Saturday, June 30, 2012

Snowflakes in June

The last few days have been deathly hot up here in Duluth.  I realize that what I take for "deathly hot" is probably "warm and humid" or even "not that bad" for most of the rest of the country, but when it gets above 80 degrees my body shuts down as my skin turns pink and breaks into a sweat when I try to move. (The only way I can justify this is that I do incredibly well at the opposite end of the spectrum- when the temp is below zero and the windchill is at -30, I still happily bundle up and bike to work.)
Yesterday, for example, it topped out at 88 degrees with humidity to boot.  My bike ride home was blisteringly hot and sticky all the way uphill, and when S got home from four days in the BWCA later that evening, he found this scene to meet him:

Maeby and I both succumbing to the heat, spreading our poor bodies out on the floor in an attempt to cool off.  I couldn't do more than lie on the floor with a fan on me, reading a book.  Maeby was dragging herself from spot to spot and just flopping her little body down.  Albert was hiding in any cool, shaded spot he could find.
Our little black kittens are definitely slowing down a lot in the heat.  I don't blame them- I don't have a black fur coat and I couldn't deal with the heat yesterday.
One nice thing about the blaring hot sun is its ability to dry the last of the snowflakes, and this morning I spread them all out to happily behold my progress.

Aren't they pretty?

I love that there's so many unique shapes, and some of my favorite shapes have doubles!

I still have a lot to go on this project- knitting the hexagon background around each of the snowflakes, grafting all 13 hexagons together, then knitting a border around the edge of the whole she-bang- but just being able to finish all the snowflakes before I head out for a month is a big relief for me.  It makes this project feel attainable, not just something huge and foreboding.
More heat today, but luckily I got a nice long bike ride in early this morning before breakfast and my regular ride to work.  Getting an early workout makes me feel less useless later on in the day.  I'm having to start earlier and earlier- yesterday morning I started my run at 7 am to avoid the heat, and started to overheat as I was finishing up.  Probably 6:30 tomorrow to escape the heat!
At least all this heat is a good excuse to eat more ice cream.
Pistachio Pistachio, anyone?

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