For the last several years, I’ve been a big proponent of sock knitting. They’re small! They’re quick! They’re portable! They’re way more practical than the big bulky sweaters I’d love to knit, since I live in sunny Southern California!
Yeah, it’s that “sunny” part that is mocking me at the moment. The rains have come. And so has the cold. On Monday, I went running in a drizzling rain. On Wednesday, I went running on a clear early morning that happened to be 37 degrees Fahrenheit. Wednesday night, I bought running pants to wear instead of my running shorts, but this is not a running blog.
Yesterday, it rained on us as we picked out our Christmas tree. It stopped, of course, while we were at dinner afterwards, but this morning, it was bucketing down. Cold, wet, fat drops of rain pelting our garden window, streaming off the eaves, and turning the dirt in our side yard to mud.
To be fair, it has warmed up. Yesterday’s high was 55. This is good, because we have no heat at our house.
Early in the week, the heater abruptly started blowing cold air out of the vents. This was disconcerting, to say the least. No matter what we did to the thermostat, including turning it off, adjusting various switches, and hitting the reset button, had any effect. K called the HVAC company that the home warranty people had sent out for a previous repair. When the HVAC guy came, he informed us that the “computer board” needed to be replaced. He turned off the system (yay – no more cold air!) and left, waiting to hear on whether we wanted to pay for the repair ourselves or go through the home warranty company, which he assured us would take at least a week.
Meanwhile, the HVAC company that the home warranty people actually called had not even called us to make an appointment to look at the problem. They finally made an appointment with us… for today.
And then, yesterday, HVAC guy #1 returned with a computer board. Unfortunately, it was the wrong computer board, and the shop was about to close for the weekend and unwilling to either stay open to give the board to the guy or to leave the board where he could retrieve it.
All of this leaves us with no heat. Still. We are dressing in layers. My Bastille Cables sweater has gotten more wear this week than any time since I knit it, several years back.
Which brings me back to the socks. While I have been loving my handknit socks this week, I’m rather wishing I had knit more sweaters. Or maybe some hats. Hey, Laurie, could I have Dmitry #5’s number?