Today we are anticipating an ice storm. There’s been tons of hype about it, and as such, it is hard to believe it’ll be as bad as all that. However, it seems that the weather service hasn’t put out a warning like this in 6 years, so it may not be hype after all.

Since today had the potential to be miserable, while Mr. Ink headed in to the shop with the new car, Miss Butterfly and I headed to a local lake to go for a walk. It really was a lovely day. Nice and sunny. Not too cold. We were there to get her some pokemon. Quite frankly, my game is a little boring right now, I’ve got almost everything that’s currently available, except for 5. And of those 5, it’s unlikely I’ll find them “in the wild.” So, now it’s all about getting Miss Butterfly her pokemon.

As has been the case since we began playing, really pokemon just gets us out the door. After that, it’s all about discovering the Real World around us. Miss Butterfly indicated that she’d like to walk on an ice lake, as she’s never done so before. The lake had ice fisherman out, and so I allowed her the opportunity.

She was thrilled. And a little disturbed by the noises a frozen lake makes. Those are noises I love. Quite frankly, we didn’t wander far from shore as the ice was only 4ish inches thick and that’s a bit daring for me when it comes to having my child out there. I logically know it’s probably safe, but the mother in me keeps freaking out.

But, she had her opportunity and enjoyed it. We walked a little further and she found a good climbing tree, so she did that as well.

Had it been warmer, she probably would have kept going. All in all, a fun morning of exploration.

If you are a regular reader you may remember that we needed to Do Something about our garage door. Mr. Ink finally made the decision to purchase a new lock mechanism for it, as he’ll be the predominate user of that door and has decided it’s no trouble to put the car in the garage “the old fashioned way.” The lock/handle mechanism arrived on Friday. Upon our return from the lake, Miss Butterfly opened the garage and broke the handle. (Not her fault, it was fixin’ to fail.) So, I put the car in the garage, took the handle upstairs, and told Mr. Ink his to do list for the day had just been revised. Thankfully it took him very little time to put the new lock and handle in, and I didn’t hear much hollering from the basement, so I think it went well.

As for the new car, it’s day in the shop got it an inspected cabin air filter (needs to be replaced), some undercoating on parts of the car that Mr. Ink wants to protect, and a fix of the dash noise that we’d heard once we purchased the car that he didn’t trust the dealer to work out. Oh, and of course, an opportunity for Mr. Ink to actually drive the car since I have hogged it completely since we got it.

And now for the story of my current handspun project. Miss Marja gave me those lovely rolags for christmas. And, since she knows me so well, she made them NICE and chunky. She had picked up some lovely chunky wool nepps in all sorts of great colors, which she added to my rolags, hiding them in there really well. Unfortunately for some reason, and I think it might be that these nepps are just so hard felted that they don’t have anything to grip the handspun with, 99% of those nepps were lost. They’d fly off the singles as I was spinning. I’d sweep them up. Then, I figured no problem on the ones left, they’d stick around. Oh no, during plying, the same experience happened. They’d just pop right off the yarn, even when I’d carefully try to trap them in the ply. Well, ok, there’s still some left right? So, those will stick around. Oh no! Not so. When putting the yarn on the niddy noddy, even more would pop off the yarn. In fact, I’ve still got a carpet full of nepps from the last skein I wound onto the niddy noddy. It was so sad! I don’t think she’ll be insulted that I am telling you this, as we’d discussed it on Friday night and she’d had the same experience with them. That being said, I was able to trap some of them in the ply, and so my yarn will have a chunky surprise or two as I knit it.

Turned out to be a great big skein! 540 yards or so, and I’d say DK weight overall.

There’s also been a ton of baby knitting around here. I finished the handspun sweater for my newphew, but it’ll have to wait for buttons before I show it off. And then I made a pixie baby hat out of the yarn, and today I intend to make some booties. And maybe another hat for a slightly older baby, as the pixie hat looks particularly tiny.

But FIRST, I gotta go get another walk in before the storm! It’s perfectly clear out at the moment, and this may be the last chance before Tuesday.

Talk soon!