"More Snow, Ernie"

When I was a kid, there used to be a commercial on TV with a guy standing there all dressed in snow gear while fake paraffin wax snow sprinkled down on him. I think he was advertising snowblowers or something. Every so often he would look up and say, "More snow, Ernie!" to whoever was sprinkling him.

This became a winter catch-phrase in our family any time we started getting a streak of snowstorms. My dad, who used to clear a very long and extremely steep driveway using a garden tractor with a plow blade on it, would say "More snow, Ernie!" as the weather forecaster cheerfully predicted another 5 to 8 inches just after he'd finished.

The snow took a break for four hours yesterday afternoon, then it snowed for fourteen hours last night starting at 5pm. (And just to liven things up, on Monday the predicted high is now 50 F!)

My husband shovelled our not-as-long or steep driveway by hand yesterday, then I went out and shovelled behind the cars.

Remember the ragg wool legwarmers I re-knitted, using the yarn from a pair that never fit?

I wore them while I was out shovelling (and taking pictures).

They worked great for keeping the snow from falling down into the tops of my boots and packing into a little chilblain-creating crust.

This ragg wool is pretty scratchy to the hand (and on the knitting needles), but my ankles, protected by socks and jeans and boots, don't care -- they were warm!

Here is our geodesic dome addition from the outside. It's a little nine-foot radius dome built using a kit we bought from Albata Geodesics.

I am always surprised at how small it looks from the outside compared to how big it feels inside.

One of the hoops we had to jump through in getting its construction approved by the township was proving that it would bear the snow load in the winter. Personally, I thought that was a little silly, considering that geodesic domes were used at the South Pole.

And here is a sufficiently-anonymous, "No paparazzi!" photo of our son playing in the snow like the snow dog he is.

He was digging a hole in the snow with his hands to put his feet into.

Just like his father, this child has the amazing ability to go out in the cold, play for a long time, and come in with snowy mittens (or his mom's gloves) and warm hands!

How do they do it? I need my double-knitted mittens for my hands to stay anything like warm!

And finally, here is more of the increase/decrease sampler.

When I look at the chart, I think my head might explode.

I created it by numbering four increase/decrease combinations, then writing those numbers down as if I were making a 12-strand flat braid:
123413241423 (the order of the strands at the beginning)
132142314243 (pairs of strands exchange places, except for the first & last strand)
311224132434 (pairs exchange places, including the first and last strand)

It's starting to show some interesting symmetry and is really cementing in place things like how it looks when a YO k2tog is over another YO k2tog. And what if it's over a k2tog YO?