And so, as promised, here is an update on my Prairie Schooler project "A
Prairie Garden". I am stitching the last of 12 squares, although only 6 are
featured here in this close up. I've been wondering what each flower is
meant to be in this project. Some, like the sunflower and the thistle, are
obvious. Others are a little more problematic. This chart doesn't give any
clues, although another PS chart that I have with fruits and veggies does
give a list of what each picture represents.

We had some fun weather on Thursday, which made for a nasty trip home
from work. We'd been hearing warnings about this storm for days over the
radio and the tv so we knew what was coming, and we even knew approxo-
mitly what time of the day it would be arriving. I'd already planned to work
a short day (5 1/2 hours) instead of a full day, so that I could try and get
home before the worst of the storm hit. Well, that was the plan anyways.

The storm was suppose to start around noon in our area. At one o'clock I
checked out one of our few windows and it was still clear, though quite dark
and gloomy. Hmm. Perhaps we'll get off lightly on this one after all. Ha!
Fifteen minutes later someone in the department yelled out "It's Here!!",
and it was. It was snowing like a sonofagun. Big, fluffy white flakes
streaking out of the lead grey sky. What fun!!

I left work at 2:20, even though I could have worked a full day, and would
have been pleased to do so on a normal day. In one hour of snow fall we'd
had significant accumulations already. And the wind was whipping it along
in a solid wall of white. Apparently I wasn't the only one who decided to
head home early either. It was obvious by the traffic on the roads that
most business who could do so were sending their employees home early.
The roads were jammed with traffic.

The first part of my journey, which requires two buses, and usually takes
me about 35 minutes, took me two hours. One hour of which was spent
huddled in a bus shelter with 8 other popcicles...er...people waiting for a
bus to show up. We were not impressed since that bus was suppose to
run every 10 minutes.

Once at the train/bus depot I switch from city transit to the Go system,
which are trains and buses which cover the entire GTA (Greater Toronto
Area). Unfortunatly the Go buses, which travel the 401 highway to
reach us in Brampton, were running about 2 hours late. But at least we
were inside the bus station for much of the time, which was warm and
dry.

From Brampton to Georgetown, which takes half an hour by bus, and
about 20 minutes by train, took me a further 1 1/2 hours to do. The Go
trains start running from Toronto to Georgetown at 4:15. I caught the
first one, which arrrived in Brampton 20 minutes late, at 5:20.
And I was lucky to be offered a ride from the Georgetown train station to
the end of my street by a lady going in that direction. Didn't know her,
she just called out to the people huddled around the train station (which
was closed for the day at that point) that she had room for one person.

I felt badly for the crowd of people waiting for the Go bus to come from
Toronto to take them to Guelph, another 45 minute drive further in
the good weather. I doubt that they would be seeing a bus for hours.

DH left his work at 3:00 and it took him 2 hours to drive home. That's
twice as long as normal. Which isn't too bad, all things considered.

The snow was turning to freezing rain about the time that I got home,
and that's what we had for much of the night. Then it turned to rain,
mixed with freezing rain by Friday morning. The drive to work wasn't
too bad for us. DH dropped me off at my work and then headed off to
his and he said that he was only a few minutes late. The rain/freezing
rain mix ended later in the morning, and the trip home for me at days
end was pretty much normal, although soggy on the feet. Discovered
that my boots leak.

During those two days of sturm und drang I didn't bother to take my
cross stitch to work and so didn't get any significant work done on it.

I did finish reading Nora Roberts book Sanctuary. It was a light read
which was amusing but quite predictable. Nothing special. Got it on
sale cheap so I'm not worried that it didn't turn out to be War and
Peace. I'm now reading Erik Larson's latest book which is called
Thunderstruck. I love his books and have already collected and read
Isaac's Storm and The Devil and the White City. Great mixtures of
history, and crime novel.

Missed watching Lost on Wednesday night for the simple reason that
I forgot that it was Wednesday night. DOH!!