Dare I Say It?

I'm going out on a limb here....but I THINK it's SPRING!

See these? THESE are one of the reasons that I live in the Upper Midwest, where we have fierce winters that freeze icky huge bugs, where we wind up shovelling 8' of snow, where we get snowed in for days sometimes, obliged to sit on our couches wrapped in blankets, sipping rich cocoa or hot, fragrant tea and spending endless hours in pursuits such as .... oh .... reading . Or maybe even knitting , even if we're not Little Old Ladies (and especially if we ARE).

The change of Season has caused a flurry of non-activity around here. I've been not writing, and not knitting, and not reading -- but I've been THINKING a lot. Oh yeah, and planning. (In anticipation of Spring Cleaning, Purging, Tidying, Organizing....all those words I tend to not even think about all winter.) NOTE: THINKING about those things are often as far as it gets; I usually manage to forestall any actual activities and get back to writing, knitting and reading.

Oh - and tonight I'm involved in the Very Important Job of finishing up the super-delicious barbecued ribs I made last night with Lovely Daughter's Incomparable Sauce. Tomorrow morning I must literally and truly empty and scrub out my cupboards and pack away all the things in there which are TREF (pronounced "trayff"), meaning "stuff that is not kosher, and must therefore be entirely out of the house before the beginning of Passover." Passover starts tomorrow night at sundown, and we'll be going over to our dear friends' house for the seder as we do every year.

As a rather free-form Jew, rather than throwing away my non-kosher food in preparation for the holiday I take the more practical and acceptable stance of selling it to a non-Jew. That way none of it is wasted.

TRUE CONFESSION: Mr Dearling is not a Jew. I pack up all the tref , sell it to HIM (for a dollar; what a bargain!). He then takes it downstairs to a corner of the basement designated HIS SPACE ONLY (as in, "it doesn't belong to me, it is not part of my house in any way, shape or form") where it remains until after Passover, when I buy it back and put it away again.

Tomorrow I will go purchase my food for the eight days of Passover (not usually done on Saturday, the Sabbath; see above, "free-form Jew"), but I really do enjoy this. For one thing, I make a VERY acceptable and delicious Passover foods. Mr Dearling's a big fan of matzoh....I like it too, slathered generously with cream cheese and jelly. And he's not the only one - I'm under STRICT instruction to purchase ONLY Streit's Matzoh:

You probably know the old Jewish fascination with "tradition" -- in our household it extends even unto the short, four-legged Jews. Nothing for it, Manischewitz Matzohs don't make the cut. The cats tend to keep a more kosher diet than we do anyway. During Passover we never mix "meat" and "milk" dishes; the cats eat exclusively a meat diet. No worries.

I'm off to Late-Night-Knit now, hoping to find out if we have any unified plans for the Yarn Harlot's upcoming visit (Hog-and-Bloggers UNITE!) I 'spect the Sow's Ear will be fairly represented. I am already Officially Excited (and I saw her last year in Eau Claire)...furthermore, I'm still Riding the Wave of Excitement gathered from hugging Franklin of The Panopticon not one but THREE TIMES!! (I believe the correct expression here is something like "WOOT!") Watch this space.......more later!