Random Wintery Notes : Puttering Around and Shop at Home

rare [for the beach] cardinal, coming in closer for food?
He's been out there with his ladies all week.

Hi everyone! Happy February..."Oh the weather outside is frightful..." It really is pretty bad, 2015 is shaping up to be a nasty winter, isn't it? And as the ice-and-snow days keep coming, it gets hard to stay focused and accomplish all those things you put off last summer, when you thought, Something to do in February.

I have to pee out HERE?

Some tasks are so tiny, so tedious. LOL. Like I cleaned the threads off the roller thing on the big vacuum. Yay! I moved the large chests in the bedroom to sweep out the dust bunnies hiding by the baseboards. I prepped a quilt to be sent off to a new quilter, for custom quilting, finger crossed!

I sorted the herbs on my fridge door, washed their shelves. I found out I had two little jars of poppy seeds, of all things---plus a mix for lemon cake in the baking bin. Oh goody! A lemon poppy seed bundt sounded delicious.

I also found a can of Duff's cupcake frosting, hmmm. I think I will mix it with a few tablespoons of my Christmas Grand Marnier and drizzle it on my cake . Then I'll slice the cake and freeze it so I have a nice tea cake all ready if a friend stops in for a visit and a cup of tea. Surely with all the snow shovelling we've done we can have a sliver of cake?

Let's see what else? Oh I made chili again. I revised my recipe: use two large cans of tomato paste, not one plus a can  fireroasted tomatoes. They make the chili too watery.

And while I was hunting around for I think fabric dye (I keep my dyes on a high kitchen shelf where no one will accidentally mess with them) and I found this collection of adorable pastel McCoy pots. 

So sweet, so spring-y. I think maybe they once held my mom's African violet collection and/ or some were dump dug back in Illinois, by my dad.

I plan to fill them with tiny daffodils or primroses if I ever get to the flower store. Or maybe windowsill herbs?

Sadly I immediately fumbled and dropped the little pink pot! My fave! It just makes the collection so perfect, so I glued it back together. But I was sad. Maybe closet rummaging is a bad idea?

 I had fun shopping in my cupboards, finding the cute pots, a couple of big Mason jars, and a base for another pincushion. Despite the loss of pinky. [something to look for next spring at the flea]. Who knows what I'd find in the closets....

I am ordering a special heating pad for Mo's crib. He sleeps in his crate at night and when I get him up each morning his fur is so cold! I've upped the heat in that room to 65* for him, my usual is 55", but he still seems cold. This is a non-electric microwave warming pad. I hope he is warm and cozy with it. Snuggle-Safe

My paper whites, week 2:

And last note: remember how I said the cold air is invigorating? That it seems like it has extra oxygen. Well, who knew! It does.

''Cooler air is more dense than warmer air. Warm air can actually hold more moisture because molecules are farther apart, making more room for moisture. Cold air is dense and compact; it's "thicker," so when you breathe in you get more oxygen.''  Cold air DOES have more oxygen

So, get out and enjoy the good cold air, icy days excepted of course.

love

lizzy

gone to the beach.....

below, snow encrusted dunes...I wish you could have seen them last night under the full moon. They glowed.

The Last Day of January

Hi guys! Didn't January just fly by! Today is the last day of the first month, 2015. Wind chill 1*.

Yes it's cold. But today is the most perfect and glorious day. Navy blue ocean with bright white waves, hydrangea blue sky. Just beautiful. The air is intoxicating, like breathing champagne. Does cold air have extra oxygen? Seems like it does...or extra ions?

If today was a July day---all this sunshine! the beach would be teeming with people. But no, it's just me and Mo. We tried to go to the beach but the entry is still drifted over.

We peeked over the seawall and into gardens, walked about 2 miles.

koi pond

upside down icicles formed by the wind

(I have to give a lot of credit my Lands End down jacket and REI wind pants). Overhead were many flocks of geese and ducks, perhaps searching for areas that are now drifted free of snow. I had a bag of bread for the gulls, but carried it home uneaten. Sunday into Monday may be rainy and the beach will be accessible again so I can feed my friend Gully. Here he is on a much warmer day. I bet he is hungry!

It's the end of the month so it's time for our Flags of the American Revolution show and tell.
I made the rest of the sawtooth star blocks...

so I am caught up there.

Mo has a good eye for color! He brought his beloved green Gator to play on the Stars.

And the many many many stars block (George Washington's flag?) was sewed for me by my friend L.

She does such beautiful work, so fine and even.

You'll recall my friends are helping me with my applique blocks, since I had hurt my hand. The good news is, it was a lot better. Sore but not useless. The bad news is I banged it really hard last night. I almost cried. The fridge drawer was stuck, I lifted and shoved--and my hand slipped. BAM!

We were also supposed to start piecing our tops together but I was too busy with my etsy and eBay shops. Instead I finished a new pin keep make do. It's a heart made of reclaimed, recycled, hand felted wool, aged and dyed by me.

The best part is the brooch,  a Civil War era memorial/ mourning pin. The photo is the sweetest little girl with hand colored rosy cheeks, a red sash, and  pearl necklace..

I like to make up stories for my prims. Here goes:

A woman is sewing by candlelight, a young woman whose husband has been gone for many months. He is a cavalry captain in Mr Lincoln's army. Their child was born after her man left for the war, so she had an itinerant photographer make the special brooch with the baby's picture. He handtinted the image and set it in a tiny fine gold frame.Tonight she is finishing a blue wool coat for her husband. After she sews on his shiny brass eagle buttons, she will gently pin the brooch on the inside lapel. With God's grace the coat will reach her love, somewhere faraway, back east in Virginia, where he is stationed, awaiting yet another fight for freedom....Her foot rocks the cradle. "We're sending this to Papa, my sweet. We're sending our love."

Wouldn't this be a wonderful gift for someone who makes Civil War repro quilts? Or collects them? I
hope so....

So, tell me: How cold is it? And how do you cope? (Hunter and Kelley, you  can tell how warm it is.)

love

lizzy
gone to the beach

Blizzard Fail

Ha ha ha This is pretty funny. I just had a feeling....

"Meteorologists Apologize for Miss''

and

politicians-can-never-win-with-weather

snow day, sunset

I'm not complaining. Exactly. We didn't want to be stranded in the dark with no heat.
But still.
What about next time? Will we do like we did with Hurricanes Irene and Sandy? We evacuated for Irene---which was just a rainy night for us. So we stayed for H Sandy, only to witness the appalling unforgettable sight of huge waves crashing over the seawall, swamping our yards and cars. I hope I never see waves coming over the high dunes again! I couldn't sleep last night. I'm always afraid someday my old flimsy ocean facing windows will be blown in by high winds. It's not REAL scary, but maybe a little?
So what about the next ''blizzard''? Stay, go, shop, cook or ignore?

I'd guess we got 10-12 inches of snow which is drifting dramatically.

deck portholes, knee high?

So there is bare sand, bare grass, and fences under 6 feet of snow. The usual.

Anyway all is well and I got lots done for my  etsy Valentine projects.

Mo had fun!

love,

          lizzy

gone to the beach....