Happy Solstice ...

Lovingly plagiarized Solstice greeting ...
Holiday Salutations, bestowed on kith and kin, at this special time of the year. Whether you are starving yourself in daylight, slaughtering innocent conifers, or dancing naked (and cold) under a hunters moon, I wish you, and yours, merryment in whatever proceeding compells you to decorate your home in garish hues, with ungulates on the rooftop, and a scarlet clad, aged ectomorph, glowing on your porch. May you all spend this time full, with love, laughter, and just enough dinner, so that there is room for Figgy Pudding. And a Happy, denominational or not, winter celebration of your choice to you and yours

Stuff and Nonsense ...

Daylight:

Length of day: 7:30
Hours of dark: 15ish
Sunrise: 8:47 am
Sunset: 4:18 pm
Start of twilight: 8:04 am
End of twilight: 5:00 pm

Current weather: Clear. -5°C (23°F), -9°C (15°F) with windchill, wind SW 9.6 km/h (6 mph), relative humidity 62%, pressure 29.65 in Hg.

Forecast:

Tonight.. Clear. Wind W 20 km/h. Low -5°C.
Friday.. Sunny. Wind W 20 km/h. High -1°C.
Friday night.. Clear. Wind W 20 km/h becoming light. Low -13°C.
Saturday.. Sunny. High -6°C.
Sunday.. Sunny. Low -9°C. High -5°C.
Monday.. Sunny. Low -10°C. High 1°C.
Normals for the period.. Low -17°C. High -5°C.

Well, damn ...

The city sent the graders around again, and this time, they ploughed right down to the pavement. That's three times they've been around to do the side streets since the last time it snowed. The last two times, they've ploughed around my car, so it's just a matter of shovelling out an exit and an entrance. This time, however, I wasn't here when they ploughed ... which means they ploughed the street into the place where I would park. They also ploughed quite neatly around the bus ... and piled it up higher than waist-high on the sidewalk to the curb. There's one chunk that's over twice as big as I am, from shoulders to hips. It's going to take me days to dig that all out and my wrists already hurt. I am so pissed off and frustrated I could cry. Just damn.

Doing ...

Friday: Errands, errands, and more errands ... after digging the car out 'cuz the street got ploughed. Just the top layer got ploughed, then it was melty, so the ruts were back, worse than ever. The cards turned out well, each with a different hat on the same background:



They did not say, "Here's your hat. I gave it away" ... though I was tempted. Marmaduke teased me about giving a bald guy a picture of a warm hat in this weather. Enough with the hat pictures, already, eh? I'll be mostly done with them soon, honest.

Saturday: I went to a mall ... on a Saturday ... in December. Only for Patty would I do such a thing! Cookie & Tree party at Adele's ... not very many kids, this year, but still fun. The three youngest, Rose, Cassandra and Annailese, weren't there, this time. Then there was the car-shuffle in the driveway as folks left, clean-up, icing adjustments, restocking snacks and dinner ... a bit of down time between rounds. Then the grown-ups showed up to do the same things the kids had done, only mostly booze-powered instead of sugar-powered. I had half a beer at around 9 ... whadda lush. I folded a bazillion snowflake blanks ('cuz it drives me nuts when they're square or eight-sided) and actually managed to stay ahead of the game! The girls (even me!) sang carols up in the loft 'til the rest of the musicians arrove and turned it into a (great) jam. We had a rotating pushing squad working all night 'cuz the road in front of Adele's was horrible! I managed not to get stuck ... whew! Got to bed at six a.m.

Sunday: So very tired! Had a great time at Greenwoods Books with the fambly. Dad came, this time, too, and had fun. Yay! Then Mom, Mary, Cory, Ernie, Linda and I headed to Planet Organic for a bit and I raced home to feed the cats, grab a bite, and change, then off to the APs. The three of us went to the Canadian Folk Music Awards ... good show, great music, laughs.

Monday: Knitting day ... Poppet Project.

Today is another errand day, if I'm not too beat after I go shovel the car out again. And again, the barstids just scraped the top layer. It's unusual for the front street to get ploughed at all ... twice in a week is nuts ... and twice without doing the job right ... bleh.

Ceiling Wax ...

The furnace started making funny noises. I went to check it out and discovered a large puddle on the laundry room/furnace room floor and the pump spitting water out all over the place. Bah!

The furnace guy came and replaced the condensate pump (it was full of little bits of plastic ... something inside went kerblam, but it still kept pumping water - just not up the hose, like it's supposed to). Since the one-year warranty ran out two months ago, I paid for the new pump. He didn't charge me for the service call or the labour, though, and gave the rest of the furnace a check-up while he was at it.

I had a lovely time with Mona, Pete, Jacqueline and Colleen at the Blue Chair Café, where friends Al Brandt and Dale Ladouceur were playing together. They're involved in several projects together, but this was their first gig as just the two of them.

When I was little and Dad would go out curling in the evenings, I would picture him in his heavy zippered cardigan, with toe rubbers on his shoes, standing on the outdoor hockey rink under the light, sweeping snow off a boulder twice his height. I knew this was what he was doing because he'd told me he was going to the rink to sweep rocks. I also knew that Puff The Magic Dragon treasured ceiling wax.

Jack Frost made my windows pretty.



And his friend, the North Wind, made the house across the street into a gingerbread house.



And then I knit some more hats (surprise!). Mona reminded me that, though Christmas is still a little ways off, the Christmas party where I wish to give the cards (with the hat pictures on them) away is next weekend. Aaaaaaaaaaaah!

Another knit with two strands of Lang Tosca ... child to teen.



And another knit with two strans of Lang Tosca ... infant.



And another knit with two strands of Lang Tosca until I ran out, then some other lovely yarn whose ball band is missing (sadly ... it's nice stuff ... I'd like some more) ... teen to adult.



Yikes! It's December already and I had't knit any socks for Annailese's advent calendar, yet! Two more in the works.



Mister Joe mohair (black, some of which comes off on hands and needles, bah) held together with silk garden ... adult.



Back to it. One more hat, two more little advent socks, cards (design and make) to go this week. Then I'm free to finish the poppet projects.