Closing Out The Year

I had to shoot one last experimental picture before the decorations came down.  I would like to do this again with a bigger tree, but overall I'm pleased with the effect.

I had .60 off a gallon of gas with my Stop & Shop points, which made my fill up under $2/gallon. First time since the early 00s.

Cheapest fill up in 14 years.  HOLLAH!

New Years Day was beyond lazy.  Well.....for hubby and the dogs anyway!  I worked on my new laptop, did laundry, made pasta fazool, finished putting the decorations away, prepped blog posts and put the Christmas cards in my scrapbook.  Before the decorations were completely done, I found that starfish ornament in my craft room, courtesy of Ms. Peepers.  She just loves that starfish.  I picked it up to put away but she was standing there so I bent over and offered it to her just to see what she'd do and she gently took it from me.  So cute.  But I didn't want it to get ruined so I took it back and put it away in bubble wrap.  

"Mama! Can I get a scritcher?"

I just love that sweet face! February will be 12 years since I got her.

Late December in Sandwich

My cousin Diane was in town from Maryland for a week so we met up for breakfast and a walk around Sandwich to shoot pictures.  It was a very quiet Monday morning between Christmas and New Years and a gorgeous day.

The town had some early evening events planned for New Years Eve, or First Night as it's called around here. 

Grist Mill

Newcomb Tavern (which I think is either a private home now or a B&B).

Back of Town Hall & the Grist Mill

Newcomb Tavern with the pond tree.

Shawme Pond

Glass Museum

And the "soft glow of electric sex in the window" at the Heart of Stone gift shop.

Much Ado About Nothing

The local media got the entire region whipped up into a panicked frenzy starting on the 23rd about the mother of all blizzards that was going to wallop half of Massachusetts and the greater Eastern Seaboard.  The speculation and breathless updates, especially by WCVB up in Boston, were ridiculous.  Then the National Weather Service and one of the Cape Cod sites piled on with their predictions and that made for a very uneasy area.  Everyone was talking about it and preparing.  I was upset only because I didn't want Russell caught on the road in it.  They were making it sound like we were going to have 21" of snow with hurricane force winds by the 26th. 

I spent Monday and Tuesday shopping, cleaning, doing errands and laundry...I ran into Sandwich real quick too.  I set up the generator and tested it.  I was as ready as I could be.  The weather people finally were able to get a handle on the various scenarios and it looked like only the Cape & Islands were going to take the direct hit. Which, by the way, was when WCVB's coverage dropped off significantly because Boston wasn't going to be affected.  The cutoff was literally at the Canal.  The wind woke me up around 2 AM so I took Pepper out but it hadn't started snowing yet.

This is what I woke up to at 7:00.  I called this picture 'Blizzards Bay'.  The snow was so fine and not accumulating but it was wicked windy.  My sweetie encountered no issues on his trip and was safe, and all my friends & fam were fine, so I was able to relax, finally.

It was windy all day and the lower Cape (Chatham, Eastham, etc) definitely had it worse than I did at my end.  Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard got the most snow and wind.

Snow stopped midday.  I spent most of the morning/early afternoon working on my cross stitch but I finally ventured outside to take some pictures around 4.  

Sun struggling to come out.

The plow made one or two trips down my street but my driveway didn't even need to be done at all, which was good.

The sun was out by 6:30 but the wind was still gusting strongly.

Dark clouds to the northeast.

But sunny in the west.

Ice on my car.

I really hope this was winter's last gasp cause I really don't know how much more of this I can take!!!!

The Winter That Refused to End....

Or as I call it, 'Stuck Inside the House Craftapalooza 2014'.  I'm beginning to think it will never warm up again.  I got real spoiled that first winter here when it was so mild with just that one snowstorm in January.  I remember sitting out on the deck in shorts in March.  I also took the dogs to Scusset Beach that March too. I don't even remember the last time I went to the beach.  Probably in October when I went to E. Sandwich and also to Chatham!

Since I've been stuck inside, I've gotten exceptionally prolific with projects.

Now that I have finally become technologically advanced enough to figure out how to transfer pictures back and forth from my laptop to the 10 year old, modem-less, flashdrive-less, desktop computer in my craft room, it's now way easier for me to work on projects I've saved to my hard drive...stuff that doesn't require tutorials because they are pretty self-explanatory.

There were a couple of designs I wanted to try.  The top right is amber but it photographed red.

Somewhere online (probably Pinterest), I saw a necklace with a key pendant that I liked and this was my interpretation, using Czech glass.  Stringing goes much faster than this eyepin technique, but it came out nice.

Yes this is a Christmas card.  Don't judge.  I am planning on making my cards really soon anyway because I enjoy it and I have a lot of 'cardworthy friends'.  I loved this cute Rudolph cross stitch design.  Took a couple of hours to finish, mounted on blue cardstock and that was mounted on a pre-glittered card.

Since I had the red thread out, I made this stitched baseball card too.

This was a printable Grumpy Cat that you cut out and then assemble by sticking the tabs together.  Unfortunately the tabs are so narrow that it was really hard to get this thing to stick together using regular tape, glue and double stick tape.  It made me quite grumpy. Maybe that was the intent.

I can't draw at all, but I saw this on Pinterest a long time ago and thought yeah, I can totally do that! It's so easy!

Uh....not so much, no.  Think I'll just stick to beads papercrafts and needlework!  My poor Corgi has 3 peg legs.

Then later that day, this arrived from my dear friend Tracy, from the Pull Up a Toadstool blog!!  Sugar cookie mix in an adorable Bumbles oven mitt!!!!   With cutter!  The mitt's just way too cute to use though.

So after dinner, I made them, complete with homemade icing, a first for me.  And I used WAY too much vanilla extract...less than what the recipe called for, yet it was very strong.  That's why I dumped so many sprinkles on it.  The cookies taste good though!

What should I make next?!?!  How about more keys?

My bff Michelle said that the one on the right looked like an owl.  Now I can't unsee it!  This was completely unintentional.

I'm sure winter will end in time for me to be stuck inside the house for the hot, humid summer months!