In The Bleak Midwinter

In the bleak midwinter, frost wind made moan,

earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

in the bleak midwinter, long ago.

The days are long, cold and dark. At this dullest and brownest and bleakest time of year there is little to perk interest. Not work inducing weather. Find myself more desirious of sitting swathed in blankets clutching a cup of something hot than doing anything constructive. Knitting is always appropriate while storms rage. Have made a great start on the Wing of Moth shawl and am also cabling my heart out on Teampal Breachain hat. Got a ball winder and umbrella swift for Christmas and find winding hanks into balls great fun.


Here is the Moth laying in my Boston fern, trying to look moth-like. Below is a closeup of the fir cone design of the first shawl segment.



Movement equals warmth, so I began the new year with cleaning out closets and cupboards. Clothing, books, cd's, etc. were boxed and sent off to Goodwill. Next, I set myself the task of washing all the plantation shutters. Washing the shutters involved getting out the ladder, which in turn led to vacuuming up insect corpses and wiping up the windowsills, and after all that I figured I might as well go for broke and wash the windows too. Limited myself to one room or 3 windows or so a day. Sounds rather pathetic until one takes in the 10 foot ceilings and the size and number of windows. After three days the main floor is finished. Had thought that by keeping things bite size I wouldn't send the fibromyalgia screaming and would still have part of each day to do something easy like scrapbook. Failed right away. Daily duties became herculean. Kept dinners simple and hobbled to couch to sit and atrophy in pain each evening. I feel very old and rather crisp. Something always goes crunch when I move. Next week: upstairs.

Five weeks of Friday snowstorms. Temperatures dropped to zero and below, and hung about in the single digits for a week. Then things warmed up to the twenties, a virtual heatwave. Was able to shed two layers of clothing and actually wear only one shirt at a time. Douglas County took advantage of every clear day to work on streets and sidewalks. A very large plow broke its blade on the ice lake in front of our house. Didn't feel one pang of guilt as it was Shea's fault for creating the blockage by pushing all the model home snow up against the fence on the opppsite side. With nowhere to go, water from melting snow all the way up the hill backed up at our house. Two days later Shea Homes was out clearing the sidewalk. When yelling at the HOA and Shea Homes sales office does not bring results try and have a large and very expensive piece of county equipment break in front of your house. It works wonders.



This week Mother Nature decided to change things up a bit and send the storm on Saturday. Poor Mike was out in the cold again all day Sunday. He snowblowed past the empty lot to the mailboxes in hope of keeping the walk open now that Shea finally plowed the 4 feet of old frozen snow off of it



Mike flew to Portland, Oregon for a three day seminar, and while he was there he rented a car and drove down the coast to Astoria, just for all us Gooney's. This film marked Elisabeth and Sarah's childhood memories. Mine as well. Who hasn't wanted to find pirate treasure? For the fans among you, it is all there. Mikey's house and Data's, right next door. Cannon Beach, the three rocks, Astoria Museum...everything just as you remember. Please visit Beth's blog to read her entry and see the pictures. http://ringbright.blogspot.com/2007/01/goondocks.html

Just in case you haven't had enough pictures of the bleakness and cold, here is one more.