This is reminding me too much of last winter!
This pic below doesn't show the depth very well, but the bank in front of our garage is about 3 feet deep. Yuck. I only shoveled a path to the door so far.
On a brighter note... these arrived at my door this morning via Daddy and Grampa in a pickup! (Which is why I scooped the path to the door.)
They're attached to this:
She's sitting in my lap as I type. So it'll be a fun day, despite the way-more-than-predicted snow and continuing blow outside.
Well, here it comes! I shot these videos about an hour ago, and it's still coming down, even a little heavier now.
Believe it or not, I washed 4 windows this morning (before putting plastic on them). It was then about 40° with no precip. Now it's down to about 25° and turning very white. The forecast is for more. Plus wind. Just thought you'd want to know that (Mark).
No, not Jess 'n Alex. They came and went, but unfortunately they're not returning. At least not anytime soon.
What came was ice. I took this pic Thanksgiving afternoon.
It came in the form of freezing drizzle. It wasn't very thick, and it was a bit rough. It was slippery, but not treacherously so. You just had to use a little caution when driving. Jess 'n Alex made it okay from Chicago on Wednesday, with only about an hour of freezing rain and pretty slippery conditions. Otherwise the roads were well sanded and salted and their trip wasn't too bad.
It went. It melted some and wore off some. Then today the temperature hit 49°!! Needless to say, it's all gone.
Tonight it's supposed to start over again with the freezing drizzle, more tomorrow, then rain, then changing over to snow, and blowing snow tomorrow night and into Tuesday. Fun, huh?
But I'm still thankful. We had a good weekend, ate too much good food, and Jess 'n Alex made it safely back to Chicago last night. How was your Thanksgiving?
We always have things to be thankful for. Even in the hardest times, there is always something. In fact, there are always many things. For example, beautiful sunsets. They appear whether we're suffering or not, and often they look as gorgeous as this one that I photographed a couple weeks ago. All we need to do is stop to appreciate them. Such loveliness!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I'm thankful for you, my readers, for blogging wouldn't be worth it without your participation and encouragement via your comments.
Now I'm off for the long weekend to enjoy some great family time! Seeya next week!
(Click to enlarge.)
Someone wanted to join her pretty bad. I was holding my breath!
Courtney's getting to be quite a story teller. Did you catch all that?
The header. I was really sick of looking at the old one, so I was playing. I found a website that would make headers for you, but unfortunately not sized for Blogger. But I played anyway. I tried the pic above. I got a kick out of it. I thought you might, too, so I'll leave it there until I have time to come up with something better. Besides, I can't put the old one back now, since I don't have a copy to replace it with. So we're stuck with the above for awhile. Enjoy! (?) LOL
The end of my tomatoes for this year, that is. Courtney and I shared this last one just last week, November 9th! I had picked it green only a couple weeks before, when I feared it was going to freeze on the vine. It was quite yummy. And how often does one get to eat fresh tomatoes from their garden in November?!
What fun it was to read all of your comments! THANK YOU, everyone! It's very encouraging to know that you enjoy... well... pretty much everything, huh? So I guess I'll just keep on doing what I've been doing... basically, whatever strikes my fancy. (And I'll try really hard to get pics of all those fawns during the winter, Jess!)
I enjoyed my week off, but as you can see, I haven't fixed my header yet, nor have I made any of the other changes I plan to. I don't know where the time goes, but each day sure flies by in a hurry. I still don't have half the things done that I wanted to accomplish in the past week, so I probably won't be back full time till after Thanksgiving (and then with Christmas fast on its heels, who knows?). My posts may be hit and miss for a while.
But I have been busy. Here's a peek at what I'm working on in the sewing room:
You can guess if you want, although it's probably pretty obvious. Cutting it out was the worst. I cut 33 pieces for this project! There was a bit of matching involved, too, and I'm happy to say that couldn't have turned out any better. Just look... can hardly tell there's a seam there, can you?
My new brother's been helping me out with the seam finishing. He's really FAST. Here's an example of what he can do (ignore the top 2 lines of stitching):
I love him already!
That's all you get to see for now. I promise I'll show you the whole thing when it's finished.
Thanks again to everyone who commented. And to those of you who didn't (YOU know who you are!), I hope you feel really GUILTY!! ;-)
And here it is:
For those of you who don't know... it's a serger. It sews. As in finishing seams, mainly. But it can also do some other fancy stuff, like making some types of hems, etc. It should save me some time in my sewing projects. Now I just have to figure out how to use it. Actually, it came all set to go, threaded with 4 spools of thread and everything. And there are instruction videos and a manual. Hopefully I'll make great progress with it tomorrow when I have more time.
Oh, WAIT!!! I bet you thought that was my big announcement you've all (well, a couple of you, anyway) been waiting for. No, no, NO.... that's not it!!! Don't go away yet! I just was excited about my serger and had to show you. But now read on.....
Actually, I think I'll let Little Miss GoogleEyes announce it:
Yes, believe it or not, this is my 1,000th blog post!!! My first post was on October 11th, 2007, so it's been just over 3 years. Whew! I can't believe I've done that many posts! And just think how many photos that means, since there are usually several photos per post. Wow!
Sooooooo..... help me celebrate!! What I would love, love, LOVE from you, my readers, is a comment from EACH of you! Make my day, okay? I know there are lurkers out there, and even some who've told me in person that they follow my blog but have never left a comment. Well, now's the time, folks! Grandma G wants to hear from you! Be courageous... come out of the closet... or whatever it takes. Let me know you're there. Please? Pretty please??? Tell me which kind of posts you like best, which photos you've enjoyed the most, something you'd like to see more of (or less of), something else you'd like to see. Tell me why you're here! Even if this is your first time here, at least say 'hi'. :-)
And on that note, I'm also going to announce that I'll be taking a little break from blogging. Not too long, but I have some things I need to get done. One of those things is make a new blog header. Maybe you've noticed how blurry my current header has gotten. Yuck. I don't know why that's happened. I know photos on your computer can deteriorate a slight amount with each viewing, more or less depending on what file format they're saved in. But I didn't know it would happen to something posted on the internet. So I thought I could just replace it with my saved file... but alas, I CAN'T FIND IT! Grrrrr! So, I guess I'll have to make a new one. And figure out all over again how to get it just exactly the right size. And all that not fun stuff. Phooey.
I also have a number of things I want/need to get done before Thanksgiving. So, after 3 years, I guess I can take a little time off, right? Probably only a week at the most. I already have new photos waiting to be posted, so I won't be able to stay away too long. ;-)
So, on that note, I'm outta here... and hoping to hear from ALL of you!! Bye fer now!
I was too late with the camera to catch the tail swinging into her face, which Courtney thought was pretty funny. That surprise at the end was a little kiss, I'm sure. :-)
And on that fun little note, I just want to tell you that my next post will contain a major announcement, so be sure to watch for it! It might be a day or two (or three), but do check back! (And no, I'm not pregnant or getting married.)
As those of you who've been following my blog for awhile know, I decided I was going to toss out my quite-a-few-years-old hibiscus plant(s) at the end of this summer. It was a good plan. With all the rain and humidity we had this summer and fall, it was not looking at all healthy. I knew its time was near when the weather started getting colder, so I quit watering it so it would be lighter and easier to carry away. When we got our wind and snow on October 27th, it blew over, and here's how the poor thing looked:
Pretty sad, huh? It was still somewhat heavy, or actually more like awkward to carry away, but the worst part was getting it out of the pot. I've never seen a more solid bunch of roots! It took some digging around the edges with a knife and then some thumping it on the ground, plus a lot of tugging, but I managed. So, all is said and done.
BUT.... here's the new life from the cuttings I took back in June. As you can see, the red one has a bloom and more buds, and there are buds on the coral one, too. So I'm happy.
Now if only I could keep it out where I could see it... but alas, there's Josie, who I'm sure would torment it. So it is relegated to the bedroom where Courtney sleeps, till it gets a little bigger, anyway. Oh, well......
Pheasant hunting season, that is. Here's just a little teaser for any hunters that are looking so hard for the birds. He was right out there by my garden.
My apologies for the poor quality of the photos. I took them through a screen. Mark was giving me grief about washing my windows, so I didn't do those. (Or, maybe I just haven't gotten to them yet.)
Recently I came across a tutorial for a child's neck pillow here. It looked so cute, and I thought maybe Courtney could use one, as she occasionally goes on road trips to visit her cousins. I showed her that pillow on the computer this morning, and it didn't take her long to decided she wanted one!
I had to draw my own pattern. I'm not a very good freehand drawer, but I finally got something drawn that looked about right. I used some of the fleece I had left after making my chickens. Here's how the fabric looked after I got it cut out.
Courtney kept busy cutting, too.
(A little aside note here. I'm going to have to give her a sewing lesson soon. If you've been following my blog long, you've seen how she loves to arrange pins. The first thing she did when she picked up my pin cushion today was press her palm onto all the pins to push them all the way in. That's just not the handiest way to find my pins the next time I go to use them, although she had no trouble getting them out to hand to me as I needed them.) ;-)
Courtney helped with ALL the stuffing of the pillow. She thought it was great fun, and she never tired of it, no matter how many times I said "We need more!" You can see she also did a little trying the pillow on to see if we had enough stuffing in it yet.
You may have noticed the tattoo on the back of her hand. It's Spongebob Squarepants, just so y'know. (You can click on either collage for a larger view of everything.)
Normally when Mommy comes, Courtney is not very anxious to go home. She often has to be coerced into putting on her shoes, her jacket, telling Grandma good-bye, getting out the door, getting into the van, getting into her carseat. Get the picture? Well, it was a totally different story today. She was ready to go and in a hurry to leave. She wanted to give the new pillow a try! I've never seen her so excited to get into that seat. And then the poor little girl had to wait till Grandma took even more pictures... thus the goofy faces below... she was getting impatient to get on the road. ;-)
But then one of her "friends" hopped into the van and brought back the smiles:
We finally got Patches out, and Mommy and Courtney took off. I don't know if Courtney fell asleep to test the pillow on her (short) trip home or not. ;-)
Yep, Halloween brought a pretty little fairy to Grandma's house.
She liked to twirl around and show off her wings.
Did you notice the cats checking her out? The one on the floor and the one on the desk? The one on the desk was actually the one that held all her treats from trick-or-treating in town. Courtney was very generous in sharing those goodies with us!
She also liked to sit in Grandpa's lap and check out what was in his pocket.
Must've been interesting stuff!
I think they're keeping it a secret.
Or telling each other funny stories!
That little fairy flitted around all evening. Something to do with sugar consumption, perhaps? We had fun... and pizza, too.
