Cold-Weather Day

Yesterday afternoon, I decided this would be a "cold-weather day" for me -- like a snow day, but because it was so cold. The school districts in the area have been closed since Wednesday. The first day was because of the new 6 inches or more of snow, but the last two were because morning temperatures were -20F (-29C) or colder. Yesterday morning as I waited for the bus (luckily, the bus was on time, so I was outside for less than 15 minutes), the temperature was around 23 below. I was wearing tights, long underwear (upper and lower), wool socks, moleskin pants (no, not made from real moles, but really warm), sweater, long down coat, earflap hat with my coat hood over it, wool/mohair scarf over my face, and store-bought gloves under my mittens. I was almost warm enough, although it sort of hurt to breathe, and had to remove several layers once I got to work. Today was supposed to be colder (and was, by about 2 degrees) so I decided to take a day of vacation.

I started the day by watching a couple hours of the Today show's coverage of yesterday's miracle on the Hudson, which really does seem to have been miraculous. Then I talked to Helen about some updates to the Daedelus pattern, and promised to work on it extensively this weekend. And then -- well, then I spent a couple hours playing on Facebook. Facebook doesn't usually distract me like that (although Twitter does - I am, of course, jannabeth there, if you'd like to follow my riveting tweets), but I spent lots of time today checking out my friends' friends, to see who I had missed.

Finally, around noon, I got a little more productive!

I baked Chocolate Cranberry Sweet Buns, although, weirdly, I had no chocolate chips, so I chopped up five squares of semi-sweet chocolate (why do I have two boxes of this, and no chips?) and used that instead. I haven't tasted them yet, but they look pretty!

I also made snow

Throw a cup of boiling water into frigid air and see what happens!

because we don't have enough already! ;-)

That's my car, waiting to be dug out tomorrow, when the temperature is supposed to be a balmy 26ºF (-3ºC). I did get in and start it last night -- I didn't really expect it to start, so was thrilled when it did, with just a little cough.

And I worked on Daedelus. She really is going to be pretty if when I get her done!

I know Daedelus was a man, but, really, this shawl is awfully girly!