One last snow day

Yesterday, after I had gotten my son off to school, I returned home and slipped back into bed looking to get another hour of rest before the day began in earnest, and while I did get another hour of rest, the remainder of my morning routine was interrupted by an automatic phone call from Wake County Schools. It seemed that due to the impending inclement weather, students would be released from school three hours early — I needed to prepare for one last snow day.

I stopped doing whatever I had been doing, and checked the weather report. If the forecast were to be believed, by mid to late afternoon we would have just enough freezing rain to coat the walkways and streets, and then the temperatures would drop just a bit more so everything could be as solid a sheet of ice as nature could muster in early March.

I interrupted my planned activities and made a quick run to the grocery store so that I would have plenty of coffee and other essentials to get us through the storm. Soon after I had finished with my errands, it was time for my son’s bus, and since it was raining, I made a point of going to the bus stop to meet him.

The bus driver arrived, as she always does, in a timely manner, but in a direction opposite of her usual approach. She deftly turned the bus, backing into a nearby cul-de-sac, and got the bus headed in the usual direction, dropped off her charges, and then headed on her way, no doubt another run from another school.

While the bus driver was on her appointed rounds picking up and delivering school children, my son and I headed back to the house. He ate the not yet eaten lunch I had packed for him earlier in the day, and I continued work on Dotghan 1.5.

While the school district had hoped that today would be a simple two-hour delay, the frozen rain that was forecast did fall, and that rain then froze as the temperate dropped. There was no way the roads would be drivable even as late as 8:30, so while my son enjoyed a day off, I got back to Dotghan 1.5

As sunset neared, I finished work on the sixth row of dots. Here is an overview:

crochet dots appliqued
Dotghan 1.5 with a sixth row of crochet dots appliqued

and here is a detail:

crochet dots crochet blanket
Detail of crochet Dotghan 1.5

As I worked on Dotghan 1.5, I also tried to make some order of my office-to-be, gathering scraps of yarn that had accumulated in bags, boxes, and horizontal surfaces. Some of the scraps were in nascent balls of scrap yarn, and some were just loose, but eventually, I tied many of them end-to-end, and I had a long trail of scrap yarn in danger of tangling, so I got out my nostepinne and began winding the yarn into a somewhat more orderly ball:

scrap yarn ball
Winding a ball of scrap yarn on a nostepinne

Then, with 45 minutes of daylight left, I consulted the day’s to-do list and saw that I had done everything but get a start on the 7th Ikea cubby basket. Wanting to be able to cross off everything on the day’s list, I decided to set a timer for thirty minutes and see what I could get done.

After a hiccup that necessitated reading over the notes I had made with regard to the six previous baskets, I finally found my crochet basket groove, and finished the eighth round of the basket shortly after the timer had sounded:

The first eight rounds of the 7th Ikea cubby crochet basket on this one last snow day
The first eight rounds of the 7th Ikea cubby crochet basket on this one last snow day

Tomorrow morning the day is due to begin without delay, and I know that the bus driver charged with ferrying my child and others to and from school safely will be there, she will be on time, and I know that just as she did yesterday, she will do her job with an equanimity and grace that I aspire to.

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