We dodged a weather bullet this week. A big cold front sweeping across the nation spread lots of snow and ice to the north and east of us, but we only had a cool, moderate rain drenching our area. Our weather forecasters whipped themselves up into a frenzy predicting an inch of snow and possibly ice, jousting with each other for the best ratings for the week and the glory of predicting the worst and most accurate weather disaster.

They've been somberly warning us that we still had weeks of winter weather to survive until spring finally arrived while they stood outside in spring-like afternoon temperatures in the high 50 to high 60 degrees F to give the early evening weather reports. Last night was supposed to be the "Big Freeze," the first really savage weather of the winter. Our faithful forecasters promised to give us updates through the night if needed, their weather centers fired up and ready for anything. It was enough to raise the hopes of local children yearning for a snow day closing the schools.

This morning dawned chilly and somewhat damp. It had rained in the night, and there had been snow flurries in the area before dawn. However, the warm ground temperatures had largely thwarted any freezing precipitation sticking to the ground. I turned on the TV to see what our favorite forecaster had to say. He sheepishly admitted that we hadn't gotten more than a trace of snow.

However, not to be outdone by the other stations, he had a young colleague standing outside in front of a time and temperature board. "As you can see, it is 27 degrees outside with a puddle of water at my feet." The man was trying his best to look earnestly concerned while a damp breeze lightly tousled his hair. "Oh, look, it has dropped to 26 degrees but the puddle still hasn't frozen, so the schools will be open and driving conditions are generally good." The disappointment was enough to curdle a youngster's belief in forecasters, rather like finding out that not only was Santa Claus actually Dad but also that he had put packages of underwear under the tree for the entire family.

It did mean a day for my young cabbage seedlings to stay indoors rather than going out to be hardened off. The earliest ones are quite large and nearing the size to be thrown into a stir-fry. The average day for setting out cabbage and lettuce plants (as well as planting lettuce seeds and pea seeds) is February 1, depending on whether or not a late frost threatens. The current prediction is that there may be another significant frost about that night, so I'm making plans on when to put them out depending on the degree of nervous quivering the forecaster does this weekend.

The plant lights are quite crowded with containers of young seedlings needing transplanting to individual pots soon. Once I can start moving older seedlings into the garden or at least out on the sunny terrace to harden off during the day, I can get the parade of plants moving along. The gardening catalogs are tempting me with sales equal to the lure of fabric.com at the moment, their pages splashed with color that can be mine for a few dollars.

I had a check in my gardening madness when our poor paper shredder Snarly died a noble death from sheer exhaustion. I must have put through a lifetime of paper because it got slower and slower each day, groaning with painful anguish as much as I have lately from too much gardening. It finally ground to a halt and moaned a death throe hum with paper still clenched between its cutters.

That meant a trip to the discount store for another shredder. The new one, named Growly for its macho tones, is a strip shredder instead of a cross-cut shredder. It is chewing paper into long strips with considerably more gusto than poor Snarly did. I don't know if the tumblers are going to digest the long strips without becoming constipated, but there were no more cross-cut shredders left so I'm taking a chance with the strip shredder.

At least it is shredding enough paper that the paper pile is finally shrinking down and is barely tall enough to fall on the cats now. The strips are thin enough to arrange them as mulch around the garden rows. I'm putting out thick layers to smother weeds and grass at the edge of the old beds, trying to extend them farther away from the trees and into the sunlight. The yard looks like it is plastered with paper mache, but the newspaper turns a less obvious tan fairly quickly especially if I mulch in some leaves with the mower.

The crafting is still proceeding on in its usual tangled way. I've nearly finished the second half of the second sweater. That is the crafting that I'm doing now given that the gardening stuff is taking up so much time right now. I signed up for a beadwork tutorial by email and have been drooling over the pretty stuff coming weekly but still haven't had time to try any of it. I keep telling myself that it is madness given that I don't have the time for the rest of the stuff, but I didn't want to miss out on the tutorial. I may go over the edge if the local craft store has another bead sale, but so far the paper shredding and seedling watering is holding me back from too much additional mischief.