I just put them down for a second, I SWEAR

In the fall of 2009, I was the proud owner of six pairs of mitts - three of which used to belong to my grandmother. Now, as Winnipeg moves into spring, I am the owner of three pairs - one of which doesn't count because they're some kind of opera gloves, and they don't block the cold very well. Yep, I'm one of those people who loses her mitts. Frequently. One pair went missing on the bus. One pair was given away to a very chilly DOMO gas employee on a miserably cold day. But one pair seems to have simply vanished. That makes me sad, because that was the grey pair I'm pretty sure my grandma knit for herself.

Maybe knitting can solve my problem? I inherited a bunch of yarn and knitting books from the same grandmother who used to own the grey mitts and the opera gloves. She learned to knit in school at age six, and knit through illness and injury up until a month before her death - she'd said she wanted to knit all her yarn into mittens for the homeless before she died. She did it. A massive shoebox with over 30 pairs of mitts was donated. Grandma was special and wonderful, and when I knit and cook and sew, I think of her. But I can't knit gloves. Or mitts. Or can I?

It's true, most gloves and mitts aren't expensive. The stretchy synthetic ones that I gave away cost me 99 cents at Superstore. But if I want to spend nothing at all, and feel accomplished at the same time, maybe it's time for me to use supplies I already own and start knitting mitts, or at least trying.

Pictures to follow?

computers don't save me paper

Isn't it sad that we're supposed to be in a paperless era, that computers are supposed to save us so much paper, and yet in the end they only seem to generate more paper?

That's all for this week.