Winter Wonderland, part 2

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To be continued.......

Walkin' in the Winter Wonderland

Of course Courtney loved the snow, even if it was kinda tough goin' at times.

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Even her furry friend ventured out.

Winter Wonderland, part 1

I took these photos on Saturday, after everything had calmed down. It was really quite nice outside then. 'Twas a WHITE Christmas, indeed!

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To be continued..........

Let's take a break from WHITE for a minute

I'm tired of white. Let's back up a bit and look at something more colorful. Remember around the middle of December I told you that I had a project to work on but couldn't show you because it was a gift for someone? Well, it's been received now, so I can show (<- oh no! it's gotten to me!! I typed that word as "snow" before I corrected it! Aaaaaaaaaaack!!!) you. Here's the work in progress (a.k.a. WIP). Any guesses as to what it's going to be?

Here's the other side... I'm sure this clue is better:

No? Well, after a little trimming, it looked like this, which gives it away for sure:

Okay, I know you've all guessed it (haha!), but I'll show you, anyway.

Like it? I'm very pleased with how it turned out. It was for Jess, of course, as kind of a keepsake. I'd been saving the selvages from her fabric for a long time, with intentions of making something for her out of them, but I never could decide what to make. I follow a quite a few sewing/crafting type blogs, and somewhere along the way I came across this Quilt in a Cup kit. I decided that was 'it', and gave it a try. It was really fun to make and easy, too.

I'm amazed at some of the things people make from selvages. In fact, there's a whole blog about selvage items. If you're interested, check out the Selvage Blog. At least scroll down the right sidebar and see some of the items. There's even a whole dress! Amazing!!

I also got a selvage item as a Christmas gift! I'll show you in another post later......

It was definitely a WHITE Christmas

Yep, we had more snow for Christmas... actually for about 3 or 4 days... totaling maybe 20 inches or so. Most everyone's plans had to be cancelled or at least rearranged somehow, as travel was impossible for the most part. Jess 'n Alex had come early and made it just fine. Courtney got delivered by Grandpa on Christmas Eve day while Suzi worked from home, then Nate and Suzi made it over later and we did our regular celebrating. Suzi and Courtney spent a couple days with us while the guys took care of the dairy and other chores.

Our power was out for several hours beginning about 2:00 Thursday afternoon. But we have a generator here, so we had power for cooking and gift-opening, etc. Then we all got snuggled into our beds around 11:00 before Grandpa shut down the generator. But wonderful news... the power came back on right after he shut it down! (We stayed in bed, though. :-) )

Oh, yes... and our internet service was down for a couple of days. Alex and I lost all our crops on FarmVille because we couldn't harvest them. ;-)

Where do I start on showing you the 100+ photos I took? :-) I won't bore you with them all, but I do need to do a little sorting and figuring out how I'm going to display the best of them, so be patient please, and do keep checking back. I'll be adding some each day, hopefully.

Below is the view from the end of our driveway Saturday morning. Yep, very WHITE. And though the snowplow had gone past by then, our road as you can see was compacted and slippery.

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It's gonna be a loooong winter here, I'm afraid. I'll try not to complain too much. ;-) It does, however, make for some very pretty photos.

May we all see Christmas through the eyes of a child

God bless you and yours with a wonderful Christmas! (Even if you're snowed in somewhere that isn't exactly where you want to be!)

The stockings were hung....

.... by the chim... er... bookcase with care.

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LOTS of care. Over and over and over and over. What fun it was!

If you think it's snowy now...

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.... just wait! The next few days sound very interesting, to say the least!

'Specially for Grandma H

(I don't think there was an end to it. I had to turn it off. LOL )

We'll have a VERY WHITE Christmas indeed

I couldn't resist taking pics yesterday morning after we'd had some fog overnight and everything was soooo frosty white. I'm sorry for clumping them all together like this... it doesn't quite do the photos justice... but time is of the essence these days. However, do click on the collage to see them bigger!

Oh, yeah.... you'll notice that there is a bit of color mixed in. My furry assistant was along for the whole photo shoot. But even he ended up a bit frosty before we were done (upper right corner pic).

And just when I thought it couldn't get any whiter, we had more fog and another half inch or so of snow last night. Here's the view from my sewing room window this morning.

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I hope that if you're not having a white Christmas wherever you are (Mark, Cindy, JHRME and whomever else), these photos will at least give you a bit of winter wonderland pleasure. (Yeah, Bonnie... I know you lucked out this year and are having your own fun in the white stuff!)

Willow likes treats

And Courtney likes to feed them to her!

Courtney was here for an unexpected day yesterday. She was feeling a little under the weather and couldn't go to daycare, so Grandma got to enjoy her company and "help". She was under the influence of ibuprofen, so she actually was feeling pretty good, and you'd never know she'd had a 102° temp in the morning. She kept very busy, and the chatter continued nonstop. So we had a fun day, and we even got a little decorating done. A little. ;-)

'Nuther project done

This is my 28th bag in this style! It's a Christmas gift that Jess is going to give a friend. Done. Mailed to Jess today.

Now I'm off to a new project... something I've never done before. Unfortunately, I won't be able to show it to you till after Christmas, because it's going to be a gift to someone from ME. But I will show you later (if it turns out good, that is... okay, maybe I'll show you even if it's a flop).

I hope your Christmas preparations are going well! I think I finished my shopping today. And everything I've ordered has arrived. Now to decorate my lovely-smelling REAL tree, wrap gifts, and do some much-needed cleaning, etc., etc..........

Yep, it's COLD!

I just took this pic a couple minutes ago. My camera didn't like the exposure. My bare legs didn't like their exposure, either, as I stepped out the door for a few seconds (I'm on my way to my NordicTrack, thus have shorts on). Anyway, it's minus 2° with a wind chill of minus 21°. Still wish you were here, Mark?

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Still a bag lady

Yep, I'm still sewing bags. Below is a custom bag that I made last week - one of our original totes.

I have another custom order to work on now... another of the totes. Actually, my boss custom ordered it herself, as a gift for a friend. Yeah, that boss... a.k.a. Jess. :-) So I guess I'd better get busy!

Don't be surprised if you don't see many more posts from me before Christmas. Unless there's something I just HAVE TO show you. Like another blizzard... or some Courtney tricks... or something. ;-) But I WILL be back!

The beauty after the storm

Sick of seeing snow pics yet? (Actually, I'm only posting these photos to torture a certain person in California.) ;-)

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The real beauty of it is that if it hadn't been for those evergreens, much of that snow would be on our driveway, but thanks to them it's not! ;-)

Sharing the blizzard

Here's the video I was trying to get uploaded yesterday. The storm's over, school's back in session, and the sun is shining today, but for the benefit of my poor readers who are stuck in California with such non-snowy, unChristmas-like conditions, here's a look at what it looked like here early yesterday morning. Keep in mind that it's fairly sheltered here. The snow was blowing much worse out in the open.

When I went out to clean the snow out of the mailbox late yesterday afternoon (no, there was no mail delivery yesterday... I guess their slogan isn't true), I noticed that the scene of the snowdrifts in those evergreen trees was quite beautiful. But I didn't have the camera with me, and I wasn't about to go back for it and make the trek back out again. This morning I thought of it, but the wind chill is still way down there and I value my fingers. But I'll get the pic for you sometime. It's not like this snow is going to be melting for a while!

"The cold has yet to really kick in."

That's a quote from the weather forecaster on the radio this morning. The temperature was right on zero at the time. Gee, I can't wait.

We're still under a blizzard warning until noon. It has quit snowing, but the wind is still strong. Schools and some businesses are closed.

The wind has actually done us a favor. It's cleared the yard and driveway off very nicely, and piled the snow in other places. So rather than having the cement in front of the garage covered solid with snow like it was last night, this is what it looked like when I looked out the window this morning. Not bad! I love it when the wind works for me!

I did have some scooping to do, though. Below is what greeted me when I stepped out the door. And that's inside the garage!

But this really wasn't bad. I liked the "sculptures" created by the wind. I think it's the first time the snow's ended up like that... usually the drifts are solid all the way across. So you know what wicked winds we had whipping around overnight. I actually woke up during the night and while listening to the wind howling thought I should get the camera and "video" the sound for you. But it was too cold to get out of bed. ;-)

The worst, of course, was right in front of the door. But, I scooped it out by hand. I might have used my trusty little snowblower if I could've gotten it out the door. But I got some good exercise.

I've been trying for over an hour to upload a video, but I think Blogger's got technical problems today, so these pics will have to do for now. Maybe it'll work later.

Can you do this?

That "No!" at the end was when Mommy walked in the door to get her and take her home. That's the kind of reaction poor Mommy usually gets. I guess Courtney likes it at Grandma's house. Today it helped, though, to tell her she got to put on her new snowpants, coat and boots again. She thinks they're really great. But she didn't want to walk in the snow and get her boots all wet. LOL Grandma wasn't on the ball with the camera... it would've made a cute video with her walking so cautiously through the snow. ;-)

Dreaming of a white Christmas?

We're almost guaranteed to have one here. It's supposed to get whiter in the next couple of days, with strong winds to blow the white stuff around, and temps dropping below zero to make sure it stays white.

For those of you who only get to dream of a white Christmas, here's a little video for you. We had these flurries all day today.

(Did you notice I didn't complain about the forecast? I bit my fingers so I wouldn't!) ;-)

Courtney's daycare

We haven't been here in a while. Let's see how things are going at the daycare.

Looks like the babies get only the best of care... with a smile!

The infants require the most care, of course. Keeps her pretty busy!

But she does love her babies!

Corn bees' wings

There seems to be a lack of information, not to mention images, of corn bees' wings on the internet. So this post shall rectify that (and hopefully answer JHRME's questions). ;-)

Bees' wings are tiny bits of chaff from the corn cob. Here's what they look like, with a pen for size comparison.

Here's a closer look, albeit not terribly clear.

Yep, they're just teeny-tiny little bits of 'stuff', very thin, and they blow around easily. When unloading corn into the grain bins, these little "wings" float around everywhere. The ground gets covered, sometimes even several inches deep, depending on the wind. Of course, if it's windy, they blow all over the place... and end up on trees, houses, lawns, windows, people, people's eyes, etc. I wanted to get a pic of them on the ground, but unfortunately today the ground is covered with something else. It's white. See below.

So now you know.