Snow, ice and good intentions .......

I can't find my spade, and did I buy one of the fancy but cheap snow shovels at Costco when I was there?? No. Of course not.  Unlike every other person in the building. So, this morning, as there is thick fog and the snow has iced over totally because the temps are still below 0C, I was out there with my dustpan.

Yes, you read that right.

My dustpan.

My plastic dustpan.

Scooping snow and ice off the driveway where I want to walk without landing flat on my back. Bent double. My life is exciting, if nothing else. And I am demonstrating a streak of invention. Like the fact that people ask why I have a fish-slice in my car. That would be because I have mislaid my ice-scraper (along with the spade), and it works very well when trying to remove frost and ice from the car windows. Everyone should carry kitchen equipment in their car.

Necessity is the mother ......and all that.......

On to good news then. I think the ripple will be finished today. I have looked at it, and if I don't stop now, or within a few more rows, it will turn into an excessively long but excessively wide scarf. Or something like that, and that is not what I set out to create. I am at the stage where I want to get on with something else. Not sure what yet, but something. You know that feeling?? I have been working on it for what seems like forEVER. And I am past the red/cream/brown colours. I want to move on to spring colours. Or bright ones. (Yes, I am being indecisive again, Marge.) I will have to go and peruse Mum's Tower of Yarn for inspiration. I refuse to bring any more wool into this house until I have used up what I have (with some help from Mum's stash too, of course). But first I will have to darn in the million or 2 ends on the red ripple. Next time I make one, I think I will darn them in as I change colour, because I hate this part. HATE it.

I am going to do the 40 Bags in 40 Days challenge again this year over Lent. Last year it was wonderful to feel that I was getting a grip on something in this house, and somehow, I think I have filled up the space I created. So I will do it again. I have to get the new study sorted now, because having things in 2 rooms is really not at all practical. Someone - on a blog somewhere - may be you? suggested that for every thing you bring into the house, you get rid of something. So if you buy an item of clothing, you get rid of something in your wardrobe. That sounds very do-able. In addition to the 40 Day challenge.

I am looking forward to it. It must be a Spring thing - this feeling that I need to fling open the doors and windows and let out the old, and bring in everything fresh and new. Paint walls. De-clutter. And there will soon be bulbs to plant and seeds to sew, and I LOVE the anticipation of all things bright and beautiful and tasty in the garden. The seed potatoes are ready and waiting already.

Ok then. I am going to make some coffee finish the ripple, and then it can at least be used for 3 weeks and packed away at the end of the month when the house changes to its Spring garb. Not long now!