just everything

 
After a week of warmer weather winter is back. Overnight a half inch of snow has fallen, and the temperature has dropped twenty degrees, into the upper 20s. In the next week we're supposed to get teens and maybe even single digits.

The firewood we've split is almost used up, but there is a little left still to split and a bigger pile that needs to be cut to length for the stove. Twenty two inches...

This morning I filled the bird feeders, suet feeders, and finch socks and now I have a backyard full of starlings, while woodpeckers, cardinals and chickadees gather at the feeders to the east, and the front porch is home to finches. The cats think the windows are television shows just for them.

School takes a lot of time! For Sociology class I have a week to read a chapter, usually about 50 pages long. In Computing there is reading and "practice" work to do online; in the nursing class we cover a dozen chapters every Saturday and are expected to do all the homework associated with them through the week, and the Algebra... well, I've taken two quizzes and am now studying for a test.

I love it, all of it. Wish I could get a full-time (paying)job as professional student!

On the critter front, Grrrl is recovering well from having her nose chewed through the fence and Sapphire is through with two of the three pills she's been taking for urinary tract problems. Barney's spaying scar has healed, but there's a raw spot "north" of it on her belly; looks like rug burn. Roadie has a largish area on the outside of one front leg that also looks like rug burn. Shorty has a slight limp. Arthritis? She's going to be 12 in the spring...

I'm waiting for bloodwork results. Had to have a TB screen for the nursing class, and while I was there I mentioned I had begun taking Ginko Biloba for my memory. Well, it seems "thyroid problems" are a common thing among women "my age," and memory loss is a symptom. So blood work was done, and though I haven't heard anything about my thyroid the preliminary results show elevated liver functions. Like, elevated 3x above normal. I'm waiting to hear back about that.

Although school takes up an incredible amount of time I'm able to knit in class and while studying at home, so I've finished a couple pair of socks and a pair of slippers so far this year. Have another pair of socks worked to past the heel turning, and am most of the way through the first ball of yarn in my shawl.

Shawl. That's sort of a scarf, right? And the German word for scarf is "Schal," which is pronounced like the English shawl. Am I the Language Genie or what?!

Anyway, the raglan is once again languishing in its bag. The thought of so much stockinette bores me, though the color still thrills me. It's a deep brown with flecks of red. I'm done with the shoulders & sleeves and ready to knit ten or more inches of body ...stockinette... and then I'll have to decide if I still do like the tightly cabled cuffs that took two days or if I'll rip them out again. It's too big to be portable, so it's hanging in its bag in the bedroom and waiting its turn.

Th'Mr is coming down with something. Yesterday he felt & sounded awful. I phoned our pharmacist for advice and he sold us Coricidin HPB and a Sunmark expectorant which is 400 mg of Guaifenesin. I gave him a couple sleepers last night and woke him at 9:30 for a dose of those; about 2 if he's still in bed I'll do that again. I'm taking Airborne, 'cause I don't have time to be sick.