Ugh, -22C !

Today was a balmy -22 C! Yeah, sure, if you're a penguin that could be construed as balmy, but NOT in southern Ontario it isn't!

I had to go out for groceries and pick up my darling husband's prescription. Two blocks to the pharmacy, fingers were numb. Not a good start. Got the prescription, warmed up a bit in the pharmacy and stepped out to go over to the bus stop. Bus ran late, fingers went numb again! Switched busses once I got downtown. That went fast, I actually managed to catch the next bus as soon as I got off the first one. The bus I caught is one of those super long hinged ones, so I made my way to the back where it's usually quiet and warmer and parked myself on a seat. I used to be more sociable but these days I've discovered in the past 9 years of city life that being sociable in a city isn't always a good thing.

This guy comes weaving down the aisle and plants himself in the seat ahead of mine, turns around and exhales one of the most disgusting fetid breaths I've ever smelled. He had been drinking and it was 2 in the afternoon! He smelled absolutely rank and my stomach was having issues at that point. He tried to strike up a convo with me, but I studiously kept looking out the window and trying to ignore his drunken attempts at conversation. Thankfully I had my mp3 earbuds in my ears which should have led him to think I couldn't hear him. My hand was in my pocket wrapped around my mp3 player and I quietly turned it up enough so he could hear the music. That worked, he muttered something along the lines of bitch and turned to face forward again. Thankfully he started harassing someone else which enabled me to make my escape to the front of the bus.

I finally get to the grocery store. It's located near one of those mini malls with all the store entrances giving out to a sidewalk. As I'm walking down this aisle I spot an elderly woman shuffling along pushing a stroller (assistive device) I can't believe my eyes, It's -22C and she's shuffling along in slippers, no socks, a thin dress and a thin cardigan. As I'm passing her, I notice the cardigan is wide open! Her fingers are bent with arthritis so I decide that I will be sociable this time and ask her if she needs help buttoning up since it's so cold. She looks up at me, I realise she's barely able to see anything since her eyes have the typical milky bluish film that cataracts give. She says yes please, so I button up her cardigan. I ask her where she's going and she tells me to the pharmacy. She's already passed the pharmacy so I explain it to her, she looks confused so I offer to help her get there since I'm seriously worried this woman is going to catch her death dressed like that in those temperatures. The wind was from the north and it was bitterly cold. I finally get her back to the pharmacy, help her navigate her way through the doors and walk in behind her. During our walk back to the pharmacy I'd asked her why she was out in this weather and she tells me she desperately needs her prescription renewed.

Once I've safely left her with the pharmacist, I walk over to one of the ladies I've seen many times before and ask her if she knows the elderly lady I just helped into the store. She looks over and recognizes her and asks me where her coat is. I tell her she didn't have one on when I found her wandering down the mini mall. She gasps in shock and I suggest that if she knows where the elderly lady lives that it might be a good idea to call and see if someone could come pick her up. That's when I find out that she lives 2 blocks away at a retirement home. How the heck did she get past the staff??!!! So last I knew, they were calling the retirement home and have someone come pick her up. I'm glad I found her, goodness knows where she'd have ended up.

After all this excitement, I still have groceries to get done! We do most of our groceries at a No Frills once a month. I pick up all the staples, non perishables there and get fruits, veggies and meat at the Vietnamese market as we need them. I walk in and head over to get a cart and there aren't any left! Oooh boy, that means it's going to be a zoo in the store. Sure enough, after waiting for 10 minutes to get a cart, I push it through the door and it's a jungle in there. Not entirely sure why there are so many people doing their groceries at that time of day, but the store is full. It's not like there are fantastic prices or a special sale. I weave my way through the throngs, manage to get all the groceries minus a few items the shelves are cleared of and head for the cash. The waiting lines at the cash are 10 deep and every single cash is open! I don't get it. I finally get my groceries bagged since I bring my own carry-all bags and call for a cab which shows up in record speed considering that it's saturday pm and it's freezing!

Cabbie loads up my groceries into the back of the suv and off we go. I direct him to pull into the driveway behind the apartment building we live in so it's safer to offload. I pay him, give him a tip and get out. He gets out on his side, I let him know to put the groceries at the back door while I'm grabbing 2 bags to start it going. I walk away, get up the outside stairs, leave my 2 bags by the door, turn and start walking down the stairs again when I see the cabbie pulling out of the driveway. Where are my freaking groceries!!! I hurry over to where the suv was and there piled on the 3foot snowbank are my groceries! He just grabbed everything and tossed them out! I got to the snowbank just in time to grab the bag of glass jars before it tumbled down. I was about as mad as anyone can be at this point. I hope his ears are still burning because I cursed him roundly during the entire time I had to slog my way through the snow to retrieve my groceries. I'm just happy I had tied my bags with the handles. At least nothing fell out but tons of snow got in. The trip from the street edge to the back door takes a minute but I was terrified that while I was gone someone would take my groceries. By the time I got everything in the apartment, I was exhausted. I definitely had my workout today! LOL Let's see, I did approximately 20 trips up and down stairs. No stairmaster required here, I think that's enough!

I called the cab company to complain and they just poopooed it off saying that cabbies aren't expected to carry groceries in. I explained that I didn't expect him to carry groceries into my apartment but to at least put them in a safe place which is the cement pad by the entrance and NOT in the snowbank! I might as well not have bothered to call.... As I was putting the groceries away, I also noticed that both boxes of cereal were now open and crumpled looking. Sure enough, they had either been stepped on by the driver or run over by the departing suv. I guess I'll be eating crushed cheerios for the next month LOL no chewing needed :P

I need to get some circular knitting needles for a gilet I want to knit for my nieces and sil but that's going to have to wait. This weather is to fracking cold to go jaunting about town using the transit system. A 10 minute trip in a car turns into a 45 minute journey on a bus or several busses. I hate not having a car but it's going to have to wait until I have a steady income from a full time permanent job.

Weekends, snow & chores... have to find room to knit!!!

It's Sunday afternoon and between getting dishes done, kitchen cleaned up, general pick up and put away in the rest of the apartment and working on knitting, I'm trying to figure out where the weekend went?!!!

Not really complaining since with all the snow we've been getting dumped on us over the past couple of days, I really don't want to go out there. I have enough of walking to work 5 days a week in it! Mind you, it's pretty to look at just not so much fun to brave -30C temperatures in the morning. Friday morning, my face was numb by the time I walked the km to work. The rest of me was warm enough, bundled up into fleece pants, wool sweater and 2 fleece jackets along with a wool hood and my scarf. I was beginning to feel like a snowman, could hardly see out LOL That's me walking up the street by the railroad tracks. Darling hubby thought it would make a good picture.

The wristwarmers are just about done. Just finishing up the crochet hem. They came out really pretty. Here are pictures showing a finished one versus unfinished. It's amazing what adding a nice hem does for these.

Now I've got fingerless mitts to make and I'll use my own pattern for those since she wants to pay me for them! She also wants to pay me for the scarf/wrap which means I'll be combing stitch patterns and designing my own.


I love this picture taken at night of a nearby park. My husband really did a great job photographing it. The atmosphere is wistful, as of days gone by. Love the amber color of the lights coming through the trees. I could just sit there and look at it forever.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Well, the baby wrap shawl gift was met with awe and great appreciation. Apparently I picked out the perfect colour and it actually solved a dilemna they were having about what to use to cover her shoulders when sitting in the car seat. Daddy was properly impressed. Nice to see someone appreciate hand work.

I'm almost done the basketweave dishcloth, 2.5 rows to go!

Not looking forward to walking to work in the morning, temperatures will be well under 0C :( It's definitely going to be a brisk walk. At least the park around the corner is pretty to look at.

Building a square ... winter blahs

I'm in the process of writing up a pattern for a flemish lion cloth that I'm knitting in cotton. Depending on how it comes out, I may end up using it as a pillow top, otherwise it will become a face cloth.

I started knitting it tonight but will be frogging what I've done so far since I miscalculated the number of stitches on either side of the graphed lion and it's coming out uneven.

I was getting irritated by the cotton rolling around and since I had this lovely cookie tin that wasn't doing anything better, as an experiment I shoved the ball of yarn into it and started knitting from it that way. It works really well and I discovered than when I'm not knitting I can simply drop the needles with the knitting into the container and it all stays nicely put until I can pick it up again. This photo isn't very clear but I'll take another and update it tomorrow.

I'm getting tired of this trudge through filthy snow every morning on my way to work. I especially hate the drivers who seem to take great pleasure in driving closer to the sidewalk for no reason other than they can liberally spray your clothes with the filth that's accumulated on the edge of the street; a blend of mud, snow, salt and sand.... yummy. I just love walking in to work looking like a drowned rat. It's not like I can get away from them since there is no room to sidestep the spray if I saw it coming. Since the traffic is all one way, heading in the same direction I'm heading, I can't see them coming unless I walk backwards... or grow eyes in the back of my head or wear a side view mirror perhaps? LOL C'est la vie

Filigree Shawl Update

Wow, I'm amazed at how quickly this shawl is knitting up!

Take a look!

I should have it finished by tomorrow night if it keeps going like this. It's a good thing since the elderly lady I'm making it for had her birthday this past Friday. This will be a late birthday present.

In other news, it's getting cold!!!! It was -14C this morning when I walked to work. That's been the coldest so far and it's only the beginning of December. We normally don't get the really cold weather until January. I wonder if it's going to go like this. All I know is I feel sorry for the wee birds out there. While waiting for the bus tonight I was watching a flock of about 50 chickadees all competing for space between the rafters of an old closed building downtown. They looked so cold and they kept chattering at each other, jockeying for space to keep warm.

One day, the city may figure out what to do with the building. It hasn't been used in over 25 years and is literally falling apart from the inside out.

Winter wear

Since I frogged the Not Quite Straight scarf I had to find something else to knit for my son in law. After asking my daughter for some input, she told me he's not fond of wearing scarves, oh goodie! but he does need a warm winter hat since he feels the cold more than the average person.

Hmn... how about an old fashioned tuque? I remember wearing one as a kid, kept my head so warm I sweated under it. He wears a black jacket, so obviously black yarn has to be the choice. After pawing through my stash, I could only find one ball of black yarn. Uh oh.... The pattern I had chosen to use asks for worsted weight yarn, 2 strands held together on number 10 circular needles. The whole pattern is done in k2, p2 which gives it a deep rib. But with only 1 ball of yarn, what to do. I kept digging in my stash and came across several balls of demin blue yarn in a much lighter weight but figured by using 2 strands of the blue combined with 1 strand of the black, that should meet the requirements of the pattern.

The blue yarn was recycled from a sweater I picked up for 1$ at a church sale. When I started knitting again a few years ago, I did not want to spend tons of money on yarn when I wasn't even sure if I'd be knitting for more than a couple of months and dropping it again. So I had gone to a church sale and picked up 4 sweaters, unraveled the lot, and hand wound the yarn back into center pull balls for reuse. I learned a few things doing that.

1. Don't buy sweaters that are machine seamed. Means that the edges have been cut which gives you pieces of yarn less than a meter long. I spent more time knotting pieces together and finally gave up on that sweater.
2. Do buy sweaters that are handknit. You can tell if they are handknit by the way they are assembled. ie: no machine stitching.
3. And last but not least, buy colors you like! I have 10 balls of dark brick red yarn that I still don't know what to do with yet. It feels like cotton or a cotton blend. I'll figure out what to use it for, but not just yet.
4. Wash and dry flat the sweater BEFORE you unravel it. I found that some sweaters were unwashed and ahhh umm... smelled odd? and no, I don't want to know.

I finished knitting the hat which was knit flat. All I have left to do is seam it and try it on for size. I hope he likes it.