Vacation, Day One

Today is the first full day of our winter vacation. Right now I should be up to my knees in the Gulf of Mexico, or on a rented bike pedaling myself along a sandy Sanibel road. But I am not. I am still in Massachusetts, drowning in that white stuff we all know I love so well, wondering what the reason is for the storm that ended my vacation plans. There always is one, you know. There is always a reason for everything. When the flight canceled it was almost a relief because it meant we didn't have to drive to Hartford in sleet and freezing rain on snow and slush covered highways. And although I am working very hard on remembering the positives - we are alive, we are grateful to even have had the chance to take a vacation, I can get the puppy early now, Delta gave us a full refund - I still am sad at the loss of what was to be our first non-Disney Florida vacation. Well, less Disney anyway. It was to be about beaches and the everglades and rented bikes and kayaks and beaches and seashells with a little dose of Mickey Mouse slapped onto the very end. I can't help noticing that this hotel seems to be a lot like home. In fact it IS home, right down to the 12 new inches of vacation killing snow outside my front door which rest on top of the 50 inches we had already received this season.

I have sworn off work at least until Monday. I am on a UFO quest - finishing the plethora of unfinished objects I discovered during my pre-puppy stash clean out.  I found a Bobbi Bear sans pattern or yarn that Girl had started and never finished. I gave him pink and gray nose and arms.

I knit 2 crate mats for the puppy using the Valley Yarns Nantucket Felted Rug (FREE!) pattern; the striped one is in Berkshire Bulky leftover from when I knit this rug for Kathy, and the other in Schaefer Esperanza that was left over from this last book.

I finished the Brambling from Rowan's Story Book of Little Knits that I started for April a million years ago - that now will never fit her and so will be stashed.

I seamed up a languishing Winecozy, began 2 years ago for a Christmas gift that ultimately was delivered naked. Maybe this year. It needs to be embellished once it dries.

I put faces on six Owls and Tigers and Zebras, Oh My! hats.

In the spare moments I've planned out some work projects that I will start next week. I want to finish Gene's Dale sweater. Saturday we get the puppy, a week ahead of schedule which is a nice thing. Unless you consider that between now and then I should be on an island in the Gulf of Mexico under an umbrella, or kayaking around the mangroves. Bitter? Moi? What made you think that?

Every year I threaten to move to a warmer climate, but I never do. I am supposed, by virtue of birth and genetics, to be a tough Yankee; a hardy New Englander. I am supposed to suck it up and make the best of it, supposed to get out there and enjoy the variety. Well, forget it. This place, this climate, feels like it is killing me by inches. It's never been much of a secret that I dislike winter. Since I was young I've just never been happy with this season. I was the kid who had to be forcibly bundled and shoved out into it, and then stood there wondering what the point was. I had a beautiful little toboggan, my own runner sled, and my sister's flying saucers at my disposal, but my favorite thing to do was curl up in a snowbank with an icicle and wait for my mother to grant me a reprieve so I could return to my books. As an adult I invested in snowshoes, and I went shoeing - and even had fun - except for the painfully frozen extremities and the chapped, red face and cracked lips it was great. We once climbed to the tree line of Mount Monadnock in January. In the end it was all useless, this attempt to make me embrace winter. The white fingers and toes that burn and ache almost constantly, the depression that comes with short days and endless dark, the "bundling up" making me claustrophobic and cranky, the endless mounds of snow needing to be moved - it's just not my thing and it never will be. Of all the things I will miss when I leave New England (and I will leave New England) winter will not be one of them. I wasn't made to be here. It's an accident of birth that I haven't yet corrected. But I will!
Not a very cheerful way to end my vacation report is it? I'll be better in a day or two. And definitely better by Saturday evening!

I am coming, small furry happiness. I'm coming!