Ribbit, Ribbit...

This week began with some major frogging. Remember this project?

It now looks like this:

This was a project that I started months ago. I thought it might be a relatively quick knit, but it just seemed to drag on and on and on. I was beginning to believe that little elves were messing with my progress in the middle of the night. I got to the openwork panel, and switched to my CC2 color... knitted half of that and... decided I hated it. I intended to rip that back and use the CC1 instead, but as I was struggling to pick up all those seed stitches & get them back on the needles... I realized that I actually cannot stand this project. So, I ripped it out. It wasn't a total loss. I got a new washcloth out of what was supposed to have been the bottom of the bag!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With that train wreck off the needles, I decided to work on a few smallish projects for now. I have friends who will find out the gender of their baby later this month, and I'll want to start a gift for them. I don't want to get into something too lengthy, so I decided to start a new blanket for Riley. I know, a blanket is not exactly a small project, but I'm making a hexagon blanket, so it's lots of little pieces. Here's my first one (pre-blocking, of course).

It looks like a sand dollar. I'm also going to be working on finishing up a sweater vest that I hope to shrink into by next fall, and making a few more quick washcloths.

I wanted to share a picture of my new knitting bag. It was a Christmas gift from my (new) sister in law. In a ddition to being a knitter, Marci is also a magician with a needle and thread. She made this for me! She makes really good knitting bags. This one has plety of inside pockets for needles and notions, and she made a matching small-project bag It's the perfect size for socks!

The big news in St. Louis this week was the weather. The local meteorologists called it "unseasonably cold." I called it "freakin' cold." We had high temperatures in the single digits, and the wind was a freezing, gusting force that felt like it was trying to cut you into a million pieces. The wind chill didn't get over -1 for two days. Thursday morning we awoke to this:

The whole day was frigid, and made me wish I was not an itinerant therapist going to several different buildings in one day. I rarely wish that I had a job where I could go to one office in the morning and stay there until quitting time, but that's exactly what I was dreaming about on Thursday.
That afternoon after getting Tyson off the bus, we hauled out the hot cocoa maker. It makes the yummiest hot cocoa with this wonderful layer of fluff on top. Mmmmm.

It was even so cold that our local ponds and lakes froze solid. Although we usually have cold winters in St. Louis, we have such variability in the temperatures (and enough warmish days) that the major bodies of water don't often freeze. Ty's picture of the week (in the right gutter) was taken by Matt. Tyson is standing on Walker Lake in Kirkwood. He was impressed by the fact that he was standing on top of the lake, and by the amount of ice floating in the nearby river.

Today has been a lazy day. I had a touch of insomnia last night and ended up cleaning my house until 4am, so I'm pretty tired today. We watched "Kung Fu Panda," and Tyson and I made Patriotic Pretzels!

Although we are a decidedly Conservative family, we will still be discussing, watching and celebrating this week's Presidential Inauguration. It's an important event, and we have already been teaching Tyson about it's significance.

Have a happy week!