A small gift at midnight

Juggling the business of every day can quickly lead to treadmill syndrome: See the girls off to school, go back to bed, get up -- what? three hours already? -- call the orthodontist, call the vet, let the dogs out, call my parents, mail this -- due two days ago!  eek! -- change the laundry, press a shirt -- where's my ivory turtleneck? -- let the dogs in -- Gunnar, spit that out! -- make a lunch, make the 4:00 meeting, make deadline (five times in two hours), quickstop at the grocery, scoop the litterbox, put on the coffee, 10 minutes to knit? not tonight, look at the time, go to bed, start all over again. Crap, it's still February.

Luckily for me, I looked around one snowy night a week or so ago. As I pulled in the driveway after work, this was my street at 1:30 in the morning. Very quiet, very white, pleasantly cold (sorry. I am very Minnesotan in some ways). To my left ...

And to my right ...

When it looks like that outside -- daytime or night -- the next best thing to knitting is shopping for knitting. Thanks to Ravelry and JudyA. the enabler, I learned of Leena, a spinner and dyer in Finland who creates and sells lovely, lovely yarn. Socks and mittens, but let your imagination run free -- or at the least, appreciate what this woman does with natural dyes.  (As an aside, and as a copy editor, also appreciate her skill with English. She is more fluent than some native speakers I know)

Anyway, our package should arrive in a couple of weeks. Mitten kits for both of us, sock yarn for Judy. The threat of frostbite will keep me from sitting on the mailbox till the box arrives, but I promise to show and tell! The yarn, I mean.

In the meantime, I'll be plugging away on the ol' Pine Tree sweater and the Sophie sweater from Rowan  -- its pockets are at the ready, I should be attaching them any day now.  (The Jo Sharp vest has been set aside for sewing before I hunker down for the collar) Holding its own in the project parade is my skeleton scarf.