turkey feathers

Reach For It

I think that will be my New Year's motto, inspired by my little pink cyclomen here.  Reaching. Upward and onward. 

We had a great week!  Hope you did to.  Not much rain (or snow), just lots of cold and fog.  At times, barely above freezing.  Inside, with the electric candles and twinkle lights glowing and tiny lamps lit in dark corners--it's cozy. The poor houseplants, however, do struggle along this time of year for lack of light.  I keep only a few around the kitchen window now, where I can remember to water them regularly. 

The cyclomen stretches tall to absorb the thin light.  I finally placed it on a small cake-stand to encourage that one flower before it gave up.  New flower buds, I just noticed, are lifting their heads now. 

 

And this handful of sweet basil, cut months ago, lives on in a jar next to the sink.  It is awesome how most herb stems will take root like this and thrive happily in nothing but water for months on end.  The smell is wonderful.  It freshens the air during the winter when the windows can't be left open.  Plus, you can always pluck a leaf or two when fresh herbs are needed for sauce or soup.  It will not produce a bounty of new stems or leaves though, so I keep the plucking to a minimum.

Children may also find this process fascinating. If this lasts till spring, I will replant it and see how long I can keep the process going. 

Only a few more days left of 2013. 

Will see you all on the flip side. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Sweet Things

Our kitchen has been a bustle of activity the past few days.  The girls have been busy with their holiday baking.  They've had their heads together, pouring over all our many, many  holiday baking books for inspiration and ideas.  They have a long list of yummy things they plan to make.  They do keep it all rather traditional though, so things move along at an even pace.  I just take the list, provide the ingredients, step back and let them have at it.  So far they've made gingerbread cookies and sugar cookie cut-outs.  Banana bread is baking now.  Oh, it all smells sooo good.  I think blueberry scones and snowballs are next on the list.  They have me down for fudge and pan shortbread.  I think I can manage that.  The Mister is our official taste-tester.  And it's also his job to make sure there's a good supply of Christmas music playing in the background.  Got all my gift wrapping done.  Kicking back a little, taking it all in.

Company is coming, so I will take this time to wish everyone a wonderful holiday, a very Merry Christmas full of warmth and cheer, sugar plum dreams, safe travels and lots of sweet things.

  

 

Good Tidings

 

The Christmas crunch.  It's here.  And there's no time to waste.  All that lovely epic snow disappeared and I finally got out of the house last weekend and haven't stopped running since.  Normally I don't mind being "snowed in" just as long as it happens at a nice convenient time and I don't have to take the car out.  I don't ask for much, do I?  Nah....  Oh, that week seemed way too long for some poor folks.  When it was all over we heard stories of truly harrowing experiences and counted ourselves lucky.  Most of the kids were thrilled to be out of school, but shopkeepers were grumpy.  It was finals week at the University.  Not the best timing for them either. 

 

I'm happy because all the shopping is done!  The Christmas cards went out this morning.  Fun gift wrapping is underway.  I didn't have a color/theme in mind, but when I gathered everything together it looked perfectly coordinated.  Which is funny because, I just sort of picked things up at random here and there over the past few months.  (The animal tags are from Molly & Rex.  'From Me To You' tags from C.R. Gibson).  I love hang tags and just discovered that Avery makes these, similar to the business cards that can be printed out at home.  I was poking around the web and found these sweet designs specifically designed for them.  (Thanks Jessica!  She includes an excellent tutorial and a downloadable PDF too.)

Now I think it's time to bake something . . .

 

Are We Having FUN Yet?

Oh my goodness...day six and we are still snowed in.  We actually saw a snow-plow drive by the house yesterday afternoon for the first time and jumped out of our chairs and cheered.  I pulled on my boots and mittens and trudged out the door to find, with mild disappointment, that the effort hadn't done much to improve the road conditions.  Just sort of cleared the top layer and left the ice sheet that was underneath it.  More suitable for ice-skating than for driving.

The Mister has managed, with 4WD, to get back and forth to work though, and even picked up a few groceries, but beyond that, he hasn't ventured further than necessary.  He knows when to leave "well-enough" alone. 

Schools remain closed, but the delivery vans and postal trucks are chained-up and making their usual rounds, so I've been able to get your Internet orders shipped out and on their merry way thanks to their perserverance.  It cannot be easy for them and we are grateful and appreciative and admire their bravery.  Please note: I have not been able to get to the Post Office, which for me is about a ten mile drive into town, therefore I am sorry to say, mail-orders will be delayed.  We do what we can.

It's been in the teens and twenties so far this week with very little thaw.  No one seems to know when this "cold snap" will end, or if Winter is just getting started early with a bang.  Freezing rain is in the forcast for this afternoon.  I can only imagine what new *fun* that will bring.  A horse-drawn sleigh is probably our best bet at this point.  And so appropos given the season! 

I'm not really complaining though, but rather reporting on our neck of the woods.  As always, our thoughts and prayers are with those who are suffering serious hardships due to weather and other disasters.  Hugs and peace to all. 

Slow Thaw

Just popping in for another update.  I wanted to share this GORGEOUS view from our kitchen window.  It was a nippy, teeth-chattering 12 degrees early this morning when I snapped this picture from the warmth and comfort of my house.  At any rate, much too cold to go out in one's slippers and jammies, as I found out.   

Almost everything (business and school) is still shut down in our little corner of the world.  Even the local newspaper is being delivered electronically--by way of PDF.  Oh, you gotta love technology!  We've actually been house-bound since Friday morning.  Because as pretty as it looks, there's a layer of slick ice underneath all this lovliness and driving a car on an ice sheet rivals Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.  And not in a fun way. 

Living here, in this normally temperate climate, we're not expecting or prepared for this kind of weather and stud-tires and chains are not our usual mode of winter operendi.  Maybe it should be.  The snow-plows have been working around-the-clock clearing the highways and haven't made it out to the local roads and rural areas yet.  In the meantime, everyone's just waiting for the roads to defrost.  And it doesn't look like that is going to happen any time soon as it is still below freezing with a possibility of more snow on the way.  We are already dipping into our winter pantry stores, making crockpot soup and chili from dried peas and beans.  We're running low on fresh produce and eggs, but can make do.  I made my chocolate chip banana bread on Sunday.  Very good warm out of the oven with French roast.  Yum!  Being snowed-in isn't all bad.

 

Surprise Snowfall

Waking up this morning, we were all stunned to find nearly six inches of snow had fallen overnight here in the valley, and was still falling, with bone-chilling winds whipping up drifts throughout the day.  Enough to make some of the windows frosty around the edges, and looking out, like a holiday picture postcard.  By the end of the day the snowfall here had reached nearly a foot.  Quite a surprise!  The weather forcasters apparently never saw it coming either because no warnings had been issued, which might explain why the snowplows weren't running and the roads were so trecherous.  (A few cars passing through our neighborhood ended up in the ditch).  The Mister attempted to drive to work, but gave up after a truck jack-knifed on the highway backing up traffic for miles.  It really was not safe to be driving and I was relieved when he turned back around and came home.  Schools and roads were closed, and the company Christmas dinner we were planning to attend tonight was also cancelled, so we are just hunkering down here with our quilts and hot cocoa.  Brrr...  It is supposed to drop down to 9 degrees tomorrow night with predictions of staying fridgidly cold until Monday.  We are keeping our fingers crossed that our pipes don't freeze.  In the meantime, this storm is said to be moving north.  Hopefully, our Portland and Seattle friends will fare better.  Stay safe everyone! 

Left Overs

Hello everyone, hope you all had a great Thanksgiving with all the trimmings and are enjoying lots of yummy leftovers.  The crockpots are full and working overtime in my kitchen, churning out wonderful soups and stock and making the house smell delicious.  I plan to make enchiladas this week too.  This has become somewhat of a "tradition" around here with the leftover turkey.  I am still trying to choose between the two versions; traditional chili sauce or the sour cream version.  We like both equally well.  Hmm. Decisions, decisions.