AG Doll Footie Jammies... and other stuff

I didn't think I'd be showing you this for a while (I'll tell you why in a bit), but I guess I can do it, so here goes....

I happened to come across another Pixie Faire pattern a while back that was so cute I couldn't resist. (Have you heard that here before?) It was the Footie Jammies pattern. Could you have passed this by?

The pattern calls for 4-way stretch fabric, and I happened to have some stretchy velour that I'd gotten in an online grab bag several years ago. I also had some ribbing from back in my T-shirt sewing days when my kids were little... like 35+ years ago(!), and they worked together nicely.

The stretchiness was necessary for the jammies to fit properly. It was a bit challenging in places, but it also was forgiving when it came to seam allowances. The biggest problem I had was the ends of the ribbing above the zipper. They're kinda wonky, but Kit doesn't care. ;) I'm still very pleased with how the jammies turned out.

Soooo... the reason I thought I might not be posting for a while... here it is...

Yup, that's me. And that's my right wrist inside all the padding and bandage. (Of course I'm right-handed.) I tumbled down the three steps in our garage and landed on the cement floor. All because of a cat. If you know cats at all, you know how they yowl if they even 'think' you're gonna step on them... and you automatically jump, right? Well, I jumped and missed the step and it was downhill from there. Though it could've been way worse, I did a pretty good job, anyway. The surgeon put in a plate and 9 pins!

That was on the evening of Oct. 8th. (Good timing, as it was rainy and Grandpa was home and not out harvesting.) By now I have pretty good use of my fingers, but as you can imagine, typing is slow. Incidentally, the brace thingy keeps bumping the home key and sending me into a panic when all my painstaking work disappears! Ha! Thank goodness Blogger automatically 'Saves' often! Anyway, I'm really looking forward to getting my stitches out and a regular (less bulky) cast on next Monday.

Living one-handed, left-handed, is pretty slow. It takes forever to do anything. But I get there, and I'm blessed to be having no pain.

To make life even more interesting, we got this on Sunday. Exactly 6 months to the day, after our horrendous April blizzard. NOT a welcome sight to see!

Fortunately, it started melting quickly and was all gone in a couple days.

Actually, today it topped 70°! I'll take it! Crazy weather, anyway.

Don't look for me back here anytime soon. Not only is it too hard to type, but I CAN'T SEW! :( Well, I might be able to sew a little, but I can't use the iron. So 'bye for another 5 weeks or so... till I can finish the really cute project I had almost done before this happened.

Blizzard in April

I mentioned in my last post that we had several more inches of snow predicted for the following weekend. We got that, all right, and then some. It became a full-fledged, record-setting blizzard... on the 14th of April! We got around 18 inches, with wind gusting up to 50 mph. Ugh.

I'm posting these photos just for posterity. It's not like I'll ever want to look back and see them myself. As a matter of fact, I'd be quite content to never see snow again! 

The mini lilac bush in front of the house:

The backyard got more snow than we've ever had there before!

The top of the drifts were higher than the bottoms of the kitchen windows!

Grandpa finally gave up with his snowblower and got the tractor and loader out to push the snow out of the way so he could get out of here.

Such fun. NOT. The good news, however, is that it's been melting very fast. We still have some left, but here's a comparison from yesterday.

That's it. Enough reminders. It's spring now, hopefully to stay. The birds, who've had a really tough time the last couple of months, are busy singing and nest-building, and the rhubarb is peeking out. Hopefully the farmers can get into the fields in a week or so, which is very late, but better late than never, right?

Enough. The end.

Happy Easter!

Yes, those are the correct photos. I took them this morning. I think Mother Nature got a little confused as to which holiday it is. She must've been thinking Christmas... or April Fool's Day? ;-Þ

I did catch a shot of the Easter Bunny, too, after he finished making his rounds. He was very hungry after all that work, but he had to work some more to dig his breakfast out from under all the snow, poor thing.

The robins and all the rest of the birds have been having a hard time finding food, too.

"I think I hear a worm!"

"I know he's down there somewhere."

"Aw, shucks. I guess he was too cold to come up."

Enough already! At least it's melting, and it should go pretty fast in the next few days. The robins have had their tails snowed on three times now. Is this the end of it? Not according to the forecast. :(

Have a nice Easter, wherever you are! We have so much to be thankful for, including the reason for the holiday!

After the blizzard

These photos are from after last week's blizzard. We had another one this past Sunday night. Such fun. Ha. But all the snow does make for beautiful scenery and photos.

The "golden hour" is just the best for taking pictures. Look at those lovely long shadows and the golden tint on the snow.

We had quite the nice path from the house to the yard. It made feeding cats so much easier when I didn't have to climb drifts or sink to my knees on the way out and back. It was nice. Was. It's all blown in again now. Prairie winds will do that. Often.

We've really had some glorious sunsets this winter.

So peaceful, though, right? After it's all said and done, that is.

We had a blizzard yesterday

Today it looks like this around here. The wind came from the northeast, rather than the northwest which is more normal for a blizzard, so the snow piled up in new places. I don't remember ever having drifts this big in our back yard before (note the LP gas tank on the left, for size reference!).

Same as above, different perspective:

Closer look at that pointy drift:

We even had sundogs this morning, although it wasn't terribly cold (+17°). Must've been from all the snow still in the air. Right side:

Left side (harder to see behind the evergreens):

Just another snowy photo (through a snow spattered window):

You'd never know there was a garden back here, would you? Even the asparagus stalks are buried:

I think my favorite view is the mini lilac bush. It looks like it's made of huge marshmallows!

School was cancelled yesterday and today, so no Courtney day this week. Good thing we got to see her on Sunday at her birthday party! I guess I'll try to do some catching up on procrastinated projects. Then there are more sewing projects in the queue, so never a lack of things to do.....

Crazy weather

I told you about our snow that began on November 30th. It ended with a total of about 10 inches. I didn't think we'd see bare ground again until spring. But what a difference a week can make! The two pics below were taken exactly a week apart, on Dec. 2nd and 9th. Quite a change, huh? Most of the rest of that snow is gone, too.

The spring-like conditions of the past week have certainly helped shorten the winter!

This morning I woke up and looked out the window and saw this:

(Side note: Look at all that green grass!)

We'd had freezing drizzle overnight, and the strong, gusty winds made the accumulated ice break off the branches in chunks.

The lilac bushes were kind of strange-looking. I don't recall ever seeing ice formed in stripes like this before:

It was still very windy when I took that photo (with the iPad), so it was hard to get a clear shot, but you can see the stripes well enough. The wind blew hard over night, so I'm just guessing that somehow the gustiness of it caused the striping effect. Interesting.

I wonder what the rest of this El Nino winter will bring!

So amazing when you look closely

When I was complaining about all the snow we got on Monday (about 10" total), I was told by a friend (you know who you are) that I should get out my Easy Macro lens and take some photos. So I did! I got some fun shots. Just look:

The temperature was right around freezing, and the snowflakes were not only coming down in clumps, they were melting almost as soon as they landed. In the photo below, on the far right side just above center, you can see the shape of one that had just melted. I love it!

The above ones were taken on a wooden bench seat outside our back garage door. The next ones were taken on the concrete in front of the garage.

Below is my favorite.

Aren't snowflakes amazing up close?! I'm almost looking forward to more snow so I can try taking macro pics again. Almost. Just a few flakes would be fine. Flakes that land inches apart. That's enough. Period.

It's here

I believe winter has officially arrived, even if the calendar doesn't say so yet. It's looked like this all day long.

Our local school closed at 1:00 p.m.

I took these next two when I went out to feed the cats tonight. It's hard to tell depth in the photo, but I'll just say I should've dug out my taller boots.

I'm guessing about 7" so far, but we're still under a winter storm warning until tomorrow (Tuesday) night. And then the wind picks up. Picks up the snow and rearranges it.

It doesn't look like it in the pic above, but it was still snowing. The driveway was solid white... very hard to tell where the edges were. Our mail carrier made it through on the roads, though. Of course. That's what mail carriers do, right? Well, 'almost' all the time. Grandpa made it home and up the driveway, too.

There were already deer tracks wandering through the yard. I saw a deer out in the field watching me, but when I bent down to get the camera out of my jacket and looked up again, it was gone. Too far away, anyway, but it sure looked pretty against all the white.

What happened here

We got this on Friday. 

Rainbow wasn't too thrilled about the hard water...

... not to mention the snow.

Most of the snow is still here because it's been so cold, like down to 15° overnight. It's back up to 40° right now, though, so melting's happening. Yay! I'd better get at my window washing. Ugh.