Snail Spirals

I love Pacific Northwest winters. It's cool and damp, foggy and misty and lovely. Here's the view today at 1:27 from the lab where I work, looking across the Lab's dock and the harbor, to the town docks and the ferry landing. The big white boat is a car ferry. Notice that the lights on the dock, which are activated by ambient light sensors, are on. At 1:27 pm.



Because the weather has been like this for about a week, I've been doing this:



Is there anything that compares to home-baked bread? I got fancy with one loaf and made it into cinnamon swirl bread. Oh, my. These are actually the loaves I baked last Tuesday. I made another batch this morning. They're white bread, which isn't my favorite, but I'm out of whole wheat flour. Need to remedy that situation, as I'm having lots of fun with the kneading and the baking and the consuming.

I also wanted to share a picture of the new fishies. (Oh, excuse me. Acording to Emma these are not called "fishies" like the guppies were. No, these are "stripies.") The Glowlight Tetras have been with us for an entire, complete week now, so maybe I won't be jinxing them to post a picture. Sorry it's so blurry, but have you ever tried to take a picture of 1" long, shiny, VERY FAST fish? This is the best one I was able to get, after spending way too long trying. At least the colors are fairly true. They have very cool pinkish-orange DayGlo racing stripes extending from the tops of their eyes to their tails.



In other exciting news from our house, lookit this!



Emma has Big Girl Underwear!! She's been making great progress on the potty-training, and last time we were off-island, I got her some to wear during the day. She's very proud of them, and though there have been a few accidents, she usually gets to the potty in time.

Perhaps that was more than you wanted to know about my daughter's toiletting habits, but after changing diapers for more than two years, trust me, it's a huge deal and I'm very proud of her. I think the underwear was the catalyst in getting her to use the potty regularly, because she doesn't like getting them wet and is very aware of it when they do get wet.

One last thing before I close. After finishing the Chevron Shawl, I was thoroughly in the knitting groove so I immediately started a new project. This is a project I've been thinking of doing for about five years, ever since we moved to Washington and started working at the Lab. I've spent the past week and a half working on the charts and sampling. Here's a preview, and the inspiration for the project.