Cracked and found.

Well, this addresses the "cracked".....my fingers, and Lois' too........around my nails....oh, so painful.

This stuff is amazing, you just have to remember to use it.

"Found" are my car keys......that I lost several weeks ago.  Everyone has tried to find them.....recreating my steps that day, searching the house.  With no success.

In the end they were outside.  I must have dropped them when I got out of the car, and the snow plow guy moved and buried them.
But they reappeared, and the key fob even works.
Little rust on the ring, but that's an easy fix.

 Nothing quite as rejuvenating/exhausting as taking care of your 5 year old grand girl.

She brings the need to sleep, but she also brings joy....lots of it.

We went out for pizza....( homemade manhattan clam chowder first, it's a Friday tradition)

 Then we went to Naya's obedience class, which totally thrilled this little girl.

And a quick stop at Target for essentials.   You know the deal.

She was wired for sound until bedtime.......

but Saturday morning, she had to ease into the day a bit.   She ordered pancakes for breakfast.

What?  You didn't know we run a little diner here????

I love having her.

Even if she does remind me why young people are supposed to have children.

And older people like me are supposed to be grands.

It was a lovely time, and I treasure it.

This is what Lois is working on.......an 8 harness crackle, with a hand dyed giza cotton warp.

It's going to be a cloak, I think.

I am doing a custom yardage order.......
the warp is navy bamboo.....and the cotton hemp had to be dyed to match this photo.
I think I got pretty close.

And here it is, on the loom........circles, back again.

I have been pondering the complications of life lately....how we plan things one way, and they don't turn out nearly what we imagined; how impossible it really is to lay out a course that will actually resemble what we pictured.

It's one way in our head,

and quite another in real time.

Sometimes I think the joke is on us......even though sometimes it seems particularly cruel.

I do know one thing for absolutely sure.   There is TOO much winter in northeast NY.

I love my old house, I even love the little hamlet I live in.  The countryside is lovely, and it's home.

But the expanse from November to April or May is just too long.  I don't want to do it anymore.

So next winter we are making plans to get out of here for at least 2 months.....maybe 3, who knows.   I know that my psyche, my head/neck issues, my general age and the arthritic changes that come with it, are not happy with frigid temps anymore.  What really clinches it for me, is trying to walk Naya in snow and treacherous ice and worrying about falling and breaking something.

Nope, don't want to do it anymore.  I will try to look at it as a real break, from winter, from working every day, a chance to regroup and take a breath.

Tomorrow, I am going to start doing some spring cleaning.....get myself out of this winter funk.

I have a few areas that need dredging out.   I need to be sending things out of here to be repurposed or loved by someone else.  I think it will make me feel better, at least until I can get outside more.

(I like James Comey, just saying.   I know he's far from perfect, but he is a sensible sounding man, who I believe has a moral compass.

Something we don't see all that often.)

I have a new book, "Where the Crawdads Sing", which came highly recommended to me, so I will say good night.