Yes, cops are always telling people to do stuff like that...

I'll explain my title in a minute.

2008 has started off with, well, not so much a "bang" as a loud swear word.

And it's not just me, friends of mine have been having some personal strife that I'm doing my very best to be there for them through.

Meanwhile....

For me, I knew I should have suspected something when on New Year's Eve I had a cable on a circular needle detach.

I was working on Mom's "Tussie Mussie" and thinking to myself what a sweet little cardigan this is and hoping she'll let me borrow it at some point (hint hint mom!) when I suddenly noticed there was less weight on the left hand needle.

I looked down and discovered that the cable was not attached.


Thankfully I did not lose any stitches, and I had another circular in that size...but STILL.

I also discovered I was not as far as I had hoped on the Mystic Waters Shawl, and it's taking forever to do every row. I'm finally through Clue #2, about to start Clue #3, and I've knit about 180-odd rows. There are a total of 8 parts. This thing is going to be huge.

But the yarn is yummy, that pattern interesting and I'm enjoying myself.

I had to make yet another complaint against our mail carrier. Once again I had to explain that I am a Stay At Home Mom, and that 97% of the time, I'm here in the day. Regardless, the mail carrier needs to actually buzz my apartment, not just say that he or she has and leave a pick up notice. This the the 4th or 5th time since summer that I've called, and there were several other incidents before that which I did not report. How many more times do you think it will be before I start finding nasty things in my mail box?

Anyway...so I had to wait a day and then head out to the postal outlet to pick up my parcel, which turned out to be my prize from the Winter Wonderland Coffee Swap!

That's possibly one of the cutest little snowman mugs I've ever seen! And his hat will keep the damn cat out of my coffee. There are 2 skeins of Bernat cashmere blend, which I already know what I'm going to make with it, some coffee, note cards, and a magnetic list. Thanks Holly, this is an awesome prize!!

We spent the 2nd cleaning up after Christmas, which led to an overhaul of what we lovingly refer to as the "Scary Closet" (as in, there is so much in there, it's scary!) We weeded out big time in there. And in the process, found some things that had been missing.

We found Grace's dress, Cam's shirt and dress shoes that they wore in our wedding. We turned this place upside down trying to find Cam's dress shoes for his Christmas concert last year, no luck. We just assumed that maybe when he switched to his sneakers at the reception, he left them somewhere and someone else just picked them up.

We also found these

These were supposed to be our wedding favours. I had spent quite a bit on wire, beads and so on to make these relatively simple wine charms. And spent a number of hours cutting wire, beading and twisting things up. Then we moved, and I never saw the box again...until now. I ended up doing jordan almonds instead. I knew I would find them eventually. Hey future swap recipients, do not be suprised if you get a big handful of wine charms in a package from me!

And now, to explain my title.

Yesterday I was headed out with the children to run errands and buy groceries. We left home, and were coming down the street and I slowed way down to take this blind corner near our place. I slow down to a crawl here because a) cars coming from the opposite direction tend to cross the centre line on this turn, I needed to be able to see if I needed to swerve and b) it's really icy there and I have no desire to see how well the van would hold up against a guardrail. Thank God I did.

I slammed on my brakes (even going slow, I had to slam them on) because there was a couple (?) in the middle of my lane, pulling their shopping cart between them. The woman was inches from my front bumper, the man was to the side of the cart which was lined up dead centre to me. They looked at me in shock, as though they had no idea that a car might be travelling on a highly populated street.

I had to wait for these two, who I've seen in the area a lot because they seem to make their living diving into dumpsters for recyclables, to move out of my way. Meanwhile the man is clearly trying to tell me something. I crack the passenger side window down as he says to me

"What are you doing?"

Me: "ME??? What are YOU doing in the middle of the road? Do you realize I could have KILLED YOU?"

Him: "Well...a cop told us we have to walk facing traffic." Full of righteous indignation

Me:"Uh...yeah, that's the general safety rule. But on the side of the road, not the freakin middle. I doubt a cop told you to walk down the middle of the road! And there is a sidewalk right there!!" And I gestured to the opposite side of the road.

Me: "Get out of the road"

I then drove away, but noticed in my rearview mirror that they had come to the worst part of the turn for visibility and had moved back to the centre of the lane.

Yes...cops are always telling people to do dangerous things like walk in the middle of the road.

Sigh.