plastic fantastic

 Major warm-up!  The clean lines on our frozen pond have melted...

...into a beautiful milky, pearlescent color.

It's been cold enough, though, for the nails on our porch ceiling to develop a thick coat of frost.  It always brings to mind Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter:  "The frosted nails in the roof above her were like white teeth."

Today, though, it will be nearly 70 (!!!) and all traces of our big snow will be gone!  

I've spent a lot of my spare time working on a puzzle this week.  Todd surprised me with a 2000 piece puzzle a month or so ago, and it was unusual in several ways...first, it was plastic.  Second, the puzzle was broken down into six sections.  I didn't even need my puzzle board.  I assembled it a section at a time...

...and finished the entire puzzle in a little over a week...a new record for me!

It's pretty big...29" x 24"...and the pieces are so sturdily locked together that not only is it easy to carry around, I think it might be difficult and time-consuming to disassemble.  To make it more challenging when I put it together again, I'm going to break it down into four sections, not six.

We have ventured out a little...to a Motown concert last night...

...but have mostly been at home. I've done a little knitting over the past few weeks.  I ordered some beautiful Malabrigo yarn...

...and have just finished a hat.  It's a pattern that I've knitted in the past for a gift, so I already knew that I'd like it!

I love the hexagons.

I'm working on matching mittens now.  I started a sweater at the end of 2024...

...but I quickly discovered that not only was I not fond of the color combination I'd chosen, the various differences in yarn thickness/hairiness was annoying as well.  I ended up frogging it back to the beginning of the blue pattern.  I'm going to start over when I feel more inspired.

I did buy some other beautiful Malabrigo yarn recently that might be a nice contrast to the gold...

Speaking of gold, Todd bought me a sweater-quantity of Malabrigo Rios for Christmas in the Frank Ochre colorway.  It is gorgeous!!!

I have THREE unfinished sweaters on hold right now...a white sweater that I decided to change the arm length on and got confused, so put it aside...a green sweater with a messed-up front panel...and now the sweater above, recently frogged nearly to the collar.  However, that isn't stopping me from starting a FOURTH sweater with the beautiful Frank Ochre.  ;)

We're continuing to have the most beautiful sunrises...

...and I'm really loving the slower pace of life right now.  For the first time in a long time, I'm reading after supper...always with a cat in my lap.  It seems to be the only time he's interested!

As nice as it is to be at home, I just got the okay from my podiatrist to resume walking again (as long as I complete a painful-sounding round of physical therapy to break up scar tissue), so I'm excited to actually get outside again! 

Have a great week!