Wow!   What a wild month this has been!   First my computer decided it did not want to wake up, and then we had a little bit of a weather event … perhaps you heard about it??

As for the incredible winter storm we had a week ago, I am the first to acknowledge how fortunate I am — I was forewarned and left a couple of the water taps trickle, so my pipes didn’t freeze or burst.  And I was only without power from 4:45 Tuesday morning until about 1:00 p.m. Wednesday.  Soooo many others in my area and around the state fared much, much worse.  And I was ever-thankful to have a gas stove — I was able to keep a stock pot of water simmering, and had the oven turned up during the worst of it.  Living in an older mobile home, this place is never really warm in winter nor cool in summer, but I was warm enough under a pile of my own afghans, scarves, and shawls.  🙂

Also, I have a Berkey water filter system, so I had about 5 gallons set aside in the little water tower, all filled up before the local water company issued a boil-water and limit-usage order.  And because of my history with hurricanes, I had plenty of canned/packaged edibles, so while the power was out I avoided having to open the refrigerator.

All in all, I survived Houston’s freak winter storm.  One local meteorologist said they had to go back to 1898 to find daytime temperatures for Houston as low as we expected that Monday as the freezing storm moved in.  We’ve had a couple of freezing days of course, but nothing this cold and for this long.  Definitely freaky weather.

Oh!  And BigBoy kept giving me the stink eye as if I had something to do with the air so cold and the house so dark!   LOL

As for the computer — thanks to friends who reached out in various ways, I now have ample hardware to keep me going.   I’m going to acquire a hard drive reader to extract what I can from my previous computer and put it on my new computer, and then (hopefully) try to find out why the older computer simply refused to wake up one morning.  Many of my most essential files had been synced up to Google Drive, so I am able to maintain my Blog Reader Specials roster and a few other major files.   I will be using that service as well as an external hard drive for my storage needs; my failure (and I fully admit it was my own failure) was in not keeping the external hard drive connected once I’d copied and moved things from the previous computer to the newer one, which is now the older one.  Lesson learned.

Once I get this week’s Blog Reader Specials collection processed, I will spend the next few days reacquiring/reinstalling my essential software programs and ordering the hard drive reader.

Anyway…. moving forward!!  Yesterday I was able to dye two dozen Lovely Sock (80/20 Superwash Merino/Nylon, 430 yards).   Each of these are $28.00, and will be ready to ship on or before Wednesday.

To claim the ones you want, just send me an email with your numbered requests.

It is not a trick of the lighting — #145-146 do have a slight tinge of yellow, making for an interesting effect with the pale pale gray yarn.  The rest of the yarns in the pictures below are accurate and true to life on my monitor; while monitors can vary in how they present color, you will receive the numbered yarn you request if it is available.

I placed an order for more Phydlbitz Sock, which should be arriving later this coming week so I’ll have a new collection for you next weekend.  If you have a special request for color(s), please do let me know.

Available Yarns: 

Rack 1:  145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156
Rack 2:  157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168