New Year, Cautiously Optimistic

I can't believe it's been over a month since I posted. We had some weird weather during that period of time: weeks of snow, a warm spell, snow melt and inches of rain causing flooding (not personally, thank goodness,) then back to bitterly cold. I spent at least part of the time like this:



Though frankly, I think Norman would rather not share the cozy goodness of large, heavy, satin-lined fun fur goodness that we call Nanook of the North with me:



Christmas was low-key and spent with the family. Thanks to procrastination and heavy snow we didn't cut our own tree this year :( we had a small artificial one in the attic that had to suffice. Not the same, but really, my only complaint.

Despite the fact that I laid in a supply of "midget food" (frozen mini-quiches, tiny egg rolls, little pizza bagels and the like,) and sparkling cider, Audrey ditched us on New Year's Eve to be with friends. John and James and I played an everlasting game of Risk that went well past midnight, turning on Dick Clark barely in time to see the dropped ball stop. Still, toasts were made and funny hats were worn.

Before school started Audrey dyed the tips of her hair green (it was meant to be turquoise, but is more of an Easter Egg green:)



The big news with Audrey is she has her first official boyfriend (not the bearded guy in the picture, that's just John, who's not real keen on the whole Audrey having a boyfriend idea.)

James is a bass-playing Knowledge Bowl god. He divides his predawn hours between chamber orchestra and jazz band, practices with a high school garage band on the weekends, continues to grow taller than anyone else in the house, and in general is getting old.



Old I tell you, old.

I have to take pictures of projects in progress, because I have them. I had a whole lot of FINISHED items last fall, but now I have four different second gloves on the needles (if you've heard of Second Sock Syndrome, you know what I'm talking about.) I started a scarf. (A scarf!) I still haven't finished the afghan that was to be a Christmas present (luckily we spread Christmas out over the year in the Hamill family,) and I started not one, but TWO blankets for the new Afghans for Afghans campaign. I am bummed because I STILL can't get my pictures to load onto Ravelry---that click-and-drag from my Flickr pages is not working for me.

Tuesday was Inauguration Day. For the record, I DID think I would see an African American President in my lifetime. I really expected to get more of a lift out of watching the ceremonies than I did. Sure, I had a few chills, and maybe a moist eye once or twice, but I'm still feeling daunted by current conditions. So I'm still calling it cautiously optimistic.