When I was a kid, growing up in a small rural town, a birthday was a one day event. If you were lucky your mom would remember and bake a cake. If you got a present it was most likely going to be socks or underwear or something else very practical. Well, that's the way I remember it. It's not that way anymore.

Look at this! Another birthday present. Three skeins of Regia Nation sock yarn, a new brand of plastic dpns that are supposed to be a great improvement over other dpns, ten skeins of Classic Elite Premiere and a Tootsie Pop. And a really clever and witty card. What a great surprise! Many, many thanks, dear friend. I can hardly wait to see how that sock yarn knits up. I don't know what nation it is but the colors are perfect for here.

I actually started this post last night but Blogger was having issues. I was also hoping to get a more color accurate image but there isn't any sunshine to be had. We're having winter again for a few days. I went out for my morning walk but carried an umbrella, just in case. I've been told that the walking will get easier. I can hardly wait. I don't do brisk all that well, except on the downhill parts. It would have been easy to not go because of the weather but I know if I don't go every day I will be back into my sluggish, procrastinating mode.

Speaking of procrastinating. I don't like to have to put things away while I'm working on them. So projects stack up everywhere, waiting for me to get back to them. But once every couple of weeks I have to sorta sort through things and try to make my living room, at least, look habitable. So this past weekend I started going through one stack and found a hat that I had started. Well, I thought, let me just finish this and then I'll go back to cleaning.

I didn't actually finish until yesterday morning but most of it was knit over the weekend, from just above the ribbing. I had to rip out the upper part first as I didn't like the yarn. This is mostly Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride that I got to make gifts with last Christmas. The tassel is some very old Reynold's Paterna.

I'm really enjoying making all these hats. I've been trying to funk-i-fy them but I don't seem to have that knack. The ladies at yesterday's Dulaan knitting thought this hat was funky but I'm not so sure. I think it looks too designed instead of spontaneous and iconoclastic. Everything in my background, designwise, makes me want things to be planned and precise. I even have a hard time mixing different yarns. But I'm working on it.

Do you think other cultures find the same things cute and amusing that we do? I wonder if that silly tassel on top of the hat will translate as whimsy or might it be threatening since it's so spider like. Will some kid be embarrassed wearing this hat or will he/she be envied by others? Maybe it's enough that the hat is warm.

I've been telling myself that I will do my income taxes today. It's too gloomy for that. I'd be better off knitting. Besides, it's not even April yet.