I Love Goodwill

Or any good thrift store. What I really love is "treasure-hunting" them. I go in the store, troll through my favorite departments (books and crafts), and see what I can dig up. Sometimes it's nothing, but I strike it lucky often enough to keep hoping and looking.

Yesterday it was knitting needles. I got these for $1.99. There were five pairs of single-pointed needles in various sizes*, a set of four US size 5 sock needles, one lonely US 2 dpn, and a pair of US 10 double-pointed needles that are ten inches long. Seven different sets of needles for two bucks!

* Okay, if you really must know, 10-inch US sizes 1, 2, and 7, 14-inch US 9, and a pair of Milward 14-inch needles in UK size 6, about US 8.

A couple of months ago it was a cone of Shetland wool yarn for 99 cents. The color might be described as "unfortunate brown", but there is always dye!

And now I have to go off on a rhapsody to spring! If spring to you is purty flowers and green grass, you'll probably think I'm crazy. The prevailing colors here in SW Michigan are still brown, black, and gray. But it is warm! It was into the fifties (F) yesterday, and it is already 56 today! I took a walk with my coat open. There were red-winged blackbirds, robins, and cardinals singing everywhere.

It rained last night, and the little pond at the south end of our property is full. Calling it a pond is pretty charitable -- it is a low spot, full of water and willow sprouts and reed canary grass. However, the frogs and the occasional pair of ducks testify that it is, indeed, a pond. And I heard a spring peeper! Only one, not the deafening chorus that they'll raise later in the season, but certainly a sign of spring.

I keep an Excel file I call "Almanac". In it I record the dates when I first notice seasonal things. It reminds me that I should go look for the winter aconite and snowdrops, since I've seen crocus already.

The air is warm and damp, and being that this is Michigan, of course we have no sun, and the promise of more rain in the afternoon. But I don't care: it's spring and it's beautiful.