Yarn. Ice. Eggs. Snow. Cookies.

I am still working on my Sugared Violets wrap and still love it.  Canopy Fingering.  Yum.  I panicked today because my mom showed me this magical knot for joining two ends of yarn together that is supposedly impossible to get apart.  I looked at my knitting while taking pictures and saw a small hole halfway through the work.  I turned the work over and oh MY GOSH only one end was visible and it was untied. Adrenaline rush.  I frantically extricated the missing end and tied them together unprofessionally (like... as if I was tying a shoe) and looked more closely.  No stitches seem dropped so I will just have to finagle a little weaving in somehow to cover the pulled spot.  I am so thankful that nothing came unraveled, and I think I have Yarn Along to thank because I noticed it through the lens of my camera as I was snapping pictures and might not have looked that closely otherwise. 
Disaster.  Averted.  

Whew.  

My dear husband, who was out working two nights ago and then went out to watch football last night, required that I take a couple hours to myself and head into town to do whatever I wanted.  I sometimes use this time to run errands kid-free but I refused this time, knowing the joy and peace I would get from sitting in a coffee shop knitting and reading.  

This always restores my mind to balance, the rhythmic back and forth of the needles and then leisurely picking up my book to read a chapter if I want, or not... I am listening to The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton via the CraftLit podcast and, though several weeks behind, am going to catch up again to the current podcast eventually.  I put aside Age in favor of Dracula for a couple months, but as I finished listening to Dracula yesterday, I went back to poor Newland Archer.  I expect that this book will have a tragic ending, but I suppose we'll see.  

And I am reading the other books pictured above.  Food in Jars is excellent and I would like to buy it for my shelf.  I follow the Food in Jars blog and love the idea of small-batch canning, especially for our lifestyle.  It is much easier to Put Up a few jars in an evening than to schedule several days through the year for large batch canning.  A few, yes.  But not too many days available like that.  

  

Our chickens are beginning to lay better again.  We were getting maybe... one or two eggs a day for a few months, so we put a heat lamp in the coop to increase the number of hours of light they are getting.  Finally we are getting between 3-6 eggs per day again.  We will incubate more chicks this spring, I think, but until they start laying, I am happy to have increased production.  

A sheet of ice covered everything this morning when I went out; we must have had freezing rain overnight, and then snow came through this evening.  My girls were dancing happy in the dusky light.

Rosie is starting to sleep through the night, at least sometimes.  She wakes at least once most nights, fussing, but I just pat her or move her to the pack n play in the guest room so she doesn't wake her sisters, and let her fuss until she goes back to sleep.  Thanks to my friend Lucy, who encouraged me to move ahead on this instead of second-guessing my instincts.  I am having an easier time waking up a bit earlier in the morning, too, since the night interruptions are a little less than before when I was still feeding baby in the middle of the night.  I like being able to rise early but I was really struggling to do that the past few months, especially with it so dark in the morning. Early rising enables me to get ahead on the housework and have time for making cookies with my girlies!

Joining in with Ginny and others for Yarn Along.  Can't wait to see what others are up to this week!