Thursday-8:15am

Woke up yesterday to the sound of the snowblower on the sidewalk...

...reluctant cars warming up in the parking lot, a little snow on the porch... 

...and a solid grey sky. 

The storm kicked up a notch... 

...and the snow came down pretty steadily all day.  Outlying schools were closed and some in town were closing early, too.  Dagan and Leah are so fortunate that they can work from home if they need to.  

I even called Cashwise to see if I should change my delivery day, but the lady told me they were still delivering out of town and, even if they cut off the outlying deliveries, they planned to deliver in town all day as usual.  And they came!  I asked the intrepid delivery man--no, they don't have special tires or four wheel drive, either--just regular vans!  :)

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I am sooo happy!!  Thanks again to my mystery Grocery-Santa!!  I am now stocked up on canned food for Miss Karma, coffee for me, toilet paper, and all kinds of goodies!  :):)  What a blessing!! 

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  This morning there was a sun dog--quite bright--off to the left of the sun. 

Here's a close up.  Or as close as my camera will zoom.   

The windows were speckled with snow... 

...so that it was difficult to get pictures.  I wanted to show you the snowpile between those garages that appeared in the last 24 hours. 

Very crispy out there at 1 degree right now.  We're supposed to get down to 15 to 20 below over the weekend with dangerous wind chills of 25-40 below.  I hope everybody stays safe! 

Once morning bloomed...look at the sun passing through the cloud layer!   

Looked like this beam of light was shining down on the earth. 

I am captivated so often by the beauty of the sky. 

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Miss Karma was captivated by a thicker layer of snow on the porch... 

...and the little clumps falling off the flapping screen as the sun performed its magic on this frigid morning.

Those of you who know Karma well will know why she asked to go out three times already this morning (three was apparently enough for her frozen paws) and will recognize what she is doing in this picture.

Yup!  She's eating her snowy footprints off the rug--LOL! 

Never fails to crack me up.  Silly girl!

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Right now she's sleeping in the sun and warming up.  ;)

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Me--still humming and working on letters and the cards with Christmas music on Pandora, so not sure when I'll be around to pop in and say hello again.  Just know it's holiday-bubbly time up here in Fargo!  Dagan and Leah passed on visiting last night with the storm, of course, and will come next Wednesday instead.  I am hoping to have all the Christmas cards done by then so we can get them in the mail...and you know I don't move fast--LOL!  Putter-putter-putter.  ;)  But one can get a lot done a little at a time.  (I just got the last of the groceries put away this morning.)  

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Don't forget to play in the snow and eat your footprints if you feel like it.  ;)

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"Patience is being friends with Time."

 Vanna Bonta   

Tuesday-10am

This was a lovely morning shot from a few days ago.

Quick T Stands For Tuesday today. 

Been working on the Christmas card fronts...adding a little bit of decoration to them...liquid pearls first and then a little sparkle will be painted on. 

I was reading and reading since I last posted.  Amy (library lady) came on Sunday and took away 10 books--everything but Proust's Swann's Way.  But I suspected it was the type of book that might be on some college student's waiting list.  Yes, Amy emailed me yesterday to tell me that indeed it could not be renewed.  She'll stop by on Thursday evening to pick it up (due on Saturday so it won't be overdue or anything).  No way do I have time to read it before then--so no Proust for me right now--LOL!  Maybe I'll try again at some later date.  But I told her that, regardless, for now I need a library book break until after the holidays.  :)

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Meanwhile--we woke up to snow yesterday!

First time we actually had some ground cover. 

We're supposed to have winter storm moving in today or tomorrow that might not finish up till Thursday.  Wind chills of 20-35 below.  The near blizzard conditions might go by to the north of us.  Time will tell.

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  Me--I am washing bedding today and making bread.  Karma--she's trying to find the mysterious, invisible, chirping bird inside her brown crinkle bag.  

We are grateful to be safe and warm!  I will keep working on letters and finishing the Christmas cards...singing with Christmas music on Pandora.  :)  If the storm is bad here in Fargo I won't see Dagan and Leah tomorrow night and I wonder if Cashwise will be able to make it with my groceries tomorrow afternoon?  We'll see.  I'd rather everyone was safe.

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Anyways, I'm off!  Caroline is coming this afternoon...things to do.  ;)  Have a very happy Tuesday!!  :):)
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"Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way."

Native American prayer

Friday-9:45am

This is morning in Fargo this day after Thanksgiving.  I hope those of you who celebrated had a wonderful day--well, and everybody else, too.  ;)

 Besides working on letters (and that's my current raspberry-colored journal I write in every morning)...

...I've been reading a lot because my library lady, Amy, will be here Sunday to pick up books.  In a month I managed to get through all of these Cat Who books! 

And since I last posted, I added these two "food-related" books... 

...and I'm started on this one.  

Which leaves me only the Proust book.  I haven't asked for any new books with Proust to look forward to and Christmas cards to make.  I can email her when I'm ready for a new stack.

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I've read enough about our food industry and how eating a WFPB diet (whole food plant based) is really good for me.  Not sure I can actually accomplish that 100%, but I have been leaning heavily in that direction.  Been tweaking my grocery cart for December.  ;)  Due to my most generous anonymous grocery-gifter I can take a bigger next step than I would have, too!  I am just plain overflowing with gratitude.  :):)

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Besides reading, I was also watching a British police series that was going to be knocked off Netflix streaming at the end of the month--Trial & Retribution.  (Dropping movies and series off streaming and only giving you notice of a week or less to watch them is a huge pet-peeve of mine with Netflix!)

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Anyways, I kind of had a marathon yesterday on Thanksgiving to finish it.  It was generally a quieter show where I had to turn the volume up to hear it over my tinnitus.  Suddenly a smoke alarm went off on the show--very loudly!  For a second I thought it was mine!  Karma did, too!  I told her not to worry--that it was on TV and that she was safe.

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I went back to watching the episode...and the next one...and I think I was into a third one when I noticed I hadn't seen Miss Karma for a long time, which is unusual because she's normally within eyesight.  If not--she's in the kitchen or the hallway...but she wasn't there.  I start looking all over for her and can't find her.  Come on!  This place is small.

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I finally located her.  I'd forgotten all about the fire alarm on the show, but Karma had gone in the bedroom and crawled into her stroller...and fallen asleep.  She was all ready to be zipped in and hauled down the stairs--just in case--LOL!  

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Which made me take note that it has been a long time since the fire alarm has gone off here.  Used to be at least about once or twice a year.  Which is why I bought the pet stroller in the first place.  Carrying 20 lbs of Karma in her carrier down three flights of stairs and all the way out to our garage to sit and wait for the all clear which was given every time (have a chair out there) and then haul her back again--with my back--was torture!  I don't think we've had a fire alarm go off now for could even be going on two years??

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Knock on wood!!!

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Karma also gets zipped into her stroller when we have tornado sirens.

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She wasn't taking any chances, I guess.  

Miss Karma highly values her life.  ;)

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And, obviously, she doesn't really trust me to tell her the truth.  Now, that offended me.

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Anyways, I probably won't get back to working on the Christmas cards until after the library lady comes on Sunday or until I finish the last food book, whichever comes first.  It's 22 degrees right now.  The wind is rattling the windows and pounding against the building in hearty gusts.  The sun is still battling the clouds...and winning for brief periods of time.  It's a lovely day to read.  

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I count you all amongst my blessings!!  :):)

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"Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind."

-Lionel Hampton

Tuesday-9:30am

T Stands For Tuesday already.

I think T stands for Too stiff and sore--LOL!

I never got any farther than getting the card fronts all set up and ready to be embellished after my big Sunday shopping trip with Leah.  But I slept well last night and am feeling better today--so look out tree baubles!  Maybe.  ;)  Everything is still sitting on the other end of the table and you can see our huge stack of new paper!  :)

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Sixteen degrees and sunny out this morning.

Karma says hi.

[For those of you who wondered--this is not a heating pad Karma's lounging on.  It's an ancient little cotton oval bath mat that she loves for some reason.]

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Short and sweet today.

Have a blue sky day!!  :)

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"Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognise how good things really are."

Marianne Williamson

Monday-9:30 am

Woke up to a little bit of snow one morning--can't remember which one.  (When you're home 24/7 it gets hard to keep the days of the week straight--LOL!).

And another day it snowed the same dry, fine, drifting snow... 

...for a few hours in the morning. 

Was cold enough to keep most of what little there was on the ground. 

Single digits. 

First true sign of winter.

A frozen car needing to be jumped. 

Well, we didn't have enough time on Saturday (K&Krafts closes at 5pm) so Leah and I went craft shopping yesterday afternoon.  Was supposed to be a lot warmer than the 9 degrees on Saturday, too, and maybe hit the low 30s.  (It might have but the wind sure felt cold.)

First we went to K&Krafts in the Moorhead Center Mall where we spent most of our time.

We were looking for some dark blue ink pads (for some landscape silhouette stamps).  They didn't have a refill for the Colorbox in Midnight, so I will probably find that refill online.

Can you tell we LOVE delicate snowflakes?

We bought some cutting dies. 

We mostly only have Spellbinder brand, so this will be interesting using these very thin ones. 

Those of you who get Christmas cards will have an idea of what several years worth of future cards will look like--LOL!  ;)

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We got a bunch of Liquid Pearls!  I only had a few here and I decided I do really like them.

Except for the (Christmas) Ruby Red, you can tell we are pretty conservative with bling colors. 

Next we headed back across the river to Fargo and hit Joann's.  We were looking for cheap, plain  8 1/2 X 11 inch card stock and discovered that Joann's had it on sale!  Whoohoo!  Jackpot!

  So we got both the regular and the textured in white...

...and black.

Got a multi-colored browns in regular and a textured brown. 

A regular in red and a different textured, dark multi-colored pack. 

The grand finale was a huge stack of multi-colored sheets for $12.99! 

Gives us quite a variety to choose from! 

So we are stocked up again on card stock.  :)  Nice!!

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By this time I was no good for walking anymore--even though I could go sit somewhere while Leah paid (there were some long lines at the big stores).  So I stayed in the car while Leah ran in to Michael's to look for more snowflake stuff.  (I forgot to take a picture of the store because I was watching a craft video on my cell phone and Leah was texting me from inside the store--LOL!)  She found this Martha Stewart snowflake punch that she liked and sent me a picture!  Pretty cool, eh?

Anyways, that was our shopping trip.  We go on a craft haul about once a year--sometimes it's longer than that, but it's always such fun!  We have such a good time.  It tickles me that we have similar tastes in a lot of things, too, so we both get excited finding this or that treasure...like--ahhhh--those snowflake dies!!  Yup, feels like Christmas over here this morning!!  :)

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Happy Monday, Everybody!!  :):)

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“To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.” 

Mark Twain