February 12, 2024 Monday-5am

Good Morning!

Well, plans changed on my priority list.   Since Leah was getting worse and was sicker than anyone else in the house and couldn't make it to work on Monday she went to the walk-in clinic Tuesday morning and discovered she had covid for the second time.  They took the boys out of school and Dagan came home from work.  Nobody else tested positive.  Since she had been here and cut my hair on Thursday and she started getting noticeably sicker on Friday I tested myself, too.  Negative.  

Both Dagan and Leah can work from home, but Leah was too miserable to do that for a couple of days.  I think they are all going to be back at work and school today now.  But--meanwhile--Valentine's Day was descending upon the grade school whether Leah was sick or not--lol!  So, plans changed. :)

Those of you who have been around a long time would have seen the Valentine's Day heart crayons Leah and Ian made...was it four years ago?  Before covid, anyways.  I thought they were the most unique Valentines I had ever seen.

  

Before Leah got really sick she had found some of the leftover envelopes from back then that Ian had used.  He wanted to do the crayon hearts again...so that had been her plan...to come over and die cut out more envelopes for Ian and Liam.

Ian was fine with keeping to the pastel-colored ones he already had.  Liam wanted yellow envelopes.  Current favorite color, I think. ;)  Luckily, I hadn't packed away any of my cardstock, so I had enough pastel cardstock for the rest of Ian's.  

Between Leah and I we had enough shades of yellows for Liam's.  

I located the die set and...

...got started cutting out Ian's envelopes.

But the die was getting so rough that the paper stuck and was hard to remove.  Any of you crafters who do die cutting will know how that can happen.  As you can see on the purple one that it was getting so difficult that it was starting to tear the paper.

Searched around but I either had packed away what little bit of waxed paper I had left or had used it up.  Turned out I needed not only Leah's yellow cardstock but also some waxed paper.  (If you run the die through a couple of times cutting waxed paper it puts just enough wax on the die to help the die release the paper easier...at least for a few times--lol!)  So Dagan was sent off--masked--to pick up some wax paper and bring it to me along with her yellow cardstock.

This is what the die plate looked like before I even started cutting Liam's 24 envelopes--lol!  This plate got tossed after I finished.  You crafters know why it's always good to have extra sets of plates on hand.  ;)  

Also--to be on the safe side because of the covid I cancelled Keanna for cleaning on Tuesday and Leah cancelled the plumbers for Wednesday.  Now the plumbers will be starting on Monday the 19th and Keanna will just come in two weeks like normal.

Meanwhile--I had to take a picture of this!  So silly!  That one bottle of fountain pen ink was all that was in this big Amazon box!  No padding of any kind--nothing.  Good thing it was wrapped well with bubble wrap.   

None of any of this mattered to Allie.  She just wants her food, litter box scooped, cuddling when she is in the mood, and for me to feed the birds for her--lol!

I managed to locate on my laptop (rarely ever go "inside" of it-lol!) the card that goes inside of the Valentine envelopes where Leah had stored it...

... and printed off what they needed.  They use rolled up washi tape to attach the heart crayons to these cards.

I also sent home with Dagan some plain washi tapes for the boys to have.

I find I rarely ever use my plain washi tapes.  I use printed ones to decorate paper for letters but never seem to go for the plain ones.  The boys will gladly use these up, she said.  I have some more for them, too, after they do.

Could tell the birds knew bad weather was coming.  Windy, drizzle turning to ice and then snow on top of that.  I put out extra food because they come more often and gobble it down.

I was thinking how smart some animals can be.  As soon as these partridges can scrounge around to eat what they normally would eat (whatever they find in the brown grass and dead weeds in the fields) they go eat that before they come for a handout.  Probably healthier for them.  But as soon as it gets really cold where they need more fuel to stay warm or it snows or there's an ice storm...they are here several times a day.  I can go from a cup or two of seed a day to eight or ten cups a day.  This being such a generally brown winter, they mostly came when it was below freezing for so long and when we had ice.  Even with the little snow you see on the lawn--they will dig with their feet and beaks to get to the grass.  If I toss seed out on to the grass they will go out on the lawn to hunt down the seed out there first before they come to eat so easily right there on the patio.  I have tested that theory out--lol!  Smart partridges.  

Anyways, they kind of warn me before I even check the weather--lol!  Yup--we had ice to snow again.

I must say the flock of 30-40 sparrows/small birds are great opportunists, though, and will come all year round if you want to feed them--lol!  They are quite charming...and flighty nervous.  (We do have some kind of small hawk around here I see occasionally.)

While I finished cutting the envelopes, Allie was on "her" chair.  It wasn't a one-off.  See her ears are back from being disturbed.  How did she know I was silently taking a picture of her?  Psychic?  

Miss Allie has apparently gotten used to these wood pellets being mixed into her litter.  Has at least started to bury her business again, anyways.  But in different spots and not all at one end of the box like she always has done.  She might be just looking for a new spot without the lumps--ROFL!  Good luck, Allie. ;)

I really hope this will work and we can switch her over to the hardwood pellets before we move.

This huge bag is so much less expensive than the bags of kitty litter.  But it must feel so weird to them on their little feet--lol!  Blink switched over no problem.  But Blink was a lot younger.  We'll see how it goes with Allie.

Well, luckily Ian already had his bookboard fair at school before covid happened.  This was his poster...

...from this book titled What Kind of Book Am I?  

He decorated a shirt to wear with it for the fair.

His bookboard all finished.  This was taken up in their schoolroom at home.

And here he is at the bookboard fair in the gym.  Nice job, Ian!

They also spent time up in their old schoolroom working on their Valentine's boxes.  (Note: those bookcases that go around the corner and along the wall are the same Billy bookcases I will have on one side of my studio when I move.)

Here they are working on addressing and signing all those Valentine's.

Leah had a brilliant idea!  She used some washi tape to create lines for the boys to follow on their envelopes.

Since it is washi tape it peels right off easily when they were done.  The boys really appreciated having lines to follow.

The crayon hearts are so cute!

Here's one taped to that inside card.

They make them by using some silicone candy molds.

They break up crayons into pieces and put them into the molds.  Then they put the molds on a tray and put them into the oven to melt them down.  When they are cooled off they just pop them out.  Easy peasy!

Leah forgot to get a picture of the finished Valentines or their Valentine boxes.  She's still not feeling great but maybe she can get them for next week...for posterity. ;)  That's kind of my entire blog--like a letter with pictures--for posterity--lol!

So now this week--the priority is working on the birthday cards--lol!  Life is slow in my world.  But it is such a nice place to be.  Allie and I say bye-bye for this week.  Till next time.  Thank you so very much for stopping by!!  :)