I Am A Weathervane *more pix!*

At least that's what I've felt like these last few days.  A big storm is supposed to be blowing in from the west and my legs especially are aching something fierce.  I don't like it.  It makes me want to skip yoga, I shouldn't but I might.  No, I'll go.  Really, I've already put the $5 aside, I'll go, unless it starts to snow real bad, then I'll come home.  I got the English toffee made yesterday, although I discovered that white chocolate chips don't really melt, they just kind of smush.  I had a few left from a previous baking and thought it'd look nice with the white swirled in the semi-sweet.  Of course when I discovered that they don't melt it was too late to pick them off so the toffee looks kind of odd but I'm sure it tastes just fine.  Just fine.  I also made a batch of popcorn caramel snack mix.  I saw the recipe online and then one of the knitters brought it to the holiday party the other night.  It was yummy so I whipped some up.  It's good and will be a fun thing to share with others.  Our renter brought over a small container of homemade candies and cookies the other night and I want to reciprocate.  I mixed up 4 logs of toffee shortbread dough but didn't bake them.  Instead I wrote the Xmas letter, ran it by Durwood, and addressed & stamped the cards.  Before Christmas, you guys!  Trust me, getting them out before the 24th is a triumph.  In the past I've sent them after the fact or not at all, so this is good.  I'll bake some cookies tonight so I'll have a few to share--also eat.  Eat, that's the important part.  Man, I could just sit in front of the party mix canister and chow down.  It'd make me sicker than a dog but I'd do it.  If I wasn't the mature grownup that I am.  Har.  Oh, I need to scout around the local tree lots this weekend to find a Charlie Brown-ish tree so that DD, DIL2 & I can fix up the birdie tree while they're here.  We've done it the last couple years and it's one of my favorite things to do.  There has to be a way to attach things to it that the squirrels can't gnaw off but so far I haven't found it.  I guess I should be content to feed them too.  I do like their ingenuity and determination.  Also the fat one with the white tufts behind its ears that has claimed our yard as its own is kind of cute in a yard-rat kind of way.  They make Durwood crazy though... that might be another reason to like them, they give him some exercise when he tries to get up very carefully and sneak over to the patio door, slide it open ever so slightly, then get a bead on one and pop it with a BB.  It doesn't really hurt them, it just stings them and makes them run away, for a time, they always come back, sooner rather than later.

December 19--Jean-Antoine Houdon, Sabine Houdon.  It looked like a baby lying in the leaves.  Peri didn't know where it came from.  After she made sure that the pale and still little face was marble, not flesh, she looked around to see where it belonged.  She smoothed the leaves back from the baby's face.  It was a happy face with its round cheeks and tiny nose.  "How did you get here?" she said.  "Vandals, I assume," a man's voice said from behind her.  She whirled around with a gasp.  A tall man wearing a dark green canvas jacket, jeans, and hiking boots stood a few yards behind her.  "You scared me," she said. "How did you get through the leaves so silently?"  He chuckled.  "I wasn't all that quiet but you were concentrating on that thing."  He stepped up beside her and looked down at the pale face in the leaves.

Okay, then.  Time to shower, etc.  It sounds like today will be our last day of dry-street driving for a time.  I hope that everyone I encounter over the next day or so remembers how to drive in snow.  Tomorrow promises to be a real adventure.  Adios.
--Barbara