Still iced in. Poor son, it's tough to be 16 and cooped up for 4 days with 2 50-year-old parents. Especially when you've just gotten your driver's license. But I'm sure he'll survive.

I've gotten a lot of reading and knitting done. Yesterday I finished Scandalous Risks by Susan Howatch. Sometimes the books in that series seem interminable, but I still keep reading. I'm also reading Revolution by George Barna and Judge and Jury by James Patterson. I've got 3 or 4 books waiting for me at the library, but I can't get there to pick them up. Even if I could, it's closed because of the weather anyway. Guess I'll have to content myself with the backlog of reading I've got piled up around the house.

And if that's not enough, there's always knitting. I finished a new scarf from Reynold's Blizzrd yarn. It's a really soft, cozy alpaca/wool mix that I just love. I made one scarf for my daughter for Christmas and one for myself. But, I ended up giving mine to a friend of mine whose husband died suddenly so I guess I'll keep this one for myself. I'll probably pick up another couple of skeins next Saturday when I go to my LYS for my first Victorian Lace class.

I also finished another prayer shawl. I know that a lot of people look down on Lion Brand's Homespun as a cheap yarn, but it really makes nice prayer shawls and since they're given to people who may or may not care about the fine points of caring for wool, being washable is a big plus. And it has a really comforting feel to it. Last year, I made prayer shawls for all my graduating seniors, and I started doing it again this year. Of course, I may not still be here when they graduate--in fact I hope I'm not, and I'm not really close to most of these seniors anyway, but I still like to always keep a shawl on my needles. People are always in need of prayer and concern, and of tangible tokens of God's and God's people's love and care for them.

The only problem I have now is that the only knitting I have in progress right now is my first pair of socks. I got down to shaping the heel in my first class, and I've just about knitted the second pair to that point as well. Then I'll have to decide to try and figure it out on my own or to put it aside until the next class.

Snowed in for the weekend, maybe. We still haven't heard whether or not church is cancelled for tomorrow. Frankly, I hope that it will be because that will give us a whole weekend. Of course, we may kill each other before it's over, but we may also actually get some stuff done around the house. That would be amazing. I already managed to finish one of my library books this morning, and I think I can get lots of reading and knitting done, if nothing else.

this was supposed to be a really chock-full weekend. In fact, I was scheduled to basically be a 2 places at once pretty much the whole time. But, instead of spending the weekend on the road driving back and forth between the two, I'm snuggled up at home with husband and son and a fire in the fireplace. Daughter is, of course, snowed in at school, but she doesn't have to work today so she can stay cozy, too.

It's kind of funny. She loves literature and has a lot of talent for it and for teaching, but she really resisted becoming an English major in college just because that's what I did. But, after going through 2 or 3 other majors, guess where she's ended up? And she's really excited about her first lit survey class topics. How ironic is that? I may have to re-read Beowulf just to keep up my end of the conversation.

Things are really wierd in my world these days.
--In November, I got the choice on my job to either quit, be fired, or continue with a sizable chunk of the church and youth parents opposed to me. That's not precisely how it was put, but that's what it boiled down to. And the quitting was wrapped in the option of pushing harder to get my own church to pastor, which is really what I want to do. So that's the option that I chose. But, even though I'm in a 'transitional' phase, I'm still doing the same job, plus 'other duties as required' to 'gain some experience' and also reassure the ones who want me gone that I'm really leaving. The hard part is staying engaged with the kids while I get ever more ready to move on.
--In the week between Christmas & New Year's, my son got his driver's license. He's my youngest, so we are now in the early stages of empty nest. Because, you know that as soon as kids get wheels, they are pretty much gone. It seems very strange around our house sometimes in the evenings and on weekends. And when his girlfriend is allowed to actually date starting next month, I expect that things will get even wierder.
--My daughter took her first road trip this weekend. She and a friend drove to Dallas for a couple of days to visit another friend. And, I know, she's in college and it's totally appropriate for her to do stuff like that. But the first time they take off on a long trip it's hard. I guess it might be easier if she had to travel several hours instead of just one to go back and forth to school, but I don't think so. But the trip went fine and she got home OK, except she's kind of sick and we're hoping it's not the flu. She goes back to college tomorrow and starting the semester with the flu is not going to help her grades at all.

On a personal note, I've really gotten back into knitting again. In fact, I'm kind of expanding my horizons a little bit. This year I plan to really explore socks, since that seems to be the big thing, and lace. I took my first sock class this week and it went pretty well. In 2 weeks I'm starting a class on Victorian Lace. I'm really excited about that.