Friday - December 17, 2025

It's a balmy 37 degrees on the back porch this morning.  I went out for a little while, but the wind is blowing, making porch-sitting intolerable at present.  It's supposed to be nearly 60 degrees this afternoon and for the next couple of days.  Come the weekend, we'll be back to freezing temps again, and I'll be all grumpy about it.

I so hope the spring weather won't act this year as it has done for the past few years.  Last year, a late frost got the plum tree blooms.  Our old blue mophead hydrangea has not hoisted a bloom in several years, having had its buds nipped by cold snaps.  

Today I need to make a birthday cake for the Little Rotten Baby.  She is on a purple kick - for Christmas she wanted "a purple scooter with a purple helmet for safety," and in her new room, she insisted on purple walls - so I looked for a recipe that would make a purple cake and ordered all of the necessary supplies.  When I unpacked my order, the purple food coloring was missing, out of stock.  I figured I could make purple with red and blue food coloring, which I had on hand.

This morning, I woke up at 4:30 and just went on and got up.  When The Husband got up at 6:00, I was putting the cakes in the oven.  The batter colorants were grape soda and grape Koolaid.  The cakes are, indeed, purple.  They came out of the pans without incident.  I wrapped them in plastic wrap and put them in the freezer.

Time to tackle the frosting.

I want to make flowers to go on the cake.  Years ago, I tried my hand at this; it was an utter failure, and I ended up giving my cake decorating supplies to a relative.  With my supply order, I got an inexpensive kit with four tips and about a dozen bags.  Yesterday, I watched some videos.  This morning, I stirred up half a batch of frosting and gave it a shot.  

It ain't looking good.

I had to make a flower pin (or whatever they're called) out of a sour cream container lid and a skewer.

I'm going to keep practicing.

Wednesday - January 15, 2025

There are still patches of snow in the yard from Friday's blizzard.  It should melt today, and I'll be glad when it does. Seeing it makes me cold.

I ventured out yesterday to have lunch with my former boss.   We sat and talked for two hours.   We had a lot of catching up to do since we'd missed our December lunch date.  She brought me a Christmas present, a set of watercolor paints and a book - a real, paper book, by John Grisham.  It's been a long time since I've read a real, paper book.

Before leaving for the lunch date, I did a little painting, following along with a YouTube video.  It was a painting of snowdrops, one of the birth flowers of January.  It's hard to paint white things in watercolor; you don't actually paint them, you paint around them, leaving white paper showing, and then paint their shadows with very thin blue-gray. 

My first attempt at the painting was not terrible, but there were things about it that did not suit me. I sketched out a couple more snowdrop paintings and finished one before I left for lunch.  It was not *quite* gift quality, but I took it with me and gave it to The Boss.  When I came home, I squeezed out some of the new paints and painted the rest. I did not do a background on the first two snowdrop paintings, but they needed one, so I painted backgrounds on the next two, after I'd already painted the snowdrop flowers and foliage.  This was hard.  These last two are not quite gift quality, either, but they're going to be birthday cards for my two aunts who are having birthdays this month.  My sister's birthday is in January, too, and we have tentative plans for a January birthday girl luncheon later this month.  She'll get the first card, unless the fifth one that I'm about to paint turns out better.  On this one, I've masked out the snowdrop blooms and will do a wet-on-wet background before I paint the flowers.  

While I wait on the masking fluid to dry, I'm going to try some carnations (also a January birth flower).

Who gets to pick these month flowers, anyway?

Do carnations bloom in January anywhere in the world, other than in a greenhouse?

* * * * * * * * 

Over the snowy weekend, I made a little progress on the quilt for Granddaughter #3.  You may remember that I cut off the seam allowance on one of the 20 embroidered blocks and had to make another one. I am 1.5 cross stitches away from being finished with the embroidery of the replacement block. You might also remember that I had embroidered start/finished dates on every block. As I approached those final stitches, I was pondering what dates to embroider on that block.  Should I use the dates of the original block, or the dates of the replacement block?  I'd been deliberately starting or ending the blocks on family-significant dates, such as birthdays or anniversaries. When it hit me that The Little Rotten Baby's birthday is this weekend, the dilemma was solved. I saved those last 1.5 cross stitches for Saturday.  ;)

It was a long, cold weekend.  

Friday afternoon, I roasted a butternut squash, some carrots, and an onion, intending to make butternut squash soup for dinner.  The roasted vegetables were on the chopping board, and a soup pot was heating up on the stove, when The Sister-in-Law called to see if we wanted to brave the snowy roads to go to the Mexican restaurant with them.  I turned off that stove so fast!

Except to scatter some bird food, I haven't set foot outside the house since then.  The birds provided us with a little entertainment.  We saw "the usuals" - cardinals, wrens, chickadees, the occasional woodpecker - and a few that we don't see often enough to name them.  Whole groups of little blackbirds swooshed in and out.  I watched a cardinal clamp a sunflower seed against a crape myrtle limb to hold it still while he cracked it open with his beak.  Come spring, I'm probably going to regret throwing those seeds so close to the flower beds.  

Friday afternoon, a bird burgled its way onto the back porch.  We searched the porch screens for holes, but didn't find any.  The screen doors don't fit precisely, but the cracks at their tops and bottoms seem too small for birds to squeeze through. No clue how it got in. We opened both screen doors to give it an escape route, but while the doors were open, a second bird - a female cardinal, I think - came in.  The Husband managed to catch the cardinal and let it out the door (it bit the sh*t out of his finger - you could see the V shape on his skin).  The other one eventually flew up in the rafters and would not come down.  We didn't want to leave the doors open indefinitely so this bird could get out for fear more birds would come in, so we closed the doors at dark.  The next morning when I opened the back door, TWO birds flew out of the rafters.   Over the weekend. we had several more birds find their way into the porch.  We need to figure out how they're getting in and plug the hole.  They go apesh*t trying to get out, and I'm scared they'll hurt themselves flying at the screens.  Not to mention what their beaks and claws do to the screens.  

I finished the butternut soup Saturday afternoon, and we had it for supper with grilled cheese sandwiches.  It was delicious.  We had it again last night, with chimichangas made from Friday night's Mexican leftovers.

There's still a good bit of snow in the back yard this morning.   Although the roads are fairly clear, I probably won't go anywhere today, either.  It's just too stinkin' cold.

I don't really have a plan for today.  

I have been dabbling with bookbinding.  So far, I've made two little sketchbooks and started a third, but they all have issues.  Instead of wasting any more paper trying to hone my skills, I think I'll cut the finished ones apart and re-use the materials.  

Snow's a-comin' - January 9, 2025

The weather predictors warn that snow-mageddon is on the way, arriving sometime between tonight and tomorrow morning.  They say we might get 6" of snow.  This was a signal for people to run to the grocery store and empty the shelves of bread, milk, and snacks, even though the snow will probably melt by Sunday.  I'll be making my own run before the morning is over.

* * * * * * * *

1/10/25

Well, it's here.

I abandoned this post mid-stream yesterday and went out in search of snacks for the long, snowy weekend. There was a Hobby Lobby in the same parking lot as the grocery store.  I could not resist popping in to H.L. to see if they still had any Bob Ross toasters.  They did, and I got one.

I can't say that I'm impressed with Bob's toasted likeness.  

Irksome Inhabitants - January 8, 2025

My sister called yesterday morning and asked, "Are you bored, yet?"

I immediately answered "No!"

It was the truth.  I could think of a million things I'd do if I could only lay hands on the supplies.

"But wait," you might be saying, "don't you have a house full of craft supplies?"

Why, yes!  Yes, I do!  

But there is some sort of sentient, mischievous being living in my space who hides my stuff from me.  

It can't be The Husband; he knows better.

It's a fey, or something.  

Maybe a Little Person who lives behind the cleaning supplies (where it's safe from detection).  

It's remarkable in that it hides things from me right before I need them.

"It was just RIGHT HERE!"

Yesterday, I must have spent two hours looking for a set of plastic stencils that I bought for Granddaughter #3 to experiment with.  She didn't have much interest in them, and I didn't have immediate interest in them, so I put them away.  Yesterday, I thought of a use for them, and they were not where I remembered putting them.  I tore the house apart looking for them.  

The creature who lives here is particularly mischievous, for while I'm in another room, it puts the things back in places where I've already looked.

Cold! - January 6, 2025

Winter is roaring in today.  It's supposed to get icy and nasty later this week.  

I don't like this one bit.  The local schools are starting back after the holiday break, and The Grandson now has the Wrangler.  He has very little driving experience, and zero experience with ice/snow.  I hope the adults in his house make him take the bus if the schools don't close again because of bad weather.

I am SERIOUSLY worried about Granddaughter #1, who is scheduled to drive back to college all the way across the state later this week.  She, too, has not had much experience driving on snow/ice, and I-40 is crazy on a good, clear day.

With all of the traveling, health issues, and remodeling at Son #2's house in recent months, we have not yet winterized the back porch.  We may not get to it at all this year, which may seriously hamper my wintertime mojo.  I do my best thinking out there.  

Last week, I succumbed to YouTube bait and now am somewhat obsessed with bookbinding.  Over the weekend I tried my hand at making a couple of notebooks/journals/sketchbooks.  It was not a complete waste of time and materials, as I built them with scraps and ended up with a couple of usable sketchbooks. but they are not by any means "gift quality."  (There's a third one in progress on the studio table; it'll be a little better.)  It occurred to me that this might be useful knowledge if/when the county archive gets up and running. 

  

Milkweed - January 4, 2024

I planted milkweed seeds this morning.  Last year, the State gave away milkweed seed packets to anyone who asked for them. Five packages.  I scattered 4 of the packages in the phlox bed in the fall of 2023, but none came up (that I recognized) last year.  We found this 5th packet under the Wrangler seat a week ago.  I planted them near the back porch, where I can keep a good watch on them.  They should get some stratifying before spring.

The Husband has been trying to put together a shoe rack this morning.  It's a wood-like thing, came in a zillion pieces, with oddly-shaped screw heads.  It looked to me like it needed an allen wrench. We spent a long time looking for a screwdriver/bit that would turn the screw.  I said, "I can't believe a company would send you a weird screw and nothing to turn it," and left him to keep trying things.  He subsequently re-examined the hardware bag that came with the rack and found - guess what? - an allen wrench.

:-X

;-)