This snowy afternoon was just perfect for sitting back with a cup of tea and finishing up the sweater I started over a year ago. I've been within a couple of hours of finishing it for literally months. I think I was worried that after all this time that I put into it, it might not fit right. Plus I always get nervous grafting a seam closed, and I had the 2 underarm seams standing between me and completion.
I finally got motivated though because I'm going to Florida next weekend and will be seeing my grandmother. I wanted to be able to show it to her and also to return the needles I borrowed from her.
Snow has been the predominant theme around here for the past couple of weeks, and we spend a lot of time wondering whether or not school will get canceled for the next day. I love a good snow day, but now that I'm a workin' girl, I'm pulling more for clear roads.
I started my new internship 2 weeks ago. I am working at the law library at UMKC. So far it's a lot of fun! I'm getting to do a little bit of everything, although the focus for the rest of the month is getting the basement ready for the big renovation project that kicks off in February.
Here are some pics from my first day at work:
That Saturday Fred and I went out to run some errands. There was ice in the river:
and even the Buffalo Soldier looked cold:
I'm working Tuesday through Thursday, and I managed to make it through a whole week the first week. Last week, however, more snow started blowing on Wednesday, and I left early. This is what my drive home looked like:
This was the view from our kitchen:
And from the front porch:
We don't normally have traffic backed up all the way from the main gate to our house, but there was somewhat of an exodus going on, as the fort declared an early release day for everybody.
On Thursday the Leavenworth schools were closed, and I stayed home as well. We got a little more snow last night, and I'm nervous about the drive into the city tomorrow. (I'm working Monday this week to make up for last Thursday.)
Even though it's a gigantic pain in the butt, I love looking at the snow. It's so pretty and peaceful (as long as I don't have to spend much time in it).
Annabelle and I took the dog for a walk at lunchtime today, and I was surprised to discover that a veritable United Nations of snowmen had popped up on our street!
Speaking of the dog, Ginger enjoys a good snow romp to a point, but then she's glad to go back inside:
Annabelle and I spent the days leading up to yesterday hoping feverishly for a snow day. Accordingly I felt almost a little guilty when they called Sunday night to declare a day off for just the high school on account of a broken water pipe. By dawn, however, it had turned into a general snow day for all the county schools.
We've been feeling cheated over the past few weeks, as it seems the southeast has been hogging all the snow while all we've gotten is a couple of pathetic dustings. We made up for it yesterday, however:
I took that one single picture when I took the dog out at noon, and then I stayed inside for the rest of the day, working with my photos and drinking hot tea.
The snow did a number on our cable service, however. The Internet was glitchy all afternoon and gone by evening, which is why I didn't post the pic before I went to bed. But then! horror of horrors! the TV went out early in the fourth quarter of the BCS championship game.
Now this doesn't mean beans to me--I was snug in bed reading a book--but I heard a cry of distress from Fred in the man cave upstairs. We called Time Warner, but the recorded voice informed us that yes, they knew of the problem and don't worry, we'll have it fixed . . . within 90 minutes. Bonnie to the rescue! I found the game for him on my cellphone, so instead of watching on the 55-inch TV, he watched it like this:
Now it's sunny and c-c-cold out there (6 degrees). Leavenworth canceled classes for today as of last night, so Annabelle is enjoying her second unexpected day off. I'm supposed to start my new internship this afternoon at UMKC, assuming I can get there and back safely.
I spent most of this morning at the car repair shop, waiting to find out that they would have to order the part that would make the knob that controls which vent my heat/air comes out of work again. Sigh . . . gotta love car repairs! Last month it was a catalytic converter. The month before that it was a bunch of long-delayed general maintenance. Still, I guess I can't really complain, considering this is my odometer reading from earlier in the week:
Now that the kids are back in school and the holiday craziness is behind us, I thought I should do a little housekeeping. Unfortunately, I don't really feel like getting up from my desk, so I figured I could pay a little attention to my blog sidebar. It has been so neglected for so long.
I used to have a list of blogs I read going down the side of the page. This was powered by Blogroll, an application that allowed me to keep a master list of blogs that would automatically update in my sidebar as blogs were added or removed. But then I went through a long period of not adding or removing anybody, and the list no longer really reflected my online reading anymore. And THEN at some point, Blogroll went out of business, and my list disappeared. I wonder when that happened.
I've been using Google Reader on my new phone for most of my blog reading lately. I would love to have a way of sharing that list here and having it automatically update with additions and deletions. Best I can do today though is to use a Blogger widget that imports the names and creates a static list. I'll keep working on it though!
I started keeping track of my annual reading several years ago with LibraryThing. I enjoy entering my books read and "tagging" them with appropriate labels (baby librarian, remember). I always include the year as a tag, which makes it easy for me to gather them together at the end of the year.
I thought that using LibraryThing would encourage me to read more, but it hasn't really. I went from 44 books in 2007 and 45 books in 2008 to only 24 in 2009. I was back up to 29 for 2010.
I blame my eyes. Reading seems to be a lot more work than it used to be. I call it "lexile dysfunction" and wish for a little blue pill to rescue me.
I think it's interesting that of my 29 books for the past year, 6 of them were read in electronic format on Annabelle's nook, the e-reader from Barnes and Noble. I love reading on the nook! I can make the type as big as I need it, and I enjoy turning "pages" with the click of a button. I got my own nook for Christmas, and I am thrilled with it. I've also got the nook app for my new cell phone, which is nice for reading in the middle of the night without turning on a light.
