Winter

 Well, it  turns out it wasn’t our internet that was broken, but our wireless router, which is now something else I need to work on today.  I know on Wednesdays I usually link up with the “Yarn Along” and chat about what I’m knitting and reading.  Well, I finished my “Post” cardigan last night complete with buttons and I’m working the final touches on the pattern.  It’s taking so much longer than I’d like.  With all of these ski trips and suitcases around my house and trying to stay on top of everything else, it’s gotten put on the back burner.  Now that the final ski race of the season is done, I hope I’ll be able to actually finish something.

 This year there were some Norwegian trolls walking around the finish line.  They let me take a picture of them.  They handed out Snickers, so they were nice trolls.

 When we got back on Sunday, it was stopping in on Knut’s grandparent’s birthday party.  (His grandma and grandpa share the same birthday.  They turned 97 and 94 I think.  Relatives, feel free to correct me on that.)  Then on Monday, it was trying to get everyone back on schedule.  Ingrid would not take good naps during the day.  She was just sleeping off and on every 5 minutes which meant I got nothing done.  The picture above is the drive to Silje’s piano lessons on Monday.  In hind sight I should have been wearing more on my feet than my house slippers.  It’s only a 1/2 mile drive down the road to her great-aunt’s driveway.  Their driveway is about 1/2 mile long, and usually you can see the house from the road, but this day you could barely see the gravel driveway poking through the snow.  I wouldn’t have ventured out except the wind was down so I knew there wouldn’t be many snowdrifts.  The visibility wasn’t so great, though.  These are all untouched photos.

 It got a little better as we approached their homestead.

 It’s days of white like this that make you dream of Spring.  It’s like a blank canvas.  I can close my eyes and remember days where the corn is growing up bright green, and the skis are bright blue, and the red tulips start popping up in the garden lilacs bring in purple on the side of the house and the dandelions sprinkle yellow across our yards, and the wild asparagus starts growing in the ditches.  I can close my eyes and remember the smells and the sounds of Spring.

 In college, we talked about a piece of literature having “foil” meaning an author would prepare you for something by showing you an extreme opposite to that something first so that a subject would appear even more grand when it appears.  I’m not explaining it well.  Maybe these pictures will explain it better.  This white perfectly “foils” the Spring to come.  It will make the colors that much brighter.  It will be a feast for the eyes after weeks of the white, sprinkled with brown and black, and occasional blue skies.