inside/outside

Outside, the sky is dark, and the weather could best be described as "wintry mix" - sleety rain, itty bitty ice balls, and wet snow. There's a good 1/2 inch of slush on the ground, but the roads aren't too bad yet. The wind has picked up, the temperature is dropping, and by morning it's supposed to be snowing pretty hard.

Inside, it's warm and bright. I spent the morning de-cluttering my room and generally being domestic - doing laundry, loading the dishwasher, drinking coffee (and dunking samoas, my favorite Girl Scout cookies). By the time the rain started, I was curled up with the Technicolor Blankie and a documentary about the Dalai Lama. Documentaries make excellent yarning movies - they're usually narrated, so you don't have to watch the screen as much. I went to work  - one client - and now am curled up again, ready to pick the blanket back up. Not much left to go - I'm on the final shade of yellow, then just three shades of green and I can begin the border! Mom and I are having canned chicken and gouda bisque for dinner, it's definitely soup-eating weather! Yummm, soup and buttered toast...maybe a mug of tea...

The baby shower on Sunday was a lot of fun! The two grandmas-to-be did an excellent job with the decor, and the food was amazing - homemade pasta and vegetable salads, and sandwiches from the Erie Bread Company. There was also a variety of giant cupcakes made by a local bakery - I picked German chocolate, nommalicious! The new parents are pretty well-prepared now, I think (E is campaigning for one of the three Baby Bullet sets, ostensibly because "Auntie's going to be feeding the baby too"...but secretly she wants to use it for more adult purposes. Who wouldn't want to mix cocktails then put them in smiling cups?!). The bonnet and booties were a hit, especially with E's mom, with whom I bonded over yarn - she knitted some very nice scarves as table prizes, and I won one (yay!) in a gorgeous blue/grey/beige colorway. There would be a pic, but I forgot it at E's yesterday morning. Ah, well.

Well, the blanket is calling my name, so it's time to continue my cozy evening. In addition to blanket-making and soup-eating, there will also be some online garden seed purchasing...there's an American heirloom lettuce variety called Tom Thumb that I'm dying to try, decisions on dry soup beans to be made, and hmmmm, do we want to grow bell peppers this year or not? Dreaming lots of garden dreams.....