Cozy

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I am. Cozy and warm. And for that I am very grateful (even though I hate the cold because while I am cozy and warm, all I am thinking about is the heating bill).

We have negative temps and the streets are still, for the most part, covered in six inches or so of powdery snow. High school boy had a scheduled day off today for a teacher retreat, but then "they" went and gave all the other schools a snow day today. We were going to go to the theater, but now the theaters will be teaming with germy kids having a snow day.

So we'll stay home instead. Stay warm. Watch movies at home. Make popcorn. Bake cookies. The kids received lots of movies at Christmas time that they have watched, but I have not seen. I plan to spend my four-day weekend watching movies while I do laundry, iron, knit, make rosaries, and do more laundry. I have also made myself a deal that I will do at least one hour of school planning each day. Do you do that? Make deals with yourself? I'll say to myself, "O.k., if you iron for two hours, then you can knit for one hour." Or, "Switch laundry loads and then you can read for 15 minutes." I have to say it's the only way I get anything done around here -- bargaining.

So, I'll spend the weekend making deals with myself and eventually we'll come out on the other end, hopefully with all the work done, but no weepy mom (all work and no play makes mom a very weepy girl).

I have some new yarn to play with, so that should make the deals even better. A friend gave me a JoAnn gift card for doing some sewing for her and I took advantage of the $1.99 sale a few weeks ago. Isn't it yummy?




I'm making college boy a sideways knit scarf. I saw a few while I was Christmas shopping and thought I could knit one easily. It's easy, but will take knitting through a few movies to be done. I'm using that brown and ivory and blue. You knit one row of each color over and over, in any order, and leave the ends of each row hanging so you can tie them for a fringe. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Peach wants me to knit her mittens, but I'll have to figure out how to knit mittens first (a goal of mine for this year). She wants that bright pink yarn. Go figure.

The rest of the yarn will be used to knit for our church's knitting ministry. Have I told you about that? Members of the church knit or crochet hats and scarves for the homeless, adults and children. Just before Thanksgiving they gave away hundreds of hat and scarf sets to the homeless. It's a great ministry. If you knit or crochet and live in a geographic area that has cold winters, check to see if your church has a knitting ministry. Or start one yourself.





I'm going to make lots of these hats (pattern here) and matching scarfs. They are great because I use up bits of scrap yarn and don't need full skeins to finish (the pattern doesn't call for switching colors; I just use up what I have and switch when I run out). I don't usually care if the sets match because I figure a warm hat and scarf is a warm hat and scarf. This hat is made from cotton yarn which is my favorite, but probably isn't the warmest so I bought mostly wool blend yarn.

So, I'm crafting and laundering and planning my way through the weekend, with some baking and cooking thrown in for good measure. This is my kind of weekend.

I leave you with this beautiful meditation which I read in Divine Intimacy this morning. It will keep me on the straight and narrow as I bargain my way through my days.

"If we desire to follow Jesus, who offers us the perfection of His heavenly Father as a norm for our life, we must engage in an intense struggle against sin in order to destroy its deepest roots and even its slightest traces in us. This is just what Jesus teaches us with the brief words: 'Deny thyself.' We must deny 'self' with all its imperfect habits and inclinations; and we must do so continually. Such a task is fatiguing and painful, but it is indispensable if we wish to attain sanctity. Jesus says: 'How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life, and few there are that find it!' (Mt 7, 14). We approach the infinite perfection of God only in the measure in which we take upon ourselves the work of complete self-denial.

'If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself.' "

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