Snow Day!

The trip to Maine was completely uneventful. Got to the airport with time to spare, did get my bag hand inspected, but not on account of knitting needles--it was a cushion filled with flax seeds that I warm in the microwave and use as a heating pad that raised questions. But that was resolved quickly enough. The flights were on time and smooth--so I knit away on the Windy City Scarf from LA to Cincinnati.

It's such a simple pattern, but I still managed to ball it up. Somehow I knitted when I should have purled or something, and had to backtrack. I tried patiently tinking (knitting spelled and done backwards. But when every other stitch is a knit or a purl, it's very tricky, at least for me. I could tell that I had picked up the knit stitches backwards, but I somehow thought that I had reversed all the knits while leaving the purls correct, so I re-knit, and decided that no, the purls were all on the needle backwards too. So I had to undo it and do it over twice. But it's now back in order and going along fine. The slit worked out easily. The yarn I'm using is a little fine for the needles (DK yarn and size 8 needles) so the gauge is a bit loose, and the top of the slit seems kind of floppy. But I will reinforce it when I'm done by sewing it, I think.

Anyhow, when I got to Bangor, it was a bit of a surprise to see how bare everything looked, and how moderate the temperatures were. Ben and Caleb were out playing basketball at 8 pm in just sweatshirts. The ground was actually muddy. The weather forecast was for a "wintery mix" of rain, sleet and snow today, so I was pleasantly surprised to awake to a white world! It had snowed during the night, about 2 inches of powdery snow--looking absolutely lovely. Whether it's actually a snow day or not is still up in the air. Hartland and other communities have school today, but Pittsfield called for a 2 hour late start, rather than cancelling school outright. And maybe it will be cancelled or maybe not.

So the timing for me was perfect--I got to fly in in clear dry weather, and yet enjoy the beauty of a winter snow when I awoke on my first day here. Karen took Ben over to Waterville to the doctor because his asthma is giving him trouble. The snow is still lightly falling. And I am drinking coffee and knitting. What could be better?