More snow

Rumor has it we have close to 24 inches on the ground - or at least the neighboring township does. This is a picture-heavy post of some more snow stuff....

This is the front door. Really. There's a porch there, and sidewalks, and a driveway.

 The back porch door and screen door, where the snow was trying to sneak in. If snow was at all scary that could be kind of creepy, but it's snow. Maybe if it was ... mud. 

Look at the roof!

Daughter, for scale. 

DS2 slogging through the snow. He is well over 6 feet tall.

Gratuitous picture of Rusty.

Snow capped wreath. It just made me smile.

Woo Hoo Snow!

Well. Good morning snowstorm!

Looks like 16 inches here so far, with many more hours of snow to come. Above, the cozy view from the library window this morning, and below, the view from the kitchen window.

Rusty was in a panic this morning as we went from door to door for his morning ritual. We finally settled on the garage so I could shovel a bathroom for him. I don't know if you can see that this is a 2 foot drift?

Finally, I turned this photo black and white and played with the contrasts to try to show the really cool shapes that the wind carved on top of the cars in the drive. 


I'm making more coffee!

Saturday Sewing

Whenever I saw this little set of sewing supplies in JoAnn's I coveted only one thing - the pincushion in the lower left corner. Not only do I love Project Runway, I have a thing for pincushions. The rest of the stuff was not a draw; no need for them nor are they the same quality as the rest of my supplies.  I couldn't justify paying $25 for a plain pincushion. Until the other day, when I saw it marked down to $7.50. Yay!

 I'll find something useful for this little plastic case to do...maybe pencils or something.

 I had planned yesterday to be a sewing day and it was, but I'm a bit under the weather so it wasn't quite as much as I'd have liked. Tally:

• 2 completed knit tops, a green and a brown
• 1 halfway completed black top, with a ridiculous mistake that will take forever to rip out -  if I can do it without tearing the fabric.  It was the best knit of the bunch, too.
• 1 experiment, on a very inexpensive knit, in drafting a draped neck. 
• One altered Eddie Bauer sweatshirt for DH - he didn't like how long a new sweatshirt was, so I cut off the ribbing, cut two inches off the body, and put the ribbing back on.  

 

The two tops, with badly trimmed inner necklines, I must say.

I would like spend a few hours in the sewing room again today, but I don't know if that will happen. I have this gray wool to make a skirt (pictured here with the garishly shiny "static-free" lining fabric) and some fleece DS2 picked out for a new gaiter. He has some specifics I am supposed to follow - - how lovely, to have a personal seamstress at your disposal!

Hope my sewing and crafting friends made some time this weekend for their projects too!

Who needs sleep?

Yep. When I have a sleepless night this is the song that plays on an unrelenting loop in my mind. Nothing against BNL, I like them, but I could do without the soundtrack to my insomnia. While not alarmingly frequent, I have my share of restless nights. I'm going on just a few hours sleep but will be happy to nap later. I love naps.

I have several ideas for things to do today, and I'd really like to touch on all of them before tonight. No pressure, but just because I want to.

• I have several hours of reading/researching and then some organizing and thinking to do for school.
• I really should balance the checkbook and pay the bills.
• I'd like to get something cut out in the sewing room, and I'm also playing with pattern drafting software, Wild Ginger. Could be amazing if I get it right. I've been checking out another one, Bernina's My Label, which actually builds your garment and puts it on a 3D model of your body, letting you view it from all angles, select fabrics, and play with lengths. 

It's pouring rain and windy. I've made a fire, I have a coffee, and I've already begun reading - there's a sofa within stumbling distance if sleep catches up with me. We'll see.

Me and Mr. Bento

I'm so excited - my new lunchbox was delivered today! He's a Mr. Bento by Zojirushi, and I love him already. You will too, look:

Here he is - soup bowl, main dish bowl, and two little side dishes.

They all stack up nicely inside the stainless container - two hot bowls on the bottom, two cold sides on the top. Snap the lid on and look how cute that is!

Here is Mr. Bento inside his zipper bag, with the "forked spoon" and its holder on the counter. The holder goes inside the bag in its own little pocket, which tickles me to no end.

Zipped up and ready to go. How cute is this? I will test it out and make some fabulously healthy and balanced lunches - stay tuned for pictures. I was going to buy the Ms. Bento, which comes in cute colors, but the soup bowl is even smaller than here with the original Mr. Bento, which is already only 9 oz so it's small. Japanese meal planning apparently calls for small side soups as opposed to soup as the main dish.

This. Is. Delicious.

I will be making this recipe again. Quinoa Salad with Toasted Almonds.

Here's the link to the recipe from Whole Living - trust me, this is really good, and makes two servings. You can share it or put it in the fridge for lunch tomorrow.

Colorado Skiing

Bowls. Bowls are hard to explain and harder to photograph - there isn't much for scale and they're really white! They are aptly named, however, because generally they are huge scooped out bowls from which you enter from the rim and head for the bottom. They can have tree areas or be bare, they can be super fun or dangerous. There is one lift out, at the bottom of each bowl. This is China Bowl, and you can see another one in distance. I think I can name it but I'll check with DD first. 

Thanks to the two in the foreground for providing a sense of scale - or lack of one!

This one also gives a feel for how big and open bowls are.

 

Some, but not all, of my family.

Breathtaking views, and icy trees. Gorgeous. 

Well that was boring.

What a bad idea, to announce to the waiting world that the family blog has been turned into a public blog and then - - - go on vacation.

We're back, pictures to follow. Vail was spectacular. It was a quick trip and allowed for only two ski days for me (altitude, altitude) and three for the rest of my family, but blue skies and endless snow-capped peaks will make up for anything.

Great surprise last night:  I went into the sewing room for the first time since perhaps Thanksgiving and found a nearly completed skirt I had forgotten about! There it was, decent quality denim with a bit of stretch, two perfectly sewn kick pleats in the back, needing only hemmed and faced at the waistband. I spent about 15 minutes at the sewing machine and then hemmed and tacked while watching District 9 with DH and voila - a new skirt to wear today. Damn!

Happy New Year!

Finally, what job it has been to edit this blog! Last month I realized that none of us were paying attention to what had been, for about 18 months, a pretty active private extended-family blog. I decided to turn it into my own blog instead but first I had to:

• edit out all the entries made by other people
• delete all their comments (since they were all made on a private blog originally, who knows which comments should stay and which should go?)
• edit names from the posts that I decided to keep

The result - just over 100 posts from the orginal 350 - is what's left. If anyone flips through the entire thing and thinks it seems disjointed or jumpy, just keep in mind that it is no longer whole.

Colorado!

Here's the story so far! We flew into Denver yesterday and drove right to Boulder, not too far away. We found that our hotel has a really good vegetarian restaurant and we had lunch there before heading out to see what the town was like. We ended the town visit by hanging out at Cheesecake Factory's outdoor table for a long time so we could watch people - I ordered a cup of mint tea after our meal just to prolong the table.... :) Then we drove up Flagstaff Mountain - very nice.

Today we rode bikes along Boulder Creek trail and into town - this is a really bike-friendly town and it was a lot of fun to get around that way. We shopped on the Pearl Street Mall and then got caught in some rain so we hid out in a cafe for a while. Here's DD's boyfriend and his "Bro Look" which we get a particular kick out of. We dried off our bikes and rode back to our hotel, had lunch, and then jumped into the car to go to.....


The actual tea company! Tea factory! Right in Boulder! Who knew??

It was fun and interesting and it smelled GREAT and we bought some teas we've never seen at home, and cute stuff.

THEN we drove to a town called Nederland, through Boulder Canyon about 20 miles, and it was very rainy and foggy so we went to a great store called Nature's Own and browsed fossils and rocks and minerals for a long time. (All of that was on the advice of a guy who works in a bookstore in Boulder.) Nederlands was authentically weird and Colorado hippie. Some evidence of that:

Yes, a combined bike rental and coffee shop. It was actually a great latte.

Made everyone happy....

They were AWESOME in the new oven! I love gas!

Quick pics of the kitchen!

And they are from my cell phone so they aren't great, but here we are so far, 95% done!

It's hard to hold your head up all day.

Rusty's Day

Here's a day that began really well for Rusty but turned into his LEAST FAVORITE DAY of the month. He was so happy to be out doing errands with us....captions are below the pictures this time!


Here's Rusty looking out the window while in a line of cars. He hasn't yet realized that we are in line at one of his favorite places...

"What?? Bank drive-through window!! I'll just stare at that little machine until a treat comes out of it!" (He has no idea that the girl who is waving and talking to him from inside the bank is the actual source of the biscuits. It's all about the pneumatic tube.)

" C'mon. Guys. I thought we were just coming in here for a new collar and some treats?? You never said NAIL CLIPPING! What? We are going to rent one of those bathtubs???"

"Get. That. Away. From. Me."

"I can't believe this is happening. "

"Look at these two. A turban. What's wrong with them? How humiliating. All I need now is for one of those Big Dogs to come walking through."


"Do you have to brush my freakin mmmmfffsss....."


"Oh my God. I am exhausted. Get me the hell home and let's just STAY there."

Poor Rusty!

The lengths you go to....

to install undercabinet lighting!

You will love me!

Trust me, just click this.

So what's happening in there?