Today looking out the window is picture postcard quality. The trees all have a light dusting of snow. The temp has been hovering just about and just below freezing. Just above, and everything drips. Just below, and all that dripped is now frozen.

Thursday, we're supposed to get rain during the day (33 degrees F), and rain during the night (31 degrees F). What are the odds that Friday will be a frozen rain day from school? I haven't mentioned that to the offspring - I don't want to hear them calculating those odds every 10 minutes until then.

I finished the last of the yarn from the dye experiment. I really like how it came out. Now to decide on a pattern...

This is one of those cases where washing the yarn after spinning makes a huge change.

I didn't get my closeup for the after shot as close as I should, but you can still see the difference it makes.

Six inches of snow on the ground plus 20 inches of new powder equals snow that's fun to go xcountry skiing, but also snow that requires paths for the dog to get out, and for me to fill the bird feeders.
The dog is enjoying the snow, although not too much at a time. The cat is trying to figure out what the heck is going on. He goes out (when he zips past us), slinks along the trenches, and then scurries back in. I keep sort of expecting him to try to jump onto the white "table", and I'm afraid he would rather consider that a disaster.

Perspective is a wonderful thing. I remember an episode from many years ago, when I first moved from Maryland to California (Bay Area). I'd been there about a month (this was in March) and I went into the group administrator's office just before lunch one day. She said "Oh no. It's raining - now I can't go run my errands." I rather looked at her as though she had two heads - can't go out because it's raining? It wasn't even raining hard, just a drizzle. If one couldn't go out because it was raining in MD, one wouldn't go anywhere in March.

I was reminded of that episode yesterday when I was talking with my mother (who is still in Md.) They were bracing themselves for 1-3 inches of snow. People were going to have to stay in, schools might close, they were going to get snow. At the point in time that I was talking with her, I was getting ready to go run my lunchtime errands. Here, it was drizzling snow, our daily forecast was for 1-3 inches, just like yesterday and the day before, and the day before that.

We, on the other hand, are currently bracing ourselves for the "first real winter storm of the season". Not just the daily 1-3 inches (we've had over 30 inches since mid January), but Real Snow - 12 inches or more. This may actually be enough to close school here for tomorrow, although we'll have to wait and see.

On the other hand, Oswego and Mexico and a few other towns on the shores of Lake Ontario have had more than 120 inches in the past two weeks. They've been getting 2 feet at a time, while we've been getting our 1-3 inches daily.

It's all a matter of perspective.

It's 9 degrees F at 9 pm. Wind chill is -21 F. K and S had school off today because the busses didn't have the right mix of diesel for the cold and ran erratically on Monday. Tomorrow, they're scheduled to be back at the grind, which is a good thing since I need to be back at my grind as well. Project 2 due Friday night.

I got the lace mailed off today and hope to have a picture of the finished product at some point. Possibly not until after it goes and sits for judging.

I'm getting some spinning done while I ponder programming questions, but knitting is just not happening at the moment. Maybe after Friday...

Also - if anyone has a clue as to how Blogger keeps track of email addy's for comments, please let me know. I've checked everything I can find to be able to get something but noreply-comment@... but that seems to be all I get. If it's something that individuals have to set on their end, I guess if people leave comments that have it set that way, I just won't be able to answer them directly.

5 inches of snow in 1.5 hours. J and S left for S's soccer and there was no snow. They tried to come home 1.5 hours later (eventually got here creeping along at 10 mph), and we had 5 inches of snow. K and I were peering at the house across the street, which did have a light on in our direction, and we couldn't see it. One of the stronger bands of lake effect snow we've seen since we've been here.

ETA: Hah! I finally found the right option to set to allow me to answer people directly when they leave comments as opposed to eventually saying something in the blog. I may regret setting the field that way for other reasons later, but I'm happy at the moment.

Spinning is coming along - this is the better part of the fourth skein. I haven't done any spinning in about four days, but maybe today. It's a nice way to sit and zone while I think about programming. This is the finished lace, all 16.5 inches of it. It needs to finish drying and then will head off to Gramma's house.
And this is my mindless knitting, soon to be "knitting I have to pay attention to, at least a little bit". Wool peddlar's shawl, done in handspun, and for the first umpteen rows, garter stitch with increases every other row. Unfortunately, it's now at the stage where we start adding the lace border so I have to pay at least some attention to it.