yarn, hook, needles, and snow

My evenings and downtime have, of course, been spent with my fingers busy with yarn and either a hook or needles. It's such a lovely, relaxing activity for me. I realize that it's not something that everyone would enjoy (for instance, my husband was watching me last night and stated how boring knitting looked) but it's definitely something I thoroughly enjoy pouring my energy into. And it's wonderful when I have a finished product!

On the knitting front, I have started what I call a "Learn to Knit" afghan. I'm basically just knitting a bunch of different knitting motifs, and then I will stitch them together in the end. It will be a long-term project, but it's enabling me to practice my knitting and learn new skills and stitches along the way. I'm planning on sticking with grays and blues for this afghan, and maybe possibly throwing in some yellow squares. We'll see.

I'm also back into working on my granny hexagon afghan. I started all these hexagons last fall and then lost my gumption several months into it. Now I'm back in, but I decided to incorporate some solid colored hexagons in with the multi-colored ones. Switching out the yarn so many times takes a lot of time and leaves a bunch of ends to weave in so having some solid colored ones will speed up the process. I hope.

I've also been spending some time organizing. Inspired by my friend Carmen, I gathered all of my recipes I had either printed out or ripped out of magazines, inserted them into sleeve protectors and then organized them categorically in a big binder. This has been wonderful, and it has even motivated me to get back into meal planning. And now I'm being reminded of how wonderful it is know what I'm making for dinner each day. The 4 o'clock hour is much less frazzled now. Love it.

I also went through all of my crochet patterns (and there were many, many of those) and organized all of those into three different binders. And in each binder, I organized the patterns into multiple categories. Again, having my patterns organized like this is awesome when I'm looking for something in particular. 

I love having things organized.

We got some snow through the night. Maybe our last "winter storm" of the year? Maybe? Please maybe?

Sergei's school was cancelled so he is home today. This often tends to throw off our homeschooling day a bit. Him being home often tends to be distracting to the younger two. He is off so they want to be as well. However, there are days that he goes to school and we are off for one reason or another so we carry on even when he is off.

This morning, however, was a bit different. I went out to tend to the chickens and noticed how absolutely gorgeous the snow looked, caked against the sides of the trees, drifting against the side of the house, piled up in our garden beds. So I summoned the kids to round up their snow attire and head out for some snow play. After all, this may be our last good snow. (She types with fingers crossed.)

Sergei set off with his shovel. And Ian and Lily started rolling snowballs for a snowman as the snow we got was perfect snowman snow. This gave me an opportunity to trek through the yard and snap some photos of the snow. I always enjoy being able to get out with my camera and capture moments and things that I love to look at. I noticed the different things in our backyard that were just waiting for the warm spring thaw ~ Ian's treehouse, the harrows, the logs stacked and ready for Friday night cookouts. All these things that are such a big part of a new season. And a season that is just around the corner. So exciting!

Now we're going to attempt some school lessons and then maybe head out to the library after lunch.

Have a blessed day!