We received nearly two inches of rain on Friday, then we woke up yesterday with snow flurries. It was cold and gray and pretty dismal. I was looking forward to a day at home, knitting and cooking a little, but our West Virginia Daughter called to say the bad winds had knocked a big limb out of the tree in the front yard. It was wedged right between the front steps and the front gate and they were kind of stuck. So, we packed up the chainsaw and went to town to help them clear the yard.
Night before last, I slept out in the camper. Mr. FixIt loves to camp, but doesn’t quite see the allure when the camper is less than 100 yards from our comfy bed and a real live bathroom. Still, he does not mind when I get a hankerin’ to go “camping”. He always comes out to kiss me goodnight and brings me a bedtime snack. He da man!
The birds in the ‘hood were going crazy yesterday. I heard birds I’ve never heard before. I saw the nesting pair of red shoulder hawks that live in the woods nearby. I captured a photo this week of a yellow-bellied sapsucker. Sometimes when I capture a bird’s call on the Merlin app on my phone, it says it’s very rare in our area. In that case, I try to catch the call again and get a visual sighting.
Ever since I found out the latest surgery to find the errant parathyroid glands in my neck was unsuccessful, I’ve felt like I’ve been floating around in a rowboat without any oars. Just bobbing along…not knowing what to do, or even if there is anything TO do. I prayed a lot about it over the weekend. I handed it to God and I told him I trusted He would help me to not only survive this disappointment, but to thrive in the process.
My friend Gail challenged me to knit a sweater. While a sweater looks impressive when it’s finished, it’s really not technically difficult to do. If you know how to cast on, knit, purl, increase, decrease, and bind off…you can make a sweater. I was pretty proud of myself when I finished…mostly because I’m not good at finishing projects. I’ve been the Queen of UFOs (unfinished objects) in the past. As a matter of fact, it was everything I could do to stay on task the last couple of days knitting that sweater. I was bored and ready to do something else. A new yarn. A new pattern. Learning a new technique. But I stuck to it and finished! Go ME!
My sweater is finished…and yes, the tree is still up! I think it’s coming down this week!
I finished my sweater in a little less than two weeks! Of course, other than having surgery, I didn’t do much else. Mr. FixIt subbed for his friend Harry on the bowling league yesterday afternoon and came home to a hot meal of spaghetti and garlic bread while we watched the Super Bowl. Although I would have loved to see Cincinnati win, it was a really close game. No one wants to watch a championship game that’s a blowout. It just shows these two teams were well deserving competitors and they both put up a great fight.
I didn’t knit a stitch on Friday. I let myself process my test results, thanked God for the fact it’s nothing worse, and “camped” in the field. Ohhhh….what a treat that was! We saw 65° on Friday and it was down in the 40’s overnight. I was awakened a few times to the sound of rain on the camper roof. The Big Birdhouse is a sanctuary, indeed. And perhaps this week, I’ll get out to the farm for a couple of days. That would be icing on the cake!
The news is shifting yet again regarding Covid. Cases are on a downward trajectory and the accompanying announcements of reducing mask mandates is all the rage. Let’s face it…we are ALL burned out by this thing. We want normal again. We want our lives back. We want to sweep this nasty little episode back under the bed and maybe pretend it never happened.
Mr. FixIt had some things to do in town yesterday afternoon so I had the day to myself. As I settled into my recliner with my knitting, we watched a couple old episodes of Andy Griffith. I don’t know why, but that show is so soothing to me. It brings back warm childhood memories and I knew a whole bunch of “Aunt Bees” when I was growing up in West Virginia in the ‘50s and ‘60s. And we all knew “Miss Crump” as one of our own elementary school teachers.
Mr. Virgo and I started dating in 2005. He was working at a 5-Star hotel in Aspen at the time. In late January of 2006, he called me up and asked if I had a black cocktail dress. I assured him I did. There was a party that night at the hotel and he could get me in. Well, how often do you get to hobnob with the Aspen elite, right? I drove up in a whiteout blizzard and changed for the party.
