Will We Have School Through The Summer?

Well, we've used all our snow days, leaving nothing left for the weather that has caused mini disasters around here.  School is back on tomorrow... except for the elementary school.  There are too many downed trees on the road to the school.  The youngest member of our family is one happy kid.

If A Tree Falls In A Suburb, And Everyone Hears It, Will It Take Out Your House, Car, or Electricity?

When I moved to England in 2000, everybody here (TX, where I was living at the time, and MA, where my family was living) told me the weather in England was going to be terrible, rainy and cold and I'd be miserable.  My very literal son told me later he was surprised at how gentle the rain was and how often the sun came out.  He literally expected it to rain from dark clouds every day and was very unnerved at the prospect.  Many people also told me the food would be awful too, but that's another post.

In the four years I lived there, I could tell you what the weather was going to be nearly every day, with a few exceptions.  Sure, snow lightly dusted our backyard one day.  Another time I remember flooding rains that kept me from a very important appointment.  But other than that, it was either sunny or overcast, light rain, and rarely, heavy rains for limited times.  No great variations to have to plan around.  

Granted weather cycles have changed considerably.  And Southern England has been hit by great variations of weather.  But in my first year of living in NJ five years ago, I experienced 4 major snowstorms during the month of March, several flooding rains during Spring (great housewarming present since we had just bought the house that flooded 4 weeks after we moved in.)  Totally new and severe allergies for my son.  A particularly bad heat wave during the summer,  and Fall allergies, which were terrible and we had never experienced before.  And multiple electricity losses. And all that was our first year!  But we live outside of NYC, and that should make everything ok!  Grumble.

Knot A Pretty Picture

Sometimes a badly rolled ball of yarn (sometimes called a cupcake - when it is rolled well)  comes apart while you are knitting your project.  So I started a shawl.  Not a warm, old, granny shawl, but one that can be whipped around my neck creating a chic display of yarntastic ability.   But I had to put the shawl down to tend to the knots.  This is just part of knitting....

This is the start of the shawl, it will get somewhat lacy in the end.  IF I ever get through all the knots!

Update on Corny Post

4th grade boy just told me that the average sized ear of corn has about 500 niblets on it.  So, I must correct my earlier number of niblets.  Evidently there were approximately 6,000 corn niblets in that pan.  I never was good at math.  I asked him how he could possibly know that.  There actually is a very simple, logical and reasonable explanation.  But I am not going to tell you what it is.  Isn't niblet a funny word?  Or am I just that immature.

The Day Riley Learned Some New Words. And Paper Towels Was Not Among Them.

I'm baaaaack!

Since my last post was at Thanksgiving, I think I can safely use the holidays, and the start of the new year as a reasonable excuse for not adding to my blog.  Then, when that excuse ran out, I started thinking that I needed to rethink my blog, it's purpose, do I want to try to widen the audience, should I try to focus on one thing only, should I try to make some pittance of money from it, should I change the name, should I have my own domain, should I take a digital photography class, should I take a remedial grammar course (I know the answer to that one) ...so many questions that I didn't have any answers to, so I just picked up my knitting and put my blog on my lovely imaginary shelf.  Finally ready to pick it up again, I could not access my account!  Quite simply, I forgot my username and my password.  And gmail (not my regular email) needs you know know one or the other.  I just figured out how to figure it out, and I am back!

Lots of ridiculous and wonderful things have happened.  We might enter a time warp here and there and I have noted some that I wanted to share, but did not get to it.

That is it for now.  I am just so happy to finally know how to get to my blog.  The answers to the above questions will eventually find their way to me, and in the meantime, I hope I don't bore you.