Sunny With Crafting

That's my plan for today.  Mother Nature's cooperating with abundant sunshine and I've got big plans to do more sewing and knitting today.  I got some sewing and knitting done yesterday while DD was off visiting a friend (I hated to share her but it would have been mean not to) but there's more to be done.  There's always more sewing and I'd need to grow 16 more pairs of hands to tackle all the knitting projects I want to make.  I made another set of coasters with some squares I got at the quilt store last week (I like 'em) and another pair of soup cozies for DD & SIL1 since they said at Thanksgiving that they use theirs a lot and could use more.  So I made more.  I'm nice like that, plus I had fabric on hand to do it.  I'll be sewing up more for Durwood and me later today because we use ours just about every day.  They're so handy!

We had a huge bag of chicken scraps in the fridge so when I was out and about yesterday I went over to feed them.  It was warm enough that they all zoomed right out of the coop to see what goodies I had.  They were glad to see me.  Sorry about the fencing (chicken wire, hee) but it was too muddy in there for me to go in and get pictures, I wasn't wearing boots.

Durwood got tired of the demon squirrels hogging the peanuts and chasing away the bluejays and woodpeckers so he asked me to dribble the few peanuts left in the wreath with hot sauce.  I did and it's working!  I plan to put a bunch more peanuts on a baking tray lined with waxed paper and doctor up a bunch more.  Maybe we can train the persistent buggers that peanuts = hot mouth so they'll be content with their corn and leave the peanuts alone.  Don't worry, birds don't have tastebuds but squirrels do so you can safely "treat" the bird seeds to fend off squirrels without harming any birdies.  Pretty cool, eh?  I just looked out and the squirrels have pulled out and run off with the cobs of corn I loaded into their feeder yesterday.  I think I've started a war.  I think I'll win.

After supper I got up all that brown & red yarn I made the Two-needle Mittens out of, got Durwood's help to wind it all into yarn cakes (center pull balls made on the yarn winder are flat and look like those big round cakes of hay you see in farm fields) so I could choose one that might make a third mitten that'll go better with one of the ones I have already made.  I got a start and it's looking pretty good, acceptable anyway.

December 28--Enea Vico, Three Friezes with Ornamental Foliage.  Luke crouched in the gap between the hedges.  It was cool and dark there, and smelled of mint and rich earth.  Tom was "It" and the rest of the kids had scattered as Tom leaned against the cottonwood with his hands over his eyes to count to thirty.  Usually "It" counted to twenty but Benny was playing today and he couldn't run very fast and was bad and hiding so Luke helped him find a good hiding place before he went to hide himself.

DD drove away a couple hours ago.  Already I don't like it.  It was great having her here, even for just a few days, and it was fun to have the "original Malcolms" at supper Friday night.  There was the original amount of teasing and trash talking too so it really did feel like old times.  I hear those football men are in town and will clog up all the west-side traffic later so I think I'm going to jump on my steed and gallop around my shopping list while the galloping is good, although I'll probably wait to pick up my Rx until after kickoff since I'd have to cross the stadium traffic to get anywhere near the place.  Wallow in your Sunday.  Football for everyone!  Except me.  Toodle-oo!
--Barbara