Ok, new goal for the year.

Two, actually.

One: Re: my reading list. I'm sorry, y'all, I just can't force myself to read "literature" which doesn't interest me in the least. The thought alone is giving me the collywobbles.

So, New Reading Goal: Read all the books I own that I haven't read yet. All you book-ish people know exactly what I'm talking about. I went to the second hand book shop tonight (I was looking for a DVD and found three. And four books, besides.) After I impulse shopped my way to $50 (at a second hand bookstore), I realized that these were far from the first small piles of books I hadn't read yet. And I have a new bookshelf to build and install.

Once it's up, I'm going to reorganize my shelves. There will be a section for books I haven't read yet. And I will read from this section for the whole of 2014. I can do some nostalgia reading (again, you bookish folk know what I mean), but I have to read at least two of the new books per month.

Two: Re: Ravellenics. I'm working on three projects. One is my hue shift blanket:

Two is my Double Cross Scarf:

And the third is to cast on to a new design for arm warmers that I've been percolating for years. I even have the pattern sketched out and plotted, I just haven't finished up the math or done swatching.

Yes, Virginia, swatching. I'm debating making that a pre-games event.

Either way, I'm not going to finish any of these projects. I mean, there's only so many weeks between the opening ceremonies and the closing. But I can at least make progress. And that, people, is my only goal.

What the hell is it with CSI?

So, last night I went and DVR'd several episodes of CSI: Original Crispy, because it was on Cloo Network and I had to do some heavy-duty knitting today. I needed to get my Mummy's Mink off the needles this weekend. It was needful, if only so I can prepare to start up my Ravellenic projects in the next few weeks.

Armed with my DVR'd episodes (of the post-modern DB era) and my DVD set of season 5 (prime Grissom vintage), I sat to this morning. Lots of fun mayhem and murder apparently speeds my needles along, because looky-looky what I got done today:

And it only took me what felt like forever. Ok, so only two months. It's laceweight yarn, doubled up, so next week on my destashing game I get to add 8 points to my tally. For the first time in over a year, I will be in the positive, wooohooo!

You know, whatever it takes to keep the chi flowing.

And I have nearly nothing left:

It's hard to tell, but that really is next to nothing left over. Mostly it's the longer tail end of one of the balls wadded up under all the wraps. It's definitely not enough for two more rows, which is what I would have needed to do. Since I started it with a pattern row right after my cast on, I had to cast off right after a pattern row. Makes sense, no?

So I'm not going to count it as leftover stash -- I mean, I couldn't do anything with it, other than perhaps chop it up and give it to the birds for some extremely fine nest lining. I may give it to my mother, or save it in case I have to make mends in her cowl. Yes, that may be best after all.

Either way, it's like a million pounds of obligation suddenly lifted off my mind. Now I can focus on my rainbow Hue Shift blanket and thousand other WIPs I have. Double Cross, Nemesis....a whole bunch of other's in my stashtainer that have no names yet.

Now I feel sad for them. Pretty yarns, stashed away in mid-stitch, pining for the light of day and fresh air of knitting process.

Just what I need; sympathy for my WIPs!

Snow Day, '14

If you have read this blog at all in any past winter of choice, you know I am very anti-winter. I do not like the cold, I do not like the dark and I do not like snow. Particularly when I have a day job that may require me to do something as stupid as try to drive.

So right now, we're having a snow storm of epic proportions. We don't tend to the snow -- sometimes we'll get a few inches, up to maybe 6 or 7, but that's once or twice a season at most. Right now we're getting dumped on with up to a foot of snow, and it will be followed by two days with sub zero (Farenheit) highs and wind chills. Fun, fun, fun. And then we're lining up a second storm for Wednesday through Friday, with possibly another 6 inches of snow on top of it all. Fabulous.

However, this year I work for a non-profit. They made the call to close our office tomorrow yesterday, as I was returning from the store, buying all the ingredients for a bland pain perdu, as is apparently traditional when snow storms or other bad weather strike. I'm pretty stoked, if you must know. That means I can enjoy the pretty of the snow (which it is, when viewed through a closed, properly weather-sealed window with a cup of hot chocolate in your hands) and not worry about how I'm going to survive the arctic world for which I am not prepared as I navigate the idiocy that is the morning rush hour.

I was also going to shovel the drive today so we didn't have the full foot of snow on it eventually, but my brother beat me to it. I suppose I should be, you know, nice to him or something. Of course, I managed to persuade my mother to make a carrot cake today (in addition to fresh chili), so that sort of counts.

Anywhoo. I get a free knitting day tomorrow. Today I'm doing laundry, and it's hard to sit to anything when you're popping up every 45 minutes. At least for me -- when I knit at a stretch, I like to tuck into it, you know? So when my last load is in the dryer (actually, I'll probably take a hiatus when the next load is in, the last load is my super-warm, heavy duty cotton blanket) I'll wrap up nice and warm and have a seat and knit on Mummy's Mink for a while, maybe while watching the marathon of Leverage (world's best canceled show) that's running on ION television.

So here's some pretty pictures so you can enjoy our weather along with me. Make some cocoa, grab some soft, squishy yarn and wrap up nice and warm.