Winter vacation to the Land of Knit

Well, let's see.  Is anyone else ready for spring?

Jason's company has been closed since Tuesday, thanks to several days of ice pelting from the heavens, and having stocked up at the grocery, we have been hibernating and celebrating our impromptu winter vacation with a sinful amount of snuggled-on-the-couch movie marathoning.  We've gone through every pajama-type article of clothing in the house.  The kitchen is piled high with dishes related to toasting homemade bagels and whipping up cheese omelets.

My friend Amy asked yesterday:  "How is it that being stuck at home for days means that my house is a complete mess?  You'd think, with all of this time to fill, it would be spotless--?"

Dear Seeds:  soon, I promise.  Really.

 I truly had more productive intentions for this week.  I started out to tackle the Great Seed Sort  and Garden Plan of 2011 during the ice storm and was promptly overwhelmed and exhausted by the vast sea of seed packets and plastic baggies, as ice relentlessly ticked and clicked at the windows.  So rather, than fighting it, I switched to dear, mindless knitting as a tiny, guilt-assuaging bit of productivity, and we've thoroughly enjoyed our mini vacation at home.  Barring some further session of Arctic fury, Jason will be back at work tomorrow, and I will be happy to shove the knitting in the cupboard and catch up in other areas--but it was really nice to simply spend these gray days together.  So, here is the sum of my industry for the week:

On the 42nd day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...a finished pair of socks.

And then, I just couldn't resist making something from this gorgeous merino blend for myself.  The yarn was a gift from a friend who has tried repeatedly to start knitting and gave up in exasperation, bestowing--in the process--this dreamy blue and green luxury upon my yarn stash.







 So, I decided to knit up a pair of fingerless gloves and a cowl, by way of my favorite glove pattern:  "Fetching" from www.knitty.com--a quick knit and with just enough flair to make them fun.

Apparently I'm still not sick of this pattern, because I am making another pair of the gloves for my long-neglected friend Amy, in a yarn that I picked out for this exact purpose many many moons ago.  I guess  this is another strategy to survive the winter doldrums--by gleefully soaking up such vibrant colors as though they were sunshine.









Despite the laziness of this week, I am relieved to say that my plans for school are really starting to sprout and flourish in the midst of apparent neglect--honestly, it seems that as soon as I deliberately refuse to stress and obsess the answers begin to pop up like flowers in my path. Once things are a little more certain I can't wait to share details, but for the moment, suffice it to say that chicken-raising seminars, school gardens, and urban homesteading manuals seem to loom in my future....