01.31.2007

I'm alive.

I've been away for some time as life has been, well, challenging. I think that's the best way to describe it. But, the sun may be breaking through the clouds, so today, for the first time in far too long, I took some Me Time - which meant going to Barnes and Noble, sitting down in a big comfy chair with a large cup of hot tea and reading the knitting magazines.

I like the knitting magazines probably the most right now (except for Yoga Journal, which I actually do buy and read cover to cover, often several times in a row). They are bright and pretty and full of interesting knits. I like the first ten or fifteen pages the most, though, and if there were no ads (even though the ads are bright and pretty and fun to look at) that would probably knock the part of the magazine I like the most down to two to five pages. That part of the magazine has the new advances, new book reviews, new tools and nifty ideas. I kind of wish that there was a knitting magazine composed solely of that part. It's not that I don't like the patterns - they are fun to look at, and occasionally I see something I might want to knit, but for the most part, the patterns, while bright or pretty or having interesting patterns are things I wouldn't be caught dead in nor would I dream of subjecting anyone I care to receiving such a thing (today, in one of the magazines, was a pattern for a poncho that looked rather like bright fuschia cat vomit. Really). And the thought of spending $6.35 for each of four or five magazines ($76.20 per year per magazine) for possibly one pattern I might one day knit, well, it just seems a little wasteful. I guess I am just a little too Scottish.

So, it's bloody cold here. This winter has been a little different. We've had virtually no snow - although it has flurried off and on the last week so there is about two inches blowing about. It was warm today - it got up to 26 degrees. The sun is down now, so the temperature has dropped to 19 degrees. I think I may have to take a drive and go put blankets on the horses.

It's funny, but when it gets cold, below freezing for an extended period, the cars make funny noises. Well, everything does, I guess, even us. And if you're very cold for a long enough period of time, you get in a real funk. Sometimes, it seems like you can't get enough layers on - there's not enough wool and silk to warm you. Even immolation begins to look attractive . . .