A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Today was one of those days that aren’t too bad  if you can ignore the constant ringing in the ears.  Yesterday, I managed to catch up on a lot of data entry and finished a project.  So, that meant today I could try to get some reading in — the truth is if you don’t make time for reading it’s difficult to write reviews.  So, reading is nice especially when the temps are a bit nicer and the living room isn’t an ice box — which means I get to curl up on my reading chair instead of having to sit in my office chair at the dining room table (because it’s the warmest room in the house in cold weather).  Managed to read a whole book today.

Luckily, I also managed a load of wash, feeding the birds, feeding the cats, and sweeping the floors — all of them.  Good thing I then sat to read because the sweeping nearly did in the back.  I stopped before the cramping twitches turned evil.

Managed to clear up some paper messes in the dining room/office.  Read some more.  Finally took a break just before Hyperion got home and went out and raked some leaves.  Really, you’d think trees would clean up after themselves or at the very least crumble into dirt in the spring so no one has to rake them all up — again to get the garden area ready.

Tomorrow I’ve got start seeds on my TODO list.  Hope to get to it because it’s March already.  Time to plan the garden and get it all cleared of leaves and weeds and crap so we can get things ready for planting in a month. I’m really looking forward to getting the garden in.

My problem is that I’m either to eager to start and everything is leggy by the time it’s nice enough to put them in the ground or I wait until it’s way too late to even start and we end up just buying a few plants (tomatos, peppers, cucumbers) and planting lettuce so we at least have salad stuff during the summer.

Spring is the time of year when hope springs eternal that dreams will come true — that the garden will grow vegetables and the weeds won’t even think of poking a leaf out of the ground.

As readers of this blog may or may not know, we collect bears.  We also have a number of Tigers living in our house.  If any of you also have stuffed furry friends in their abodes, you may know just how often having a few critters about can be handy when things go wrong or are out of place — after all they’re home all day when you’re not.

So, did you ever wonder what they get up to when you’re not home?

Well, I work at home so I’m here most of the time.  But, I’ve noticed that things go missing.  Things are often not where I put them.  I swear I put things back after I use them but somehow I have to search the whole house to find what should have been on my table/desk or near my reading chair.

So, imagine my surprise last week when I went upstairs to get my phone (I’d left it on the shelf by the bed) to find this little scenario.

Well, this finally explains the missing knitting needles, yarn, and the occasional pattern book.  What I really can’t figure out is why I don’t have extra hand-knit (excuse me tigger-knit) socks in my drawer.

Sometimes I think I live in an alternate dimension — or the Twilight Zone without the weird music.

My busy day I’ll admit is not the same as most people’s busy days. But for me I did a lot. (Remember I’ve got that whole lack of spoon things still going on.)

Well, I did the wash, dried,  folded, and put it away.

I made bread. Okay so we’ve got a bread machine but it’s now old and wonky but I managed to get it to produce a loaf so we could have it with the chili for supper.

I managed to gain on the email. Answered, sorted, handled, responded, entered in forms, whatever. It got done. Managed to weed the backlog down to under 100 — hopefully tomorrow I’ll get the rest of it taken care of.

By then the headache was starting so switched to reading some of the stuff I need to get done for March.

After supper we watched a movie and knitted on my sock — the plain vanilla one not the sock club one. I’m doing the cuff now and should finish it tomorrow. Then I get to start the next one of this pair.

See. Not much. But I feel right now like I ran a marathon. Sigh but still that’s improvement.

Today is Valentine’s Day and I suspect that many people will be sending cards or ecards to their special someone. Most will have X’s on them to represent kisses. I found this bit of an article on Valentine’s Day at How Stuff Works interesting:

How about the “X” sign representing a kiss? This tradition started with the Medieval practice of allowing those who could not write to sign documents with an “X”. This was done before witnesses, and the signer placed a kiss upon the “X” to show sincerity. This is how the kiss came to be synonymous with the letter “X”, and how the “X” came to be commonly used at the end of letters as kiss symbols.

Whether you deliver your Valentine his or her kiss as an X or in person, I hope everyone enjoys the day with someone special — family, lover, special friend, children, grandparents — whoever gives your heart joy.

Hyperion and I will spend the day together — just enjoying each other’s company. We’ve been married 20+ years and we still love to just spend time together. That is a gift I treasure.

It’s difficult to put into words just what one person can truly mean to another, and have it make any sense to a third person. When I say that Gayle completes me, I’m not insinuating that I couldn’t live without her, or any such silly sap as that. Obviously I managed to live for a couple of decades without her before she came into my life. But rather, I mean that being with her magnifies the joy life provides. Her strength gives me the courage and determination to do things that I simply wouldn’t have tried without her. Ten years ago we took a trip to Australia and toured half the country. Would I have bothered to do that alone? No, I’d have saved the money. But with her, it was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. Would I have the job I have today without her? No, because I knew I was completely unqualified for it, and never would have applied without her encouragement.

So, to Gayle, who brings richness and belief in the impossible to my life … happy V-Day!

“You are my sun, my moon, my star-lit sky. Without you, I dwell in darkness.” And it will never go away.

Today we made cinnamon-ginger donuts. Came out pretty good and we remembered to get them in containers before they could dry out.

Then it was some housework and picking up, followed by going out to do the shopping. We checked three stores looking for the 20 watt halogen lights that fit in our kitchen fixtures (4 of the 8 are burnt out — can’t believe how bright it still is). Anyway, decided it was time to get the replacements and some extras. All we could find were 50 watt ones. We got the fixtures at IKEA so I guess we’ll head up there tomorrow. I like lots of light in the kitchen.

Finished reading A Night Too Dark by Dan Stabenow. I’ll be writing a review for Gumshoe Review’s March issue. It’s another Kate Shugak — short version, I really liked it.

Didn’t get anything done on the sock during the last three days.  I’m up to turning the heel and I’m still hesitant about the directions.  They seem perfectly clear but for some reason I can’t wrap my mind around the stitch numbers.  There are more stitches to be knit than are on my needles so I guess I need to look at the directions with the sock in my hands and with the photo.  Maybe I just need to take a leap of  faith.   Faith leaping is best done on Sunday anyway.

We woke up this morning to this only with more fog…

The front yard with lots of snow and fog

The fog has lessened a bit but the sky is so grey.  The snow is light but the wind is blowing so it’s hard to focus on anything out there except what’s close to you. The birds have been crowding the feeder, we had refill it already today.

Hyperion drove down to the mailbox to check if we’d gotten anything. It’s also a way to scrap the snow off the middle of the road where it hasn’t been shoveled or plowed from the first storm so that the two wheel ruts will still allow us to get out of here if necessary. He found a plastic bag with a box and several big mailing envelopes in the snow bank that was for us but no mail in the box. He re-shoveled the mailbox out but with this wind it won’t stay clear.

The wind is really howling through the upper branches of the trees. So far none have come down. It’s hard to tell how much snow we’ve gotten so far. In some places about 6 inches in others just 2 — but with wind and drifts it could be anything in between.

Government is closed again today, so Hyperion’s is home. It’s nice having him around. I’m still working because — well, gee I work from home. I’m taking more breaks to sit with him but then I read (so I’m still working since the books are ones I’m reviewing for the next issue). But we’ve also watched a few movies over the last few days. I’ve got most of the foot done for my first sock from the Rocking Sock Club. I had to unknit about an inch because I didn’t read that the heel started earlier than I expected (I usually start 2 inches from the heel making the extra increases and this one is 3 1/4 inches from the heel. Looks good though.

We had a heck of a bad storm over the weekend. It started snowing on Friday and ended late Saturday night. For the first time in just about forever, I managed to take photo before the storm got going.

As you can see, we do have some snow left from the 1/2 to 1 inch dusting we’d gotten a few days before this bit storm. Here’s a photo taken during the storm.

Bird line up to eat during the storm

Note all the birds on the railing and at the feeder. It seems our local birds know where to get food when it storms. The minute the snow started on Friday they came knocking on the sliding deck doors. Then gathered to eat from the feeder. I say they knocked on the door but depending on the bird they peck at the glass or flap against it to get our attention. They tend to do this when the feeder is empty, especially when it’s snowing.

Here’s a photo of what it looks like today. The railing had been cleared off by the birds already.

The same view after the storm

There’s some glare in all the photos because they were taken through the glass doors but you get the idea.

In total we got about 2 feet of snow. When we woke this morning, we found that the neighbors plow guy had come through and plowed the main dirt road we all use. That means we only have to shovel from the carport to the road that was plowed — about 500 feet. So far Hyperion has shovel a single shovel width from the house to the car and then cleared off the car. He started doing two single shovel widths for the tires to the road. Actually the snow is too deep for body of the car to clear it (and it’s a pretty high clearance on that Honda). So, after he gets the two wheel lanes cleared he’ll start on the center strip. I really wish I could help but last time I threw out my back so I’m just a cheerleader this time.

We’re really lucky. We didn’t lose power and a lot of people in Maryland did. We didn’t lose any trees that we know of and another friend had two trees go down in their neighborhood and they’re stuck at home until the trees get taken care of.

Meanwhile for added fun, the weather people are predicting another storm midweek. I hope we get shoveled out from this one by then.

We woke up to a thin blanket of snow covering everything.  Yesterday the ground was bare of snow — today a couple of inches so far.  It’s also cold.  Bone chilling cold.  I’ve stayed in all day.  But one thing snow means is that all the little birds in the area flock to your deck to peck at the window to let us know it’s time to fill the feeder.  I didn’t know birds were so clever.

Yesterday we had an incident with the kerosene heater.  It smoked.  Turned out you need to occasionally jiggle it to make the chimney seat right.  Who knew?  We’d had the same model for years and never jiggled it.  We’d used this heater for the last three months and never jiggled it until yesterday.  When it smoked I turned the heat back and it stopped and thought that was it.  Then I checked on it a few minutes later and it was smoking a bit.  I shut it off.  Then I spent the rest of the day rewashing the clothes that were in the basket waiting to go upstairs as they were covered with soot.  And washing off just about every surface in the living room where the heater is.  When Hyperion got home and got down to check it out (I’ve got arthritis in my knees so I don’t get down that low unless I absolutely positively have to), he found that it had a label with tiny print that said to open the tiny door and jiggle the thingy if it smoked.  He did and its been working since.

Today we cleaned the living room floor and most of the flat surfaces.  I’ve still got to wash windows, walls, floor, and dust all the books and things throughout the upstairs and the level with the heater.  This is due to the fact that we occasionally touch things and find our fingers sooty.  Less this evening than this morning since we’ve been picking at this problem all day.

I really don’t need these types of crises at the end of the month since we’re working on getting the zines up and live on February 1st.  So, far I’m semi-keeping up.   All I’ve got left to do right now is finish and polish my own reviews and do my editorial overviews of the issues. I can see the home stretch just down that long, long, tunnel — the one with the light at the end.  At least I think it’s a light, but it could be a train.  Is that a whistle I hear?…

The good news of today is that my first package for the Rockin’ Sock Club came from Blue Moon Fibers.  I’d looked at the blog and on the Ravelry forum and so many people were reporting that they’d received their yarn and patterns.  But, when I picked up the mail — nothing, nada, zip, zero — no fibery goodness at all.

Today, it was delivered.  So, it’s sitting out so I can admire the yarn.  It comes with two patterns and I’m going to dither for a while on which one to make because they’re both so wonderful looking.  Hyperion says that if necessary we can buy a second skein so I can make them both — Isn’t he the best?  Yeah, of course he is.

Anyway, now I have something to look forward to putting on the needles.  Each year I’ve read about the Rockin’ Sock Club and wanted to join but just didn’t seem to get my act together enough to make the sign-up period willing to spend the money.  Yeah, the world’s going to crap in the economy/financial area but the past year has been very stressful for me with my health and there’s some very inescapable commitments coming up that are inherently stress squared.  So, after talking with Hyperion and going over the budget we decided that I could join this year. [Hyperion here:  There’s money and then there’s life, and I know which is more important.  Gayle really loves knitting and fiber.  So if the Rockin’ Sock Club can bring her some much needed joy, I say it’s worth it at twice the price … or an extra skein of yarn so she can make the second pattern.]

Knitting after all, as every knitter knows, is way cheaper than paying a psychologist by the hour to listen to a litany of stressors that can’t be fixed and can’t be changed because they’re a part of your life that is going to be there until…well, forever.  It’s nice that some people can change their lives, but when a good part of the stress is pain because you have a body that doesn’t function like it should — well, knitting is a way of keeping yourself centered so you can just keep on keeping on.

Once club members are allowed to post photos of their socks publicly, I’ll be sure to post the one I chose to do so you can be as excited as I am about it.  Meanwhile, I’ll touch the fiber and dream of really nice socks until finish this month’s commitments and can cast on.

It’s still cold.  It’s still snowy out there.  But I’m smiling.