All Things Considered, I'd Rather Be In Pittsburgh

 This morning I did a practice run to the office in Monroeville. To me it's a moderate drive  - but when you add in different factors such as weather, traffic, etc it can turn into a bear. If I go by highway it will be close to 80 miles. That is not the scary part  as it's highway miles- right before the Pitt Tunnel it backs up HUGE and I haven't even seen it in full swing. Even though its' only a ten mile stretch you can sit there for 45 minutes of so. I have been map questing and calculating, figuring out where the tunnel is exactly and what the shorter route runs through. I can either highway it or there's a short route according to GPS of 56 miles - but 56 miles of what it doesn't say. It can be 56 miles of dirt roads, winding, potholed back roads that will end up taking twice as long to navigate. One of the women in my knitting group told me there was a back way through Uniontown so I map quested that - 62 miles so it very much splits the difference. I was going to head up on Thursday, I got up early as I need to go when I'm actually going to be leaving, dressed and so forth - and then it started to snow. Big, fat, snarky snowflakes started pounding down - it got so bad David ended up staying home for the day. I suppose that would have been the mother of all practice runs but I decided against it. If I'm going to wreck it should be on an actual work day, don't you think? So this morning I got a little bit of a late start leaving at 8:10, I ended up stopping a couple of times to check my directions, bathroom, but even though made it in less than two hours. That time will eventually get reduced when I know where I'm going and can find the workable short cuts. Since I was out that way I discovered a mall, went to the only knit shop in Pittsburgh I haven't been to (it was OK, but I much prefer Kid Ewe Knot and Natural Stitches in that neck of the woods). I still have no debit card and I hate using a credit card. We just pay it ahead of time to avoid charges, but still. I bought myself some yarn of course, can never have enough of that and then headed home on the highway just to see - I think it will be the back roads for now. We are not doing anything for Valentine's today, David wants to make up work and I was out all day so during the weekend we plan on going out to dinner. According the weather report it's supposed to be warming up _ I can not wait for that! I do like snow, but even I'm getting tired of it. The Hooligans never do of course, Molly has recently decided she likes it - I'm not sure if it's because after 6 months in a foster home and a year in our home she's finally realized she doesnt' have to live in it all the time or if it's just snowed so much it was unavoidable. Either way she happily eats, rolls and flies around it in, she and Reuben are quite delighted. I'm about halfway done with the shawl, this time off has given me extra time to work on it. I finally made it to the knitting group the other night, due to the weather they've only met once since before Christmas!