The Best Gifts

I've been in an earring making frenzy for the past week. I don't know what got me started except that I saw a great earring display at our campus bookstore. One of the employees there had a really nice display of her handcrafted earrings and bracelets for sale. I had made some earrings a couple of years ago and then just never got back to it. I had also made some bracelets, only to discover later that they drag on my keyboard and I can't wear them to work. But, low and behold, she also had some stretchy bracelets that she had made. I looked at those and thought that maybe I could take my bracelets apart that I had made and make stretchy ones out of them. Then they wouldn't drag on my keyboard and I could wear them.

As I was looking at the display I thought to myself that I can make the earrings and the bracelets too. I can set up a display in the art gallery in Knoxville where some of my paintings are. She had hers set up in a really eclectic display, which I really love, so I've been thinking about how I can set my up in a similar way.

I'm not a frou frou person. I don't wear alot of makeup or jewelry or flashy clothes. Just some foundation and powder and mascara and that's about it. I do love jewelry even though I don't wear that much of it either. Until about a year ago I never wore necklaces, but I always wore earrings for my pierced ears. I had tons of necklaces that people have given me over the years and I decided to start wearing them. For Christmas about 5 years ago Eddie bought me a beautiful diamond ring that I wear every day. I love it and it means so much to me because it was his idea to buy it for me and not mine. Those are the best gifts.

Socks and Snow

I finished a pair of socks last night and I'm really pleased with them. I really like the way the pattern evolved using this yarn. I used Sockotta in color 505.


This is what was outside our house yesterday morning.



It wasn't much, but it was enough to cause the college where I work to delay opening until noon. I was hoping for the whole day off, but it was nice to have a late morning for a change. My brother, who lives about an hour outside of Chicago, would laugh. This snowfall, which was around 2 inches, would be nothing to him. It would be a drop in the bucket compared what they usually get. I guess the south is just not prepared for major snow. We don't get it that much, so we don't have the equipment to handle it the way other places do who get a lot of snow. This snowfall wasn't bad at all. In fact, the roads were cleared really quickly right afterward so there wasn't any trouble at all as far as I know. I didn't have any trouble driving in to work.

I was glad to see it because we have not had snow in several years. There was the blizzard of 1993 when we got 21". Every time there is a forecast for any kind of snow, I guess everyone panics because they go to the grocery store and clean out the bread and milk. No one wants to get stranded again like we all did that year.