Bare

Christmas is now well and truly over. There are no sparkly lights. There are no cheery Santa Clauses. There are no beautiful angels. There is no bright and happy greenery. There are no packages of chocolate, and there are no bowls of nuts on the coffee table. Outside we still look Christmasy since the outdoor light never come down (we just turn them off) and the real wreath is now hanging on the outside of the front door where it will stay until it start to drop too many of its needles and begins to irritate me. Somewhere usually around Valentines. That's when we will turn off the lights outside too. Until then the lights give the house a cheery look to welcome us home in these dark and dreery winter days. There is one more day of cleaning to do to be done with it once and for all.... I will pop this computer in a different spot and sweep up all the floors and I will take the leaf out of the dining room table and take the red plaid tablecloth off the table to be laundered. Then I can say I am truly finished with Christmas. Teapot just came downstairs and already he misses the nice bright Christmas tree in the corner.  When you live so far north the bright lights that come at Christmas time can really help to get you past this dark and wretched time of the year. And so I have some bright sparkly white fairy lights that I will probably put up to help get us past this.

This really has not been one of our better winters. We have had one wind storm after another. Chinnooks bring warmer temperatures and while that is nice, it melts the snow that is on the ground and turns everything to a slick ice rink and the ice is scary. It is terribly slippery outside as we creep to the animal paddocks at feeding time. Even going to the truck is a hazard to your health. I barely go out through the door anymore because I'm scared of hurting my back in a fall on the ice. But at least the deck is clear and I do go out there almost every day for a little while for an intake of fresh air. Still there is just enough wind to blow you out of root!

I have been working for the last two days on my silk and cotton sample for the level 3 homework books and I am happy to say that I have enough for my sample but also enough for the summer top question and sample too. Last time when I did the level 3 homework I always liked my cotton and silk sample and thought it would make a good yarn for a summer top. When it came time to do a sample appropriate for a ladies summer top I really wanted to use a 50/50 silk/cotton 2-ply yarn... I was running low on time and so in the end opted for a straight cotton 3-ply yarn and while it turned out quite nicely I was always sorry that I didn't use the silk cotton blend.  So this time round I am using Supima cotton and some very pretty blue silk and as a result, I have a lovely chambray silk cotton blend yarn for my sample. I will finish this sample today and wash it and get it in my book by tomorrow when it dries and then it will be back to the level 5 homework for the next week.

So that's it for me on this mid winter Sunday morning. I am off to eat breakfast... drink tea... listen to CBC... and spin. Hope you have a good day too...