Run Me Out In the Cold Rain and Snow

Post title is a line from a Dead song.  

On top of being dumped on with the record setting blizzard, we've also had drenching rain which did little to nothing to melt the mess, and earlier this week we had a storm that started out with snow, which changed to sleet/ice, then rain, back to ice and finishing the evening with more snow. And wind.  And plummeting temps. 

This has made taking the dogs out very treacherous, and I went down like a crumpled heap when I set my foot down on snow and promptly slipped on the thick ice underneath.  I couldn't even get back to my feet without crawling to a snowbank to get traction.  Now thanks to that little spill, I need traction.  Hurt my neck, back, right arm and right leg pretty bad. All I could do the rest of the week was hobble around trying to do errands & stuff around the house (because the errands wait for no one), read in bed, take hot showers and nap.  And everyone who knows me knows that I do not nap. Ever.  

Needless to say, I have had no motivation to craft and it's too cold and snowy to go anywhere or do anything.  Roads are still compact snow and ice, or slush.  Getting back in my driveway is difficult because I back in when it's snowy.  Takes me multiple tries. 

Took this pic of some footprints in the back yard.  Glad something can access the back because I still can't.  Poor dogs are relegated to the driveway for their business which I then have to shovel out of the way.

Still though, the weather's made for some pretty cool icicles over the back deck.  They pose no danger because there is still that giant drift that's about three feet deep. I'm just letting them go to see how big they get.

They lit up really nice in the late afternoon sun.

I don't have much in the way of predrafted blog posts coming up.....hoping to get back to all of it soon, both crafting and blogging.  I'll still be visiting blogs and I hope you guys don't abandon me for lack of posts but I'll be back when I have something good to share.

Ice Chunks in the Canal

This was a novelty to me, seeing a bunch of ice chunks flowing through the Canal from the Bay.  These pics aren't very good because it was high tide and most of the ice was closer to the other side.

Another Year Gone By

2013 got off to a rough start, at least for me, and it seemed also for a lot of my friends, judging from my Facebook newsfeed.  There was a lot of frustration with vehicle repair issues, and then losing power after the blizzard in Feb. definitely sucked out loud.  The summer was long, hot and humid and I was a prisoner in my house for days at a time.  August was extremely social and full of photographic junkets on the few cool, dry days we got.  Yet I can't really remember what all I did while I was trapped in the house all summer.  I know I made stuff, but I have better memories of the summers of 2011 and 2012 than I do 6 months ago!  My fave part of the year was spending time with the kids.  

I was pleased we were able to get a few things we've needed for awhile.  My new recliner and camera are awesome.  And a generator....that's the best.  It's also nice to have a small wood kitchen table instead of a card table.

It snowed a few times this month, although we didn't have a white Christmas.  I managed to get a few snaps of the lights reflecting on the snow before the rain washed it all away.

Sunrise on 12/19.

Pepperbean rocking the comfy coziness on a cold winter day.  I put the blanket on her.  I had it on both dogs, but Sagan promptly got off the couch, wanting nothing to do with yet another photo op.  I've figured out that I can get them to stop pestering me if I point a camera at them.  That usually makes them turn away and go lay down.

We had a quiet holiday season.  I ran out of time to take night pics of the lights in town and in Sandwich. The weather just didn't cooperate at all.  It was either bitter cold, snowing or raining. I did enjoy getting together with some women in Sandwich one night, as one was in from China! She's lived there for 21 years and is a teacher there.  She said she was only supposed to stay for 2 years!  My cousins came up from Maryland right after Christmas and I visited with them as well.  I was also asked to take Christmas pics of our great nieces, Abi & Katie.  This is the first time I've ever shot portraits of humans, let alone babies! But I think they came out really well.

This one really makes me laugh.  It looks like Abi's pulling Katie's hat down and saying, 'Pay no attention to her! I'M the star here....'

Such sweet girls!!!  They were good as gold for the shoot.

Christmas Eve.

New toys for the puppies on Christmas day.

We visited w/ my mom on Christmas morning and then went to his sister's to visit his family before coming home to cook.  The youngest came over for dinner around 3.  Mom finally let me take the small jar of beach glass that I found in the 70s and 80s.  The jar has been on the hallway window sill since I was a kid, and many of these pieces are over 40 years old.  I noticed how much thicker the glass is too.

Sunset Christmas day.

The weather's been so erratic, temperature-wise.  It's either 20* or 50*.  It got super cold a couple days after Christmas.

This is the hood of my car.  My friends pointed out that it looks like a mountain range as seen from a plane.

I was amazed at this almost perfectly round spot of different frost patterns.

Indeed.

Close up of the patterns in the circle.

My stepdaughter and her boyfriend celebrated Christmas with us on the 28th.  I made these cupcakes for our get together.

Oh yeah!  Michelle sent me another box of pure awesomeness!!

This fibre is gorgeous.  So many colours with hints of gold sparkly thread.

Seriously, what's not to love about this stuff?!

When my nose gets cold, it's really uncomfortable, and for some reason, that happens a lot, even when I have the heat on.  Nothing I do seems to warm it up either.  Last year I mentioned it in passing to Michelle, and teased that I wanted her to knit me a little teeny blanket for my nose with thread on either side that I'd hook around my ears.  Instead, she knitted me this freakin AWESOME cowl that slips over my head and I can pull it up around my ears and nose, while keeping my hands & eyes free.  It works like a charm and I've been wearing it quite a bit.  It keeps my neck so toasty too.

As soon as I saw the fibre, I knew exactly what I was going to do for my first project with it.  I made a coiled little basket out of clothesline wrapped with the fibre.

It's quite small and I could have continued to make it taller but I stopped at this level.  I worked with 3 foot lengths at a time to avoid massive tangling, and used a tapestry needle to help with the wrapping and securing each coil to the one below it.  I was gonna top it with beads but I think I'll leave it plain.  As usual, this was just a prototype to see if I could remember how to make this (I made on in the late 90s from a kit and fortunately, I'd saved the instructions).

It's hard to believe this is our 3rd New Years Eve together and coming up on our 3rd anniversary on January 7.  We are talking more about getting married sooner rather than later, and it just may happen in 2014.  We want his son & fiancee' to be present, so we will have to coordinate when they are able to come out from Ohio.  My stepdaughter is my maid of honour and I am pretty sure that the boys will be the best men. It'll be really small, just the kids & us, I think.  Then later on we'll have something at the Legion or somewhere, for our friends to celebrate with us, eat and so forth.  I still get the butterflies when we're together and I look forward to taking his name.  I'm very blessed and grateful to have so may great friends and family.  I love my stepkids very much and I am so pleased that they love me too.  They see their dad happy for the first time ever and I really love making new memories together as a family.

I hope 2014 is a healthy and prosperous year for all of you!  

January Days

While I feel sorry for the plow drivers and ski resorts, I am loving this January weather.  We continue to have day after day of clear, crystal blue skies, with the occasional grey or rainy day.  We had a few bitter cold days again over Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, where it got up to a balmy 17* one day.  Still, as long as you were bundled up, it wasn't that bad.  This came across my newsfeed on Facebook and it really made me laugh.  This was so totally me on those freezing cold nights and mornings!!!

Friday, Jan.13th was wicked windy.  There were gusts between 50-70 mph all day long, into the early evening and that's when the temps started to dip to single digits.  We'd gone into Sandwich to do some errands and saw that the Canal was extremely choppy.  When we got back to BBay we went over to the train bridge.  I could barely keep my footing in the wind.  I don't think I've ever seen surf like this in the Canal when it wasn't a nor'easter or hurricane.

These pictures don't do the waves justice at all.  It was high tide and the wind was screaming.

Needless to say, we didn't see any marine traffic this day.

It's hard to see, but this was taken from my windshield, because the rollers were very impressive from this angle.

Locust trees against the late afternoon sky on the 14th.  This is at my mom's.

Old building at the E. Sandwich Grange.

Flooded cranberry bog with a skimcoat of ice, on Old County Road.  Bogs are flooded in extreme temperatures to protect the plants.

Along Rte. 6A, E. Sandwich

At the Sandwich Marina.  These boats are in a vacant lot for the winter.  I didn't notice the masts sticking up when I first drove past them, till I got to the other side of the marina.  

Jan. 15th was the most frigid of the entire weekend. This cold steel brought to mind the scene in "A Christmas Story" when Schwartz double dog dares Flick to lick the flag pole. 

This was my Project 365 picture for that day.

Sunset from the back door, Jan. 15.

Another gorgeous, cold day on the 16th as well.

Stoked to see this Dead sticker on a canoe at Shawme Pond.  We are everywhere.

Shawme Pond starting to freeze, but not enough to skate on.

Don't these roots look like bones?  Especially that 'arm' in the upper right corner with 2 bony fingers giving the peace sign.

Shawme Pond.  That's a buoy in the ice.

My old stomping ground in Western Washington, is experiencing this, to which I say, "Better them than me!"  I'll take freezing cold and clear any day over snow!