Snow behind

We woke up on Saturday to find snow on the ground, and while that is normally not news in central New York in December, it was our first snowfall of at least one inch this winter season. And it was barely an inch, with the tips of grass blades poking through. Our snowfall this winter season is a whopping 1.7" of snow.

I'll say it again: 1.7 inches of snow so far this winter.

Compare that to last year when by this time we had received 71.7" of snow; I wrote about the 40+ inches of snow that fell between December 5 and December 9. Even an average year boasts about 27" by this time. And while it will feel very weird to not have snow on the ground on December 25 - weather experts at Cornell University give only a 68% chance of a white Christmas - most people are not complaining. We know, after all, that there will be snow sometime soon.

So while we are snow behind, that is okay with us.

Deck the balls...

Deck the halls with sparkly, not schweddy balls! Back in September, I made my first knitted ornament, and over the weekend, I completed the twelfth and final ornament. The glass ornaments were sold by the dozen, so it made sense to me to use all twelve:


I used four different types/colors of sock yarn:


Once I got comfortable with the pattern, I played around with the bead placement:


I will use the ornaments mainly as teacher/staff gifts as well as a few for friends and family. If there is one left over, I will hang it on our tree:


And now for a word about Schweddy Balls: I looked for this flavor of Ben & Jerry's ice cream at Wegmans for weeks with no success. One day I went into Tops for one or two items and, on a whim, checked their frozen food case. Schweddy Balls! We tried it...not bad, but certainly no Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.