Tedious

I'm currently working on an extremely tedious project.  Water was accidently spilled on the last puzzle that I put together a couple of weeks ago, and just this week, I realized that a bunch of the pieces were falling apart.  I have been trying to match up 3 separate pieces of over 3 dozen puzzle pieces and glue them back together.  It's awful!

In the meantime, we have had more snow.  The shoveling is becoming tedious as well.  They are calling for more snowfall tomorrow and Tuesday.  Great.

The girls were supposed to return to hybrid learning last week - going to in-person school 2 days/week.  J went on Monday, Tues was virtual due to snow, Wed was virtual for cleaning, Thursday was virtual for snow, and Friday was off for President's Day weekend.  Sheesh.

The birds have been here in droves, despite the snow.  Look at all the prints under the feeders!

My new sewing machine arrived last week.  It took me a couple of tries to figure out the bobbin filling and threading the machine and all that kind of boring stuff, but then I started right in to finishing my half done t-shirt rug. 

It turned out terrible - looks a bit like a caterpillar.  I'm thinking it is a result of the loose tension from my old machine, followed by appropriate tension from the new one.  Regardless, I need to take it completely apart and start over.  It's very disappointing.

We have also been trying a few more recipes.  L made chocolate lava cakes in 2 different styles to determine which was better this weekend and last.  The first one had a ball of chocolate ganache in the center.  The second was baked for a shorter time, resulting in a gooey center.  They were both delicious, and the second version was definitely easier and less time consuming, so...we have a winner!!

I also made Rosa Parks' featherlite peanut butter pancakes in heart shapes in honor of Black History Month and Valentine's Day.

We tried a bit of veterinary surgery yesterday, and removed a large skin lesion from Stella's neck.  It was a joint effort between JP, L and myself:  JP removed it, I stitched her up, L held the patient, and dissected the lesion afterwards.

The poor puppy seems to be doing fine today.  We are using an ACE wrap to hold her bandage on and keep her from scratching her stitches.

We will keep on trying to make it through February day by day - loooooong, dark month!

February is Coming!

I am not a fan of February.  It is the coldest, darkest and longest of winter months in my opinion.  As we creep ever closer, we have managed to settle in to our winter schedules.  Luckily, we have had several nice snow storms, which left plenty of lovely snow to play in.  We built this ferocious snow woman, Samantha...

...along with a crowd of tiny snow people whom she seems to be terrorizing.

The cold snap lasted for quite a while - long enough for me to slide down the driveway in the car on multiple occasions!  As the sun slowly returned, Samantha took an icicle to the heart, and seemed to die a slow and painful death.

The snow has been beautiful.  I thought it was gorgeous, covering my Moravian star in the evenings!

I received my second COVID vaccination, and have felt safe enough to spend some time helping my mother over at her house.  Unfortunately, I felt pretty crummy for a day and a half after my jab, but I'm fine now.  JP got his 2nd shot 2 weeks later.  I spent 4 hours helping at a vaccination clinic at the Hospital yesterday - we gave over 200 shots, one of which went into the arm of J.

While it is cold outdoors, we work on indoor things.  I celebrated a birthday, and have a new sewing machine ordered, so one day I can finish some of my projects!

I have finished some new puzzles:

I have been cooking and baking.  I made this pasta last weekend.  I tried Crème Brule again this weekend!

I have been perusing the seed catalogs, dreaming about planting in the spring.  In the meantime, I have this little "pumpkini" plant in the library to nurture.  It grew from sprouted seeds that we removed from a pumpkin from our garden.  Apparently it crossed with a zucchini, and is growing long, striped fruit!

Another snowfall overnight inspired J and I to build a "Baby Snowda" from the stump of Samantha.  Awww!

Back to school (still at home) and work for the girls and JP tomorrow.  I have plenty of chores to do as well.  I hope you all are staying warm, healthy and safe!

Quilting and Getting out of the House

 I really enjoyed my quilting lessons.  Not only was I doing something that I've really wanted to for a long time, I was getting out of the house a bit - something that is hard to come by during a pandemic it seems.  I have finished my quilt sampler, and I'm at the point where I'm trying to decide if I have the nerve to start another one.  I'm also a bit disappointed that I don't have anything to get me out of the house these days.

We haven't seen the sun in days.  It's been cold and grey and muddy and downright depressing.  I started back to work last week, but even so, I have been restless and wanting to get OUT OF THE HOUSE and do something fun!

Just for giggles, I googled the local drive in movie theater, so see if they were staying open during the winter by any chance.  What luck - they were, AND they were showing the new Wonder Woman movie that we were hoping to get to see.

So, last night, we piled in the truck and drove to the drive in, where we bundled in blankets and watched a movie OUT OF OUR HOUSE for a change!  It was fun - I highly recommend it!  Not only does it help our fragile pandemic psyches, it helps support local businesses.  Go get stranded at the drive-in!

Christmas Take II

I got my first COVID vaccination on Christmas Eve eve.  I feel so honored to be part of the first wave to receive one!  JP will get his next week, and then we each get a booster in 3 weeks.

Christmas eve morning, my Christmas cards finally arrived!  I spent a good part of the day addressing them.

We had just finished dinner and were cleaning up to get ready to watch a Christmas movie, when the power blinked and went out.  It had been raining for a couple of hours and the temperature outside was dropping fast, so I am assuming that ice was the cause.  We lit every candle we could find, and played some games, and read books out loud to each other until 11:30, when the estimated time for power restoration changed to 9:30 AM Christmas day.

At that point, the girls realized that they weren't getting showers before bed, and JP and I realized that the cats and bunny were going to need different sleeping arrangements with the temps dropping into the teens and no electricity.

I warmed water on the gas burners so the girls could take sponge baths.  We heated bricks on the woodstove, wrapped them in towels and put them in the kitties' box that we moved into the garage, along with a litter box, and their food and water.  We put the bunny in the kitty carrier full of fluffy shavings, and set him up with food and water in the extra bathroom upstairs.

9:30 AM Christmas morning came and went with no power.  I used our gas burner and Amish waffle iron to make eggnog french toast waffles for brunch.  JP got the generator fired up so that we could run the refrigerators for awhile.  J played some Christmas music for us on the guitar, and when we realized that the power wasn't coming back on before lunch, we went ahead and opened presents.  We played a few more games, and looked through our Christmas stash.  Just when we were seriously despairing, the power came back on right before 6 PM. 

We didn't have our special Christmas dinner, or spend the day the way we had planned, but we were extremely grateful for our Mac and Cheese with the lights on and showers before bed.

Today was our Christmas Day (Take II.)  We had homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and our special dinner.  In between, since we had electricity to run the block heaters to start the diesel engines, we could work on cleaning up the 4 inches of snow or so that fell over night.  J and I did some sledding and took a walk through the snow as well.

It wasn't the way we planned it, and we were only slightly uncomfortable, but we were very happy to have a Christmas Take II with lights!

More Snow

We had a lot of fun in the last snow.  It stayed for several days, so we had the chance to play outside for several days.

We built a snowman, and named him Milton.

He only lasted a couple of days.

It was interesting to see the snow slowly slide off of the barn roof.

It seems that we are having winter just a few days at a time this year!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow...

We got at least 8 inches of lovely snow yesterday.  The girls finished their school work in record time, and I moved all my patients to the morning, so that we had time to play in it.  We were out for a couple of hours until we were wet, cold and tired.

It continued to snow during the night, and I went out after dark to take a few pictures.

This morning, everything looked transformed.  The birds were hungry, and after filling the feeders, I sat in the snow and watched them for a while.

The driveway, however, is a bit scary.  Luckily we don't really need to go anywhere, so let it snow!

I ♥ This Season

We actually got our first nice snow of the season over a week ago - about 6 inches!  It didn't last long, but L and I noticed this heart shaped hoof print in the snow on a walk.

We are getting prepared for Christmas here on the ridge.  Our decorations and tree are up.  I am finished with shopping and wrapping gifts (including L's Birthday as well.)  The cards are hung up in the mail somewhere, so they may be a bit late getting out this year.  We are planning on doing our baking next week.

Meanwhile, our state has basically shut down again.  The girls are doing 100% virtual school until mid-January at least.  

I was able to restart quilting lessons last week since my instructor has recovered from COVID.

JP was finally able to get both cataract surgeries done (his second one was postponed for 2 weeks while his surgeon recovered from COVID.)

Those little pumpkin sprouts that I found growing inside my pumpkin at Thanksgiving have become a thriving plant, with tiny pumpkins of its own.

We now have the outdoor wood burner up and running since the nights have been below freezing.  I was checking it morning and evening on my own for over a week because JP had lifting restrictions following his surgeries.  It's nice to walk barefoot downstairs as the radiant heat keeps things super cozy.

Over the weekend, JP and replaced the broken bamboo blinds in the library with a bunch of Van Gogh prints on the pull down shades.  I think it looks pretty nice!

That's all from our neck of the woods right now.  Stay safe!