Snowflowers

Isn't amazing what snow can hang on to? It just piles up and piles up on the tiniest place it has a chance of landing. I like the snow, I do. It washes the world a small while. Then all the ick settles and the slush arrives and things melt and freeze. And cars get stuck. Not that I know anything about that. (I'm assuming it's because my little car is... little that I've been having such problems this winter with that whole getting stuck thing. Thirty minutes yesterday morning. Thirty!)

Surreal

I don't know if this falls under the label surreal actually but it sure is messing with my mind a little that my best friend from 7th grade found me on facebook. Wouldn't you think that someone that friended you on facebook whom you haven't had contact with in oh, over twenty years, would send you a note along with the request? It just feels wierd. And I added her but still have a little knot in the pit of the stomach like I'm not sure it was a good thing to do.

More Happy Making

I submit for you today these two pictures.

Obviously, I am not the cat. That's my Judah. He's back in his fancy cuff because he's back to the licking his hair off of his hind legs. But he's ridiculously cute. Maybe I'll get you some video of him walking. That makes me laugh.

The other is of me today. I bought these yellow socks on sale the other day and wore them today, with my yellow striped shirt. Clearly I am hoping for the warmer weather to hurry up and get here. My thinking was that if one must pay large amounts of money to have one's car fixed because some stupid idiots broke into it, well, why not wear happy colors. Right?

And ooh! Bonus fun:How funny are those pictures?

You know...

I know there have been jokes about my Car-ma. And I understand them. I've had rather poor luck with the whole vehicle situation. At least since I've been in Chicago. One car I was in an accident - the other driver had a stop sign, I didn't - the car was towed but the other person's insurance didn't ever pay up. And the other person's insurance wouldn't pay to have my car towed back. And then my car disappeared forever into the ether. No, seriously, this happened.

Then in the next car I was in two accidents in two weeks, neither of them my fault. In that same period of time I had two, no, three flat tires. Nothing was ever paid by anyone's insurance to me. At some point someone came along and vandalized my car swatting the hood ornament into the the front windshield cracking it. Then this summer it was stolen.

But the Padre, he bought me a car and I'm paying him back which is awesome to not have to pay interest. I picked it up over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Guess what y'all?? (Can you see where this is going?)

Friday I came out from work and found one of the windows smashed. A bag of tapes had been stolen. She gets fixed tomorrow.

Sigh

Respite

I've stopped wearing the long johns and snow boots. Apparently I've had my fill of dressing warmly and bringing changes of clothing with me to work so that they don't get mucked up in the slush. I'm wearing stupid shoes - ballet flats that allow the snow in and don't have great traction. I'm forgoing the second or third layer up top.

The weather has cooperated somewhat. It snowed once this week. Yesterday it was above freezing. I, along with half of the city, decided the warmer temperatures meant it was time to get the car washed. For a few brief hours she is shiny red again.

Tonight the temperature plummets. Just in time for the weekend. I'll have to pull out my blanket that I worked on over Christmas:This is the fabric I bought when I was not supposed to buy fabric. I couldn't resist the trees. The back is flannel - two types since I loved the snowflakes but there wasn't enough. The deer are kinda cute too. It's not perfect but I like it. And it's for Me! I felt like I'd been making lots of stuff for other folks so it's nice to have something around that I made for myself.

Happy makings

Today my little red birds that PJ sent are sitting on my desk making me smile, as they frequently do. Thought I would share them.

Wondering...

whether I'll be bawling like a baby at 12pm est.

image from here.

Some are silver and the others gold

Does anyone else remember that song from Girl Scouts? I think it's hard to classify some friends as gold and silver. I mean, there are some folks with whom falling into friendship is so easy. They are good friends, even if they are newer. And there are folks you've known forever & adore but don't consider them to be a "close" friend. I think, in the end, friends are good things to have.
Here's a friend I've had for fourteen or so years. And her husband and their baby. I spent Friday night with them and after he had gone to work Saturday morning we three girls hung out. It was the second time I'd seen this sweetpea. She is a delightful baby, very sweetly tempered (from what I witnessed) and it was fun to see these two step into the parenting role.

Searching for something

It's winter. What with the days of snow and the subzero temperatures, I'm sure you noticed. In the winter I get a little scaley. So I was on the hunt for some decent body butter. I went to Marshalls. Because I'm cheap. And because they always have body butter in their body section. Always. Twenty different types. Except, of course, the day I went. There was one option that was about twice as much as I wanted to pay. So I got some lotion associated with a purfume. Which gives me a headache. Next I tried Target. Target was also overpriced except there was some in the $1 section. I bought it but, you get what you pay for. It really is subpar. Then I went back to Target a few days later for something else and found some on sale. But it was sealed and so I didn't know what it smelled like. What it smelled like is something else that will give me a headache. Three products, three things that just weren't really going to work.

But tonight I made it to another Marshalls and I found bergamont and mint body butter and lemon and ginger and I'm a happy camper. As is my skin.

A Winner

Each and every lovely person that pops by here is a winner in my book. Sadly, I only have one calendar to give away.

I consulted the random integer generator and it came up with 2. Commenter number two was Melanie-Pearl. Congratulations! I'll work on getting that out to you soonly as half of January has now passed.

Thanks for playing! I'm amazed that I've been able to keep this thing running for three years. That, to me, is amazing. Any thoughts as to what you'd like to see more of in the future?

I've been working on some things that I hope to share soon. And maybe even another giveaway!

Last Day!

Last day to leave a comment for a chance at the spiffy calendar. Here's the original post - be sure to comment there if you haven't already.

Oh Happy Day!

24 has a new season that started last night and goes on tonight for two more hours!

I've actually been watching the last season (almost two years ago) to catch up. I'm not there yet but it's not going to stop me from watching the new season. It is also available online if you missed last night. It's crack on TV.

Baby Quilts

I finally got a blanket-type creation done from Aedyn. (I've done something for almost all the children of my good friends) He's almost two and I have been a very remiss Tia. But that was taken care of with this:

I love the back. Possibly more than the front. The circle fabric just makes me ridiculously happy. But it's a quilt designed to help amuse a child. Different things to play I Spy with and two of each picture so that he can also do matching.

And, for little Justice, I finished this quilt:I bought that fabric on a impulse. Something inside me insisted that I bring some home with me. The back is a simple brown cotton. Actually, it's the same material from which the binding on Aedyn's quilt is made. I realized as I was finishing it for the baby that these are colors very similar to those of my friends' living room furniture.

On Tuesday one of my co-workers brought in a big box for me. Lots of fabric and some embroidery floss. Some of the fabric has been pre-cut to squares.

I was thinking about the process of making quilts. I don't really enjoy the cutting or the sewing. I greatly dislike the whole pressing every. single. time. you sew something. I'm okay with the actual quilting if I'm doing it by hand. But, honestly, there's not much in the whole process that I enjoy. It's the end product that I really like. It was very satisfying to finish these up and see them packed off to their new home.

I missed something...

My third blogiversary came and went with nary a peep from me. As did post #550.

Honestly! How could I let this happen?

Well, I sort of planned for this eventuality. Did I mention my calendars? Well, I just happen to have one more calendar. For someone. The photos are mostly Chicago-themed subjects, some landmarks and beaches but there is also an Iowa corn crib. A lot of my favorites.

Super easy, just leave a comment on this post! I'll have the random number generator pick a winner on the 15th.

Happy third blogiversary!

Fervor

Ready for some ridiculously cool pictures?So somewhere between the condo and oh, Colorado Springs, there was this shrine off the side of the road. If you make the first picture larger you can see the natural formation in the rock that made this the ideal little place for this... interestingness. Someone or several someones came along and decided to put up a statue of Mary and off to the side, I believe, is St. Jude. Anywho, tons of interesting things left besides candles and such. I'm just fascinated with where and how people practice their beliefs. And I've already admitted to being a smidge intrigued with Mary.

My mom and brother kept making my dad stop to get pictures - okay, I hollered when I saw the little burros - but I had seen this place on the day we drove in and it was really the one place I wanted to be sure to stop and take pictures.

It's more than survival

I keep thinking "Well, I survived that" but really, it wasn't all that bad until the last day or so. And then it was time to get home. But up to that point it was quite nice.My flight out of Chicago to Denver was delayed several hours but we did finally get off the ground. I think I was one of the lucky ones before most of the flights coming out of Chicago were actually cancelled. The brother got in an hour or two later. The next day we drove up to the mountains and settled in. On the way we stopped in Puebla, one of the towns where my dad grew up, for lunch. We drove around and saw some of the places he remembered.
Any time I'm with my family there will be game playing. We had our traditional Mexican dinner, tamales made not by us, but still quite good.
We watched movies and took walks. It snowed and the wind howled. We burned a lot of wood in the wood burning stove. Mom and I shoveled snow quite a bit. We took a trip into Taos. I woke up early every morning and had coffee with the padre. The last day we were there I got up early enough to see the sunrise.

My very exciting gift from my parents was a new camera. I asked for a gift certificate to Amazon because I was hoping to save up some money to buy a camera. Instead my dad decided to get me the camera. He was pretty excited (as was I). It was very sweet.

Welcome!

Happy New Year!

Welcome to a year with nothing yet gone wrong. Shiny and new.

May you be blessed this year with Good things.