Three Degrees Below Zero

That's the actual temperature at this very minute.  D'you want to know what the wind chill is?  Eleven below--and it's windy too.  I will be putting plastic over the window above the bed as soon as I post this and I can actually feel the cold radiating from the outside walls sitting here facing the corner of the house.  I purely hate this time of year or, more precisely, the weather this time of year.  It's not sunny either.  Usually when it's this cold the sky is clear and the sun shines down like it can make a difference in the temperature, today it's overcast.  Bah.  I ducked out this morning to fill the feeders and was glad I had when I saw Mr. Downy Woodpecker on the suet and then the peanuts.  You're welcome, sir.  Last night I went out to take sunset pictures and walked into the wind blowing the frigid weather in.  I think that might have been the fastest photo shoot on record.  I was out, snapped two shots, and was back in before I turned to a pillar of ice.  Brr.

Last night's waffle supper was a triumph.  I tinkered with a Belgian waffle recipe I found on Allrecipes.com.  It wanted me to separate the eggs and whip the whites into stiff peaks and then fold them in.  I didn't.  I just whisked the eggs with the other wet ingredients, like the fake buttermilk I made with a teaspoon of lemon juice and milk since buttermilk's not a staple in our fridge, and then whisked in the dry ingredients until most of the lumps were gone.  I took out the pinch of cinnamon (Durwood's not a cinnamon fan) and substituted a half-teaspoon of malt powder.  Next time I'll up that to a whole teaspoon.  Then I cored, peeled, and sliced a Granny Smith apple and sauteed it in butter and brown sugar while frying up a couple sausage patties per person.  I had one waffle, Durwood had two, and there was enough batter left for us to split one this morning.  That wasn't enough apples for us to have as much as we wanted and for sure none survived until breakfast but syrup was an adequate substitute.  Yum.  We'll do that again.

I started a newborn sweater last night after supper.  It's called Hello Baby.  The yarn I'm using is some acrylic I got from Goodwill so this is a practice sweater.  I'll knit the real one for our personal baby out of some softer yarn but this one will get a bath in some hair conditioner and be a lot softer when it gets close to a baby.  This pattern is making a lot more sense than it did the last time I started knitting it.  Experience is a wonderful teacher.  And this is one of those that you have to read through first because it has an "at the same time" direction in it which means if you don't read it you'll be ripping out a whole whack of it and starting over.  Experience is good.  Reading ahead is good too.  *patting self on back*

January 17--E. Berg, Sketchbook.  The black lines crept and stretched across the page, looping and bending to form shapes.  Here a leg, there a torso.  All the faces were blank or turned away so there were no persons on the paper, only lines.  Thick and thin.  Bold, energetic, shy.  One diagonal line flowed from shape to shape, clasping hands in the middle.

I wanted that to go on but it didn't.  I like it though.  Now it's time to seal up that west-facing window and cut off the icy breeze that tickles me at night.  Stay in and stay warm.  I will, well, except for when I go out to put the birdseed I bought yesterday away, but I'll bundle up, I promise.  Chicken tacos and Mexican rice for supper tonight.  You so wish you would be here too.
--Barbara

Sorry I Skipped Blogging Yesterday

But I was tired and had other things to do so I took that off my "to do" list.

Good thing #1=sunshine.  The sun is shining today!  When I went out to top up the birdbath I saw gaps in the clouds and blue sky showing through.  

Good thing #2=yoga.  When I unrolled my yoga mat around 9:00 there was honest-to-god sunshine out there.  The birds and squirrels enjoyed it and I sure feel like a new person sitting here in a shaft of sunshine.  Doing yoga this morning means that my head felt like it was in the same dimension as my body, not out in the ether doing the vertigo dance.  Hooray!

Last night at Friday Night Knitting I finished knitting the "step outs" for Thursday's lesson on knitting socks.  I met with PH, my co-teacher, Thursday evening to finalize our plan of attack and I've been bombarding the membership with blog posts and emails beseeching them to at least watch a couple YouTube videos about knitting with DPNs so we don't spend 2/3 of our allotted time wrestling with the needles.

Also last night LB brought a grocery bag full of old knitting and crocheting patterns that someone had brought in to the ADRC for people to take.  We got the dregs but what excellent dregs they were.  I found a copy of the crocheted Christmas stocking pattern I made for DS when he was a newborn so I can make one for our coming grandson in a different arrangement of colors than his daddy's.  I need to find out who gave LC hers for her house just in case I need to make two, but I suspect that either NH or GAM took care of that and will do the same this time.

Good thing #3=old crochet mags.  In the dregs were copies of "Edgings" magazines from the 1940s with crocheted and tatted edging patterns in them.  I kept one for DD who likes to make crocheted edgings on hankies (and give them to her mother for gifts) and a couple with tatting patterns in to give to a couple of friends who took a tatting class and I'm hoping they'll teach me one of these days.  Now I wish I'd kept them all, all of the "Edgings" anyway.

January 16--Janet Rissi, #PB106.  Maureen wanted to kiss those lips.  His perfect Cupid's bow of an upper lip begged her to smooth her fingers across it and dip her tongue to its sweetness.  His tousled black hair invited her to finger-comb it back from his forehead, to cup the back of his neck and feel the short, bristly hairs at the nape of his neck.  He must have recently shaved.  The clean aroma of good soap clung to the planes of his face, drawing her near to inhale its freshness. She smoothed her thumbs across his tender eyebrows as she cupped his face with both hands, his breath ruffling her eyelashes.

Whew.  That seems a little steamy for a winter Saturday morning--or maybe not, it is the weekend, after all.  I want to go see if the fabric store has couch cushion foam and get a bit of breakfast sausage and a Granny Smith apple at the grocery because I want to make Belgian waffles with sauteed apples and sausage patties for supper tonight.  Mm, doesn't that sound good?  I'm off to the showers.
--Barbara

Geez, It's Already Thursday

But then this is only my second week of working two days so my work week kind of flies by.  Week after next I'll work Monday too because Mrs. Boss will be in Dominica diving.  Yay, a bigger paycheck.  I got my first 2-day check yesterday and was amazed how much of a difference working 8 fewer hours a week makes, but I'll get used to it.  Already I feel like I wish I had retired all together, but then my paycheck would be nonexisitent, wouldn't it?  (Think about that, Barbara, when you're whining about having to get dressed and go to work.)


It isn't all work at work.  Luckily I can knit and listen to an audiobook (once I have my work work done, that is) and here's what I did yesterday.  I knitted the first two "step outs" for the sock knitting lesson next Thursday at the Bay Lakes Knitting Guild meeting.  The purple one has the cuff & leg done so it's ready to demo the heel flap.  The green one has the cuff, leg & heel flap done so it's ready to have the heel turned.  Today I'll knit one in a different color with the heel turned so that it's ready to have the gusset stitches picked up and decreased, and then one all the way through the foot so it's ready for the toe decreases and Kitchener stitch.  My co-teacher Pat is doing the same thing so we'll have some samples for people to try if they don't get as far during the actual knitting, plus that'll make demo-ing the techniques easier to start if we don't have to knit to get there.






I got a package the other day.  Craftsy had a kit sale and I liked a crossover bodice dress pattern, wasn't crazy about the fabric but buying the pattern and fabric in the kit was only a few bucks more than buying the pattern alone.  No brainer.  It came and I'm still not in love with the fabric but I'm looking forward to trying the pattern.  I'd like to have a few handmade things that are a little nicer than my everyday, day laborer look of jeans and tees.  I might go to DSW to find a pair of everyday boots to wear too.  I can't wear the high heels or the up the calf ones but I can maybe find some stylish ankle boots with a flat heel, don't you think?  I used to have some exactly like I want but I got rid of them in a purge a couple years ago.  Bah.

January 14--Abraham Menashe, Inc., Volunteers.  "No one would do this for pay," said Leighann as she stacked the cots in the corner of the gym.  'What do you mean?"  Chris looked at her sweaty and disheveled friend.  Leighann glanced over her shoulder.  "How much would you expect to get paid to do what we do in an afternoon?  Fifteen bucks an hour?  Twenty?"  Chris nodded.  "Yeah, about that."  Leighann pressed her fists into her lower back and groaned.  "There's no money to pay people.  They can't pay themselves.  They're not kidding about the name 'non-profit.'  It's not a designation, it's a way of life around here."


Time to slap some pictures on here, get dressed, and head out.  Here's a picture of Lake Michigan at Jacksonport from last weekend. Later, dudes and dudettes.
--Barbara

-3 Degrees

That was the actual temperature when I put on my boots, leather gloves, and pulled up my hood to go out to top up the birdbath and sprinkle seed on the birdie tree.  I might have also walked our one bag of garbage out to the end of the driveway to put it into the neighbors' bin, maybe... because I was too tired and too cold to drag our bin out over the snowblower.  Dammit, I wish we either had a bigger garage or Durwood's van wasn't as big so I could just roll it out and not have to horse it over or move the snowblower first.  *wah, wah, wah*

The other day LC and I watched a little male Downy Woodpecker peck, peck, pecking at the frozen suet.  She was pretty transfixed.  We saw one posing on the peanut wreath too, but she especially liked counting the Mourning Doves and watching the flock of sparrows flutter into the birdie tree to be out of the wind and have a snack.  She was hoping to see a Cardinal but one didn't come.  There was also a hawk perched in the bare apple tree surveying the buffet but it flew away to greener pastures.  Or maybe it had a hankering for a mouse instead of a bird for lunch.
 











She's a big fan of the squirrels too.  She asked me to sing "the corn song" but I didn't know a corn song and didn't remember "Jimmy Cracked Corn" at that moment, so I made one up.  It's two rousing choruses of "the corn song, the corn song, squirrels like to eat corn."  I don't know where the melody came from but by the time I took her home she was singing "the corn song" in the back seat.  I guess that means I get to add "songwriter" to my resume.  *snort*

I did go to the store yesterday afternoon for soup makings and taco makings for the weekend.  Of course, this morning I realized I forgot the lettuce for the tacos but I have time for that.  I made a vat of Chicken & Greens Soup before supper.  After supper I spilled nearly a quart of it all down two cupboards and onto the just-cleaned-by-the-cleaner-that-morning floor.  See, I put it into stand-up quart freezer bags and it was still a bit hot to close so I set it, securely I thought, on the counter but I was wrong.  *WAH*  So I got to wipe down the cupboards and two drawers, clean the spatters off the wall and dishwasher, and rescrub the floor.  I was thrilled with myself.  I might have shed a few rueful tears as I scrubbed.

January 13--M. Roemer, Dakota Stock Images, Glad You're Mind, Couple, Happy, Togetherness, Security.  Stacy opened the card.  She stared at the message on the front.  It said, "So Glad..." and then there was a long list of words and phrases each with a check box next to it.  They said things like "you're mine" and "you're happy."  There was "we're together", "you're feeling better" but farther down the list it said "you're gone."  She wondered how long Ed had stood in the card aisle at the cut-rate card store looking for the right card and what had made him think this one was it.  To top it off he hadn't checked any of the boxes or, she checked inside, signed it.

One good thing about it being so cold is I get to wear my heavy, red, wool sweater to work today.  It's such a warm thing it has to be really cold to be comfy.
--Barbara

Cold Like Two Ducks

I do not know what that really means but my Great-grandpa Charlie Gerst said it, Mom said it, so I say it.  It means that it's very, very, very cold.  And it is that today.  And windy.  I was enchanted by the tiny bird footprints in the light snow that fell overnight and I liked the way the rising sun colored the clouds blowing in from the southwest.

I woke up with a hankering for making a vat of chicken soup.  I don't have any of the ingredients I need to make it.  That means if I want soup I have to go out there into the freezing cold and blowing wind to get stuff.  I might do that.  Later.  I already know what kind of soup I want to make and I know what I want to make for the supper we're making for friends this weekend.  I could get those ingredients too, couldn't I?  Besides, I have to go get some Powerball tickets so we can win the BILLION dollars that the jackpot's up to when they draw tomorrow night.

Here's the Sudoku square I finished on Saturday afternoon.  I haven't knitted anything else since.  I need to pick out another project because I can't be monogamous with my knitting.  I was too tired last night to knit.  In fact, I think I took three catnaps between supper and bedtime.  That might be a record.

I forgot to show you the random crap I bought at Bargains Unlimited, the resale shop up in Sister Bay.  I'm most excited about the four sets of DPNs so I can knit the samples for the sock lesson I'm teaching next week without using my favorite, hard to find needles for them.  They were $1 a set, what's not to love?  Four cones of serger thread for five bucks is pretty good too and I have high hopes that the fifty-cents worth of sewing machine needles will fit one of my machines.  That place is a gold mine.

January 12--Lewis Kemper, Children Discovery.  Lucy and Liam had always been fascinated by fish.  Maybe it was because their nursery had been decorated with a tropical fish theme.  Maybe it was because their zodiac sign was Pisces.  Or maybe they had been fish in a former life.  The trip to the aquarium was eagerly anticipated.  They were awake before light and had breakfasted and dressed long before time to leave.

That's all there is.  I was tired and cold and tired.  And cold.  Stay warm today.  I'm thinking of changing my diet to all hot buttered rum all the time--and I don't even drink.  Maybe I'll make a vat of it and stick my feet into it.
--Barbara

January Thaw is OVER

I had a lovely weekend in Door County at The Clearing with nine woman writing friends.  It was warmish when I arrived on Friday afternoon which meant I was comfy in my fleece, thermal undershirt, jeggings, and boots.  That wardrobe was good for Saturday too, I just changed out the fleece for a hoodie.  Until nightfall.  Then it started to snow and blow and the temperature went into a slide for the deep freeze.  I kept a fire blazing in the Lodge on Saturday and Sunday, only going out to get more wood.  (down the double flight of stone steps to the woodshed, up the same steps with the bag full of stovewood--three, four, five times--JBates fetched wood a few times too)





I volunteered to have my one page scene critiqued first at Saturday morning's roundtable and got plenty of great comments and ideas on fleshing it out so after the rest of the morning readers and lunch, I plonked myself down next to the fireplace with my knitting and worked on a Sudoku square (no-thinking-required garter knitting) while contemplating the feedback I had gotten.  If I turned my head just a bit I could see four, no, five writers working at their notebooks or laptops, no one spoke all afternoon, we just worked on our projects and I kept us all warm.







AR and AW planned the menus.  We ate well--soups, oatmeal, pancakes, eggs, lentil & quinoa salad, lots of cheeses & crackers, my Italian Semolina bread, fruit fresh & dried, cookies, candy, chips, and nuts.  There was no way we'd starve.  Everyone helped set, serve, and clean up so no one got stuck with the scullery work all weekend.








My room was the loft in the Professors Quarters and has the best view of the bay.  I was hoping for clear skies and stars or even the Northern Lights but the clouds were too thick each night.  Sunday dawned partly cloudy (so it was sunny at times) but bitter, bitter cold.  The dramatic weather shift brought me a mild case of vertigo (naturally my pills were at home) but I managed to get up slowly enough and move around slowly enough that by breakfast the whirlies were gone and only a mild queasiness was left.  A couple mugs of lemon & ginger herbal tea took care of that.  (ginger's an old wives remedy for tummy upsets)  The drive home was uneventful and Durwood was glad to see me.


Today the temp has so far reached a zenith of seven degrees.  Yes, 7 has been the high.  Needless to say, we're sticking close to home.  I'm very glad I don't have to work today.

January 11--Russ Schleipman, Waiting.  Connor stood at the window all afternoon.  Mama was coming.  Grandma said she was.  Some day, she said, and Connor knew that today was someday.  They thought he was too little to remember Mama but he wasn't.  He remembered her soft voice and the way her hand smoothed his hair when they hugged.  He would know his Mama anywhere.  Grandma tried to get him to come away from the window but he wouldn't, not even for macaroni and cheese from the blue box.  They didn't have the blue box kind often because it cost too much.  He left the window, got his bowl of mac & cheese and went back to the window to watch.  "She won't come today, sweetie, not today," Grandma told him.  He just shook his head and kept eating and watching.

Time to put another log on the... oh, I forgot, I'm home now and we don't have a fireplace.  Drat.  At least my flannel shirt still smells of woodsmoke.  Maybe I won't launder it just yet.
Stay warm, people, huddle up.

--Barbara

January Thaw

Melting (can you hear the Wicked Witch of the West at the end of the Wizard of Oz? do you realize that her aversion to water meant she never took a shower?  ew, no wonder she was green.), it's melting.  I tried to take a picture of the drops falling from the eaves but all I got were short, white streaks.  The droplets clinging to the maple twigs are much prettier.

I got presents yesterday.  Presents from friends who went to Bonaire for two weeks over Christmas.  T & B gave me a cute bib for LC and K & D gave me a Bonaire planner calendar.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  It was a lovely surprise that went far toward assuaging my envy that they got to go and we didn't.  (I need to remember to write and mail thank you notes--soon.)

This hat looks about the same as it did a few days ago, doesn't it?  Well, by yesterday afternoon it was about an inch taller and the first crown decrease row had been knitted, then SOMEBODY reread the directions to discover that she was supposed to have stopped after round 2 on the last repeat before starting the decreases so she had to painstakingly tink (knit backwards) the last 3 rounds to get to where she was supposed to be about 2 hours earlier.  *sigh*  On the plus side, I only dropped one stitch (that I noticed so far) so I call that a win.

I told a friend that I'd make her some unscented lotion.  I need to take it with me this weekend.  I thought of it just as I turned out my light last night at 11 pm.  I wasn't going to get up and go downstairs to do it then, I just got up a bit earlier and made it this morning.  *sigh again* I miss my memory.  (What?  You miss what?  I forget.)  As an added bonus, what you see there is so hot that it melted the first bottle I poured it into, not melted through but it deformed it so I had to shift totes and dig out another one.  (I am such a trial to myself that some days I just can't stand it.)


January 8--James Visser, Baby on Beach.  

Someone must be watching
there's a baby on the beach.
On the shower pad
a naked toddler
plays pat-a-cake
in the puddles.
Are a mother's eyes
keeping track
of sunscreen and hydration?
Of over-friendly strangers
and too-deep water
at the shore?

Someone must be watching
there's a baby on the beach.
~~~~~

So, now I have to finish packing.  Can't forget my alarm clock and the chargers.  I might pack an extra pair of jeans (don't ask me why that's suddenly important) and count my underpants one more time.  There won't be a post tomorrow for sure and maybe not Sunday either but I'll be back on Monday with lots of pictures (I don't post them all at once, I promise) and tales of writing derring-do.
--Barbara