Ice Day Ice Day

Today was the kind of day I was looking forward to when I retired from teaching and started working for myself.  Actually the first thing I did when I retredded was throw away my alarm clock.  Getting up at 5:30am for 22 years was way too much early rising for my body's natural rhythm.  Last night's weather report was for ice, snow, sleet, freezing rain and rain with windy conditions for most of today.  That made it a possible 'snow day'.

When I taught, last night would have been a series of getting up, looking out the window, going back to sleep, getting up again a few hours later and repeating that until rising even earlier than usual, putting on the radio and listening to hear if school was closed.  I taught in Ithaca, where closing school did not happen often, even when surrounding schools were closed.  I remember mornings, at a barely light 6:45 am, of scraping and banging enough ice off my windshield to have a circle to peer out of, then hacking my way into the car and cautiously backing out of the driveway, slowly making it down to the main road, and then in to Ithaca, 12 miles north. Sometimes those few miles took 45 minutes or more.   

Sooo I was one happy camper when I read the forecast yesterday.  I packed up my portable office from the shop and set up the computer, cell and other needed items in the yarn room, ready for today. This morning surprisingly brought the predicted forecast.  I got up so happy to spend the entire day inside in my jammies, doing work, catching up on things and generally having a good time with myself and any fiberholics ummm customers who happened to call. 

 I had a long list of jobs to get done-----

• Hauling equipment up the stairs so Jim could refinish the floor. Doesn't it look nice already?  

• Rinsing and drying 5 pounds of targhee
  

• Stopping up the sink.
  
  
  

Well, not really, but it did happen right in the middle of rinsing some biscotti targhee. So Jim was called down from the floor work above to be a plumber.  Jim wears many hats, besides the balaclava.  He is a carpenter, cabinet maker, floor refinisher, plumber, electrician, spindle turner and a whole bunch of other useful things.  Of course while he was unstopping the sink he managed to get pink water all the way to the other side of the kitchen. We are not discussing that, although the floor is now much cleaner. Now we have to avoid using the sink until tomorrow morning.  Once I get going on my list of things to do I really want to be crossing items off, not postponing them.  Sooo after considering the options I completed rinsing  the targhee in the bathroom sink; not an easy process but it did finish the job.  Jim even made us some nice eggs, toast and coffee just like a holiday or Sunday morning.

• then to cook ummm, heat set more targhee.
  

• Pay some bills as it is the first of the month.

• Enjoy the fuzzies.
  

Yup, that's Basel, SmokeyBlue and Sparkles all comfy right near the dining room table.

• Make ads for Ravelry. 

Another one is at the bottom of this page.

• Watching the redpolls through the icy window at the feeder.

These little finch sized birds come all the way from arctic coastal areas to winter in upstate NY.  I get boggled thinking that they think this is warm.

My reward is going to be to spin up more fiber for the Dogi Vest.

• and to make some yarn samples for the 5 new tonal colors in Blue-faced Leicester. 

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