Perseverance

Yes, it's extremely icy here on my street and will be until the melting truly gets underway. A funny, not so funny thing happened; the city sent a grader down the street on Wednesday at 10:30 p.m.! It scraped a bit of ice off the street piling it along the sidewalks and in front of driveways. I was not happy at the time of day they chose to do the work, nor the mess they left behind. Someone on the street must have some connection to City Hall, as another grader was out clearing the area in front of driveways on Thursday. Once the melting happens we'll have a bit of a lake though I don't think it will be as bad as the first year we lived in the house. That year, the water in the ruts was about 5 inches deep. I sent a photo to the city of my boots as I stood in the ruts to complain about the problem the ruts caused smaller vehicles. Eventually, enough of us must have complained because the street was cleared. 

It hasn't been a terribly busy week, just the usual housework, a bit of grocery shopping, an errand for D, and lots and lots and lots of curling. The weather hasn't been particularly good, quite cold for this time of year, along with wind to make it worse. Snow was forecast for overnight Friday and will continue until sometime this evening. It's hard to tell how much snow we got last night as the wind continues to blow and cause drifting. Neither C nor I have anywhere we need to be this weekend, so the clearing up from the storm can wait until tomorrow. The photo is the view from my bedroom window this morning. Out the front door is even worse.

My UFO project is coming along and I've made a decision as to what to do with them. Originally it was going to be a baby blanket, but I like the colors so I think I'm going to try to make a full sized blanket. Since I'm using thrift store yarn, it may take some time to actually finish it. 

It clashes with the rug, but you get the idea. The hope is to create these flowers, and then use green yarn to create the background and connect the flowers. One thought is to create squares from these hexagons....some thought will be needed to do that. I do notice as I'm looking at the photo I like the bottom and side row, not so happy with the inners.  That's primarily the way I've laid them out, and I suspect it will be easier once the flowers are put together. I'm also adding another series with yellow as the centers. I know I'm running low of pink, and I'll be down to a couple of skeins of variegated purple after this batch of petals are complete. 

The curling has been good, but not great this week. There have been flashes of brilliance and just plain flashes. (A flash is when a rock passes by it's intended target and rolls out of the rings.) For the most part, the teams expected to be on top are, and history was made when the Nunavut team won their very first game in Brier history. Since their skip actually lives in the vicinity of this year's Brier contest (he's an import to the team), the arena went nuts with the victory. Fun to see! I'm hopeful now that we're into the playoffs the level of curling will improve.

I'll have almost an entire week off (curling) between the Brier and the beginning of the Women's World Curling. The goal is to continue to work on de-cluttering with three areas to focus on; the linen closet, my clothes closet and dresser, and the craft room. I'm realistic enough to know it's unlikely more than one or two of these areas will get done. The craft room is going to take some time. I did manage this week to get the boxes of items from the kitchen and Christmas into the trunk of the car. These will be dropped off at the thrift store next week sometime. 

The other thing on the to-do list this week was to plant some seeds for my containers. I saved marigold, petunia, tomato, and pepper seeds last fall. The seeds haven't yet germinated, but I'm hopeful I'll have some luck with a few of them. I've ordered a grow light that I'm hoping will improve the results. If you recall, I did have a bit of luck with my marigolds last year, with one plant growing to a height of over 3 feet tall. I made sure I saved some of those seeds.

A few more photos from the backyard this week including a grackle,a redbreasted nuthatch, and a blue jay. My brother R says he's had the latter at the farm over winter but I hadn't seen any since last fall.

There were three jays visiting, but I wasn't able to capture more than one. They quickly flew off when I stepped into the sunroom.

Today I'll be watching first two games of the Brier playoffs, and crocheting. The first draw starts at noon, so I'm catching up on blogs, e-mail, and PVR'ed television. That, and watching the snow swirl around out the front window!

Have a great week ahead everyone! 

Weather woes

I started this post earlier in the week, but deleted it because it was just words about nothing.  The entire week has pretty much revolved around the weather.

Monday - cold
Tuesday - a little warmer, snow and blowing snow
Wednesday - getting colder, blustery with windchill near -30C. 
Thursday - colder still, by 8 p.m. it was -27C, adding in the windchill it was closer to -35C.  
Friday - freaking ridiculously cold in the morning -31C when I woke up, I don't even want to think about the windchill.  It "warmed" up through the day to -21C by evening.  
Saturday - warmer still, about -17C in the morning and -12C by mid afternoon.  More snow! 

From the indoors looking out...I really need to clear off the sills.  
Sunday - temp remains around -12C, more freaking snow!**

I did get out a few times this week, getting groceries, going for coffee once, to stitch and chat, and to dinner with C.  Shovelling snow took me outside three times (thus far), and I've fed the birds every day as well.  Other than that, it's been a lot of sheltering indoors, working on a few knitting projects.  Eli's sweater needs to be sewn together and the neck edge completed.  I've currently got another baby blanket on the needles, and started crocheting an infinity scarf.  Keeping busy and warm has been the order of the day!

I've been watching the Continental Cup of Curling event since Thursday.  Sadly, our Canadian team hasn't fared any better than we have with the weather. There are still a few matches to be decided but if I were a betting person I'd be saying Europe will win the cup this year.  It still makes for entertaining watching...at least for me.

Have a great week everyone.  We're back into the deep freeze after Monday. Hope the weather is better where you are.   

**At least we're not getting the freezing rain that others are experiencing in Ontario.  I may not like the snow and cold, but I'll take it over freezing rain any day.