Thank you all so very much for the kind Blogiversary comments. I'm glad you enjoy reading the blog, because I do enjoy writing it. (It's one of my rare chances at truly creative and free-form writing.)

A couple of responses, to those comments that require or inspire them:

I guess "weird" can be good or bad. I think part of the thing is that most of the people, I'm not exactly "on the inside" on their lives, so I don't see how "weird" they might actually be - I can only judge by myself and my immediate family. My parents are pretty normal. My brother is weird, though in different ways from those in which I am weird. My sister-in-law is pretty normal but with a sense of humor sufficient to enjoy my brother's Monty Python/ Top Gear/ Dr. Who obsessions.

I don't know. I refer to myself as "weird" because that's what my peers told me I was growing up. Frankly, I like the way that I am - I can entertain myself easily enough, I have a fairly rich inner life.

And I do think people whose default position is kindness and compassion are sometimes made to feel weird in this world. (My mother often laments that she taught my brother and me to be "too nice," meaning we often got ran over by the not-so-nice kids at school).

And Spike: maybe we need to go out, waving skeins of yarn or trailing fat quarters behind us, and start singing, "Come out, come out, wherever you are..." a la Billie Burke in "The Wizard of Oz"? (Or maybe not). But it does at times feel a bit like being in a closet (though I am sure not to the degree that gay people who were in the closet felt, or at least that's the sense I get from talking to the few gay people I've known over the years)

Actually, it's interesting: it's always an exciting little thing to find a compadre out there. There was a woman who belonged to my church (sadly, she has since moved across the country) who knitted. I didn't know it at first until one day she remarked on how much work must have gone into the shawl I was making. It was nice (at least for as long as she was here); I loaned her an extra set of sock needles when she lost hers (and she promptly returned them when she was done) and she had a standing offer to bring any hanked yarn over to my place because I had a swift and a ball-winder.

Maybe I'll be lucky and find another kindred spirit again.

There's a quilt group in my town but they meet at 1 pm on Wednesdays - very inconvenient for those of us in the working world. (There's another one that meets Thursday nights but it is purely aimed at making lap robes for local nursing homes, and while that's a noble thing, I have to admit I don't need yet another volunteer project).

The next nearest guild is in McKinney, and I just can't face that long of a drive on a weeknight for a guild. (Maybe as my town grows, one will spring up. I hope.)

Aven: if you restart the blog (or start anew with another URL), please drop a comment. (It doesn't matter if the comment doesn't "fit" with the post it's on).

And to the person who felt more comfortable (I assume) e-mailing than commenting (and I won't "out" your name here in case you e-mailed for reasons of privacy): thank you. And you know? I could probably be locked in my house for 15 years and still not use up the fabric I have. I should probably claim to two fabric-related hobbies: quilting, and buying quilt fabric. Because that's a whole hobby in itself.

And Astrid: if seven years is like five centuries, then is my blog akin to the Bayeux Tapestry of blogging? (OK, that's more like 10 centuries, but it's the first comparison I can come up with).

And I think it's interesting that several people commented on the blog being an island of stability or sanity or something like that. You know, actually, for me it is too - a lot of crazy stuff can go on around me, but as long as I can keep knitting or quilting and can talk about it here, it does kind of make a "safe place" where things are fairly nice.

I'm glad people like reading about my quilting. At first, when I started this as a KNITTING blog, I was a little leery of posting about it here; I was concerned some people would think I was losing my knitter's "street cred" by talking about other crafts (or cooking, or the books I'm reading, or whatever). But they're part of the whole. (As I've said before, I'm not good at going, "If they don't like me, forget 'em" but I'm beginning to learn that there are some things about me that are non-negotiable in the name of making friends or avoiding making enemies.)

Well, this was written Tuesday night (but set to post Wednesday morning - and I LIKE that little feature of Blogger; it means you can write a post when you're inspired and set it to post at a time when you might be too busy to). Part of the reason I'm online right now (while my rice cooks for dinner) is that I keep checking to see if I get another Ice Day tomorrow. (I did today). If anything, it's going to be worse tomorrow, so I hope they call it. (If they call it before I go to bed, I won't have to set my alarm clock for 5 am).

I did do one thing today (other than read half of a book one of my Directed Reading students chose)

I "maded" some cookies. (As the LOLcats say).



Just plain old Toll House cookies (which we always called chocolate-chip cookies in my family). I baked them in bar form. My mom used to do that often (her mother used to say any drop cookie could be baked as a bar. But I suppose the trick is in knowing how large a pan to use). It's a lot faster and when my brother and I were kids, we actually preferred chocolate chip cookies this way, because they stayed gooey-er. (I cannot find a spelling of that word that looks right. Gooier? Gooeyer? Gooyer?).

For this batch I did use some Ghiardelli 60% cacao semi-sweet chips I had, plus a cup of chopped walnuts that were hanging around in my freezer. So they're a little fancier than standard Toll House cookies.

So, if it turns out all classes are cancelled tomorrow, I will finish the Directed Readings book in the morning, and (perhaps) finish the Sock Monkey quilt in the afternoon. If only morning classes are cancelled (which sometimes happens and the weather is supposed to improve around noon), I may just stay home until class time and knit. (And yes, that's the biggest suspense in my life right now. And I kind of like it that way.)