December, Finals, and a little Snow

 

Nothing too thrilling to report from the Land of 10,000 Lakes. 

I have a final exam and a quiz tomorrow at school for my Excel II class. So in just 28 hours I will be down to having just one class to focus on, and that is nearing it's end as well! Pretty exciting. I still wonder how I managed working full time and being enrolled in 6 classes this semester. Kind of neat when you impress yourself!

We are getting some winter weather here this week. I was happily distracted by the above view out my window while studying today. Huge white fluffy flakes fell from the sky - so pretty when you aren't trying to drive in rush hour. ☺

No holiday decorations have been placed in our home - and I sort of doubt it will happen this year. Just not feeling that Christmas spirit this year. I haven't purchased a single gift yet, and I am thinking gift certificates and Amazon Prime will be my saving grace this year. 

I have not knit a stitch in days. Really hoping to get my knit back on here really soon. A girl gets crabby when she doesn't get her fiber fill.

Snow Bird

We got another 6 inches of snow last night. It's insane to me that we are getting snow like this and it is almost May. HOPEFULLY (knock on wood) this will be the last storm of the season.

When I got to work this morning I saw this guy in the tree by my car. I quick snapped a few pictures of him. I suppose the mice are pretty obvious in all this snow - good hunting weather for him.

In theory our weather will improve dramatically in the next few days. I am hoping my spirits will improve then too. It's just depressing how much winter we have had. Garg.

Let it snow!

Oh the weather outside is frightful... but my dog loves it! My hubby ran her around in the backyard while it was still coming down full force. I would be shocked if we aren't at almost a foot of snow at this point. And it's still coming down. It looks like we could get about 15 inches when it finally stops. THAT is a lot of snow!

I am happy it hit today instead of Monday - but I am still going to have to drive to work on some pretty yucky roads. Not. Fun. I am sure I will wonder, in the morning, when I am clearing huge piles of snow off our truck, why I live in Minnesota. But for today - snug in my house with candles lit and the snow dropping down - it's quite lovely.

And maybe this will kick-start my Christmas Spirit! I have been feeling a bit Grinchy, so this might help.

And now I must go and shovel. (Score one more for the Grinch!)

It's December!

And true to form that means it snowed here today!

Not this much snow though. This is a picture from about two weeks ago when we got our first real snow of the season. My hubby is chasing Emma in the back yard. You can practically here her saying in Puppy Language "catch me! catch me!"

I heard a factoid once that stated that Thursday was the worst traffic day. Ever since then I have been mindful of that and noticed that I seem particularly frazzled on Thursday's and that traffic to work (and home) is worse on that day. This morning as I was balancing:
1) my work bag
2) my purse
3) hot coffee
4) car keys
5) a bag of noisy recycling

And trying to make my way over the snow covered pavement to my car, I had a moment to notice that I was already about 15 minutes behind the time I told myself I was going to leave. Boo!

Some days are just like that for some reason.

This morning it was having to put on my hubbies boots with my pj's so I could go outside and show our dog that "No really! This white stuff is not acid that will eat it's way into your soul! So you can come out here and pee! See?!?!? I am out here in my pajamas, husbands boots, wool coat and hair sticking up in 8 directions and I am not melting at all! IN fact, I am turning into a pointy little rock! So come on out!" I think that might have been where my morning when awry....

Thank Riesling Tomorrow is Friday.

Hood and Shoulders Above the Rest

Yesterday when I came upstairs after my tread milling, I noticed it was starting to snow. At first it was just a cold freezing rain sort of mess, but it quickly changed to giant fluffy flakes. This is a terrible picture of the bird feeder outside our front window. We have several large pine trees and the Cardinals seem to know when it snows and they will appear magical frolicking in the snow.

After Tom got back from his workout I asked if we could do a Photoshoot outside with my new hat that I named "Hood and Shoulders above the Rest". The pattern is a free pattern on Ravelry called Capucine and I really love it! It's fast, simple, and a great stash buster for some bulky yarn in one's stash. (Although I HAD to have this in black to go with my new Red Coat, so I had to go to JoAnns and buy this special. Go figure.)

It was still snowing and starting to get a little dark out by the time we wandered out to take pictures. I left off the tassels that are used in the pattern and just wear it as it was knit. The ribbed section is flipped over and it frames my head (and my 80's cowgirl hair I was rocking yesterday) quite well. When It is really cold I can pin the "Wings" together under my chin for more warmth and stay-put power.

You can see the flipped brim a little more here. (It was snowing pretty good!) I think because I used such bulky yarn it was actually about 1 inch longer than it was supposed to be. None of the other patterns had a flipped brim and a lot of people using this yarn cast on less stitches and knit to a certain length rather than following a pattern exactly. I am happy with my results regardless.

This shot shows (if you can see around the snow) the bonnet quality this hat has. It would make an excellent hood on a sweater vest!

And here is how it looks in back. I love the stitch definition with this yarn. If you look in the background of the picture you can see Emma running in the snow. The first snow of the season is always so exciting for Miss Emma!

Am very pleased with and would (and intend to) make more of these!

Saturday Morning Weight In

Well - I was chewing my nails all week, but I ended up having a really great weight in! Down 4.2 lbs this week! (Take THAT weight gain from last week!) So I am now a total of 36 lbs lighter than my heaviest weight and since I joined Weight Watchers I am down almost 21 lbs. Very nice!

I spent much of this week thinking about the weight gain last weekend and telling myself things like "You are on the right path!" and "Trust the process!" but it was really hard to beat down the Stinkin' Thinkin' that ran more along the lines of "You knew it was too good to last - and now you will slowly fail!" Or "Did you really think you could lose weight AND eat Skinny Cow ice cream and drink wine? You aren't suffering enough to be thin!" Yeah. My inner voice is a REAL beyotch. So I was really trying to stay religious on my point system this week and really trying to focus on positive change.

I know I will have set backs. That is life ya know? I think it's all about how you deal with them.

 So after weight in this morning I let Emma out (again) and saw a lovely sunrise again. Nice to keep having happy Saturday sunrises that make you feel all inspired and junk. Notice our AWESOME Mayfly sculpture. It moved to the back deck for the time being. Makes me smile every time I see it.

Emma looked at me like I was nuts for poking my head out in my jammies. I could almost hear her say......"Good God Human! At least brush your hair or throw on a bra before you poke your head out!" Heh. I am sure my neighbors find my camera activity just charming. Yeah. Right.

A mere six hours later this is the mess happening outside. The birds don't seem to mind it though. It's the humans who are collectively groaning at this. We had 8 months of snow last winter. Eight. Months. Just revolting. So I am pretty sure everyone in the Twin Cities area is sighing right now and looking for their scrapers. GROSS!

You can see the back deck is already completely covered. Guess I better turn on the weather channel and see how much of this stuff we are actually going to get.

Have a great weekend all!

Good Morning!

Check out what greeted me when I opened the door this morning to let Emma out. She took one look at it and went back inside. So I had to put on socks, shoes, coat, hat and head out there with her. It would have been fun - but I had not had coffee or anything yet - so I was a little unhappy. Also - After all that she still would not go. Anytime I stood near her potty spot she would run into her dog house and stare at me like "are you nuts?" So it was all for naught.

Kind of pretty though. Wish I didn't have anywhere to go today. Wish we were not installing garage doors today.