some trails on Canfield at the end of Nettleton Gulch Road, which isn't terribly far from where we live. On Sunday we decided to go hiking around back there in the afternoon. Upon our arrival we discovered many people on dirt bikes. While pedestrians are allowed on the trail, we opted not to stay and risk getting run over by said dirt bikes. This caused a bit of a dilemma. You see, I know that there are pedestrian only hiking trails on both Canfield Mountain and Best Hill. Sadly, I do not know how to get to them or even a vague idea of where they are. I have hiked on both hills as a teenager, but the last time was probably close to ten years ago and I wasn't driving then. There is a park that is right at the base of Best Hill that we decided to go to and see if there were any trails we could follow leading out of there. There weren't but we were so desperate at that point that we just started walking and made our own trail. It had been raining for a good portion of the day at that point, so the tall grass was very wet, and by the time we finished so were our pant legs. We had a good time. At one point we were nearly attacked by a "wild" animal. There are a few houses up on the hill and we strayed dangerously close to one. We were going to give it a pretty wide berth, but wanted to pass it on our quest to continue going up. There were two dogs that spotted us and started barking and running toward us. One was on a chain. The other...was not. It was definitely not pleased by our proximity. Once we realized the lack of restraints, we quickly turned and walked back down the hill a good ways. We ended up not getting very far up the hill because we had to backtrack so far, then go a good bit over so as to give the house in question a really wide berth. By the time we got just a little above where the house was (and significantly to the side of it) we were getting tired and decided to go home. Now, if I could just find a map of some actual hiking trails...