February 19, 2024 Monday--5am

 Good morning!

First of all, the boys wanted to show me their Valentine boxes they worked so hard on.

I loved that Liam wanted to make sure he showed me every single side of his Valentine Box.

He even had Mama make a little video to show me his secret buttons for opening and closing it--lol!

Gramma loves those little videos.  :)

The finished valentines looked like this on the front.  The name of the classmate (covered with an eraser, of course) and then their signature.  I am delighted that Ian is learning cursive!  He is really enjoying it, Leah said.  (I think Gramma needs to send him a card with a note inside--in cursive!)

The backside seals with the little flaps.

The card inside with the taped on crayon.

They can remove the card and color on it.

Ian wants to try something else next year.  (Who can blame a young man who is learning cursive, right?)  Liam might want to do the crayons again.  He's not sure.  We have a long time before next Valentine's Day.  And my studio will be available with all kinds of choices.  ;)

Well, what a week!  Leah got even worse.  Ended up in the walk-in clinic again beginning of the week.  She had a sinus infection.  Got put on antibiotics.  They had thought it was just this lingering cold/cough they all got--but Liam got worse, too.  So they all went to the walk-in clinic...I think it was Wednesday night after work.  Turned out Liam had sinus infection and an ear infection...and Dagan also had a sinus infection.  No one but Leah ever had covid, though.  Ian was okay--just the tail end of the cold/cough and nothing else.  So, three of them are on antibiotics.  Everybody is finally starting to get better.  Goodness!  They have been sick for weeks!  What a winter they've had so far.

Myself?  I have been just fine.  (knock on wood)  Just really taking it easy in low gear.  I know that by spring things will pick up and be busier and busier, so I am kind of resting up before the move.  ;)  In fact, I realized that the only pictures I took all week were of Allie--lol!  Some weeks I don't have any or almost forget her--but this week she is the star--lol!

She has enjoyed being up on her chair again.  I think she realized she could lie there and keep an eye on the birds--lol!

  

I was busy with all the usual puttering about...making food, doing laundry, dishes, bringing the trash out, wrote a couple of letters, and I even swept the patio again.  Yes...in February!  Were cold for a couple of days and now back to spring weather.  Going to be in the 40s for over a week, they predict.  Possibly low 50s!  The snowstorms have gone out to the northeastern United States.  I heard they could get near a foot of snow in places...and we have brown grass.

But Miss Allie is not used to me being up at the table here for periods of time every day.  She started to pace around and cry...a lot more..this past week.  Cats!  She doesn't really enjoy change very much--lol!  She hasn't liked me being up at the table for long periods of time, but this past week it was totally stressing her out.

You may remember back when I normally spent my days at the table and was up and about every day that both Karma and Annie would curl up in a chair with a cat bed on the top right next to my chair at the table.  Well, Allie was not keen on that idea at all.  I tried different chairs and different cat beds...no go.

Finally on Sunday I may have discovered the secret.  The sound of me scraping a chair across the floor was a problem.  She doesn't like loud noises...even more than Shy Annie!!  Would run away.  But when I picked the chair up and set it down gently...got her favorite bed with the hunk of old memory foam underneath from "her" chair...picked her up and put her in the bed...well, this time she stayed!  You can see her ears are back.  She wasn't feeling comfortable or happy...but she stayed.  

Maybe she finally figured out all her crying and drama wasn't going to get me back in my big comfy chair in the living room where she thought I belonged.  No loud scary chair scraping.  It is a comfy cat bed, after all...and she wanted to be near me.  I think she finally she gave up.  It took a good half an hour or so, but she relaxed...

...completely.  Sound asleep!  Making dream noises--lol!

Now will this be a one-off?  Who knows?  I will do the same thing each day--lifting not scraping the chair across the floor, get the comfy bed, and hope for the best.  Cats are so annoying when they pace and cry--lol!  And it is so silly!  Allie wouldn't normally even see me all day long because she'd usually be sleeping in the cat bed up on the table in the bedroom.  I guess she just can't relax to sleep in there when I have changed my routine for the first time since she came here--lol!  Got to keep an eye on her human.  Maybe once she gets used to this new routine she'll be happy to sleep all day in the bedroom again, eh?  So funny!  Cats!  They often make no sense at all.  Gotta love'em.

So, that's how the week went over here.  Hopefully McFamily will be feeling lots better now this coming week.  Already they're seeing improvements.  The plumbers are coming today!!  They think they might be able to finish in three days!?  We'd be thrilled if they can finish this week.  Keanna comes to clean on Tuesday.  I am working on the birthday cards.  The week will fly by, I expect.

What is the weather like your way?  Is it pretty normal?  Is February flying by for you, too?  In this crazy world I am glad all I have to deal with is a weirded-out cat who wants to be near me because she thinks something is wrong with me because I am not acting like she expects me to--LOL!  Hey, maybe that is why she came back to sleep more in the living room on her chair, too!  Trying to figure out why I am not acting like she has been used to.  She thought it would pass...but it hasn't...to the point she couldn't sleep and she started to pace and cry the last week when I was up at the table.  Non-stop!  Could be.  My life is getting better and her life went to h-e-double-hockey-sticks.  It is all perspective, right?  ROFL!!

Giggling up here in Fargo.  Have a great week!  Till next time...

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!!  :)

February 5, 2024 Monday--5am

 Good morning!

Another very short post this week.  We had fog many days the past couple weeks.  One day it never lifted all day long!!  This was a day we had some sun peeking through.

Going to be a brown February for a good while.  We've been in the mid-40s and looking at the same till mid-month.  Might even hit 50!  Even the birds are here less often.

Miss Allie was actually up on what used to be "her" chair.  She lost interest in that spot ages ago.

So very long ago I had to get pictures.  Her favorite spot is her cat bed in the bedroom on the table by the window...for months and months now.  So far this was a one-off--lol!

Well, I ordered a little red wire egg basket for my eggs.  Love it so much!  Will be so handy for after I move to carry eggs down to my apartment.  ;)

 

BTW--for those who asked me about it...the United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Scandinavia are the only countries where eggs are kept cold before and after purchase.  In the US it is illegal for egg companies to not wash the eggs and keep them chilled.

I researched it a little and the main reason eggs have to be kept refrigerated is that washing the eggs removes the protective coating they naturally have that keeps them from becoming porous so that they don't absorb bacteria.  Once they are washed they must be kept refrigerated to keep down bacteria getting into the now more vulnerable eggs.  The thing that is the main problem with eggs is salmonella.  But even with companies cleaning the eggs with soap and hot water (I didn't realize they even used soap!) we still do have some cases of salmonella in the US.  Over 100,000 a year, I read.  

But in many other countries unwashed eggs are out on the shelves like this grocery in the UK.

Since our eggs come from a private local family farm with free range chickens, we can keep ours out and they should be good for up to 50 days, I read.  They say 20 days for store bought refrigerated eggs, but I have certainly kept them longer than that.  Anyways, makes me feel quite European--lol! :)

I had another apartment inspection Thursday morning.  This was the annual one from Federal Housing.  He didn't expect me to still be here.  Neither did I--lol!  But things are moving along now so I certainly shouldn't be seeing him again. ;)

The electricians were there last Monday and Tuesday.  I guess they finished up in like a day and a half!  Trent had been almost done with that part.  And now--believe it or not--the plumbers will be coming this Wednesday through Friday to do all the plumbing and HVAC.  They may finish in three days but may not.  I expect they'll be back the following week, because they're doing all the plumbing from scratch and finishing the HVAC.  It's bathroom, kitchenette, washer and dryer...a lot to hook up.  Plus they are doing a few things for the house, too.  

This is all so exciting!!  Now it feels unreal in a different way--lol!  ;)

It still upsets me when I think about that inspector being so mean to Leah that he made her cry.  He even threatened her with the police.  Leah had made inquiries before they started and was told to go ahead and have an inspector come later.  You get told one thing and then another.  I am soooo glad the contractors will deal with all the red tape and be responsible for that now.  She couldn't get a straight answer about Trent working on the build anymore either.  Bureaucracy!!  Anyways, we won't have to worry about that end of things anymore.  And the build is moving along--so far--faster than expected.  Nice!!  

With the crazy warm weather we've been having (mid-40s every day) I worry when I see partridges showing up in pairs.  I hope they don't think it is spring already!

 

I was working on letters again.  Finally caught up with the entire 29 I owed.  Done and dusted!  Have a new one to answer, but I should be able to keep up now, though.  Feels great!  

I always have something else on my list, as you know--so next is to get back to the birthday cards.  Need to color the rest and address all the envelopes.  That is the next project on my priority list.  

Oh, and Leah came over Thursday night to cut my hair and drop off some wood pellets.  They use the wood pellets for Blink's litter box.  Way cheaper and can't be dragged all about on their feet so easily, either.  So, the plan is to slowly add a little bit to Allie's litter box and see if I can gradually get her switched over to the pellets before we move.  With cats--well, you never know, do you?  Just been sprinkling about a cup on top and been mixing them in so far.  When I scoop quite a few come out with the rest...so I add a little more.  Just keeping it like that for now.  I can tell Allie doesn't really like the chunkier feel of them in her litter by the way she's changed how she's using the box (doesn't want to bury her business like usual).  But she's using it.  When I tried this with shy Annie she immediately pooped right outside the box on the floor--making her opinion crystal clear--lol!  Fingers crossed.  Cats are so opinionated. ;)

McFamily was sick again...or still.  I have heard of people from all over getting this cold that lingers for weeks where you might think it is gone for a few days and then it is right back.  (It's not covid--and they did test, just in case.)  Sounds like what McFamily has been dealing with for a couple of weeks.  Everyone else is pretty much better except for Leah.  She might miss work today she told me.  I still haven't gotten it.  *knock on wood*  Fingers crossed for not getting that, too.  

Too many crossed fingers to type--ROFL!

Well, that's it from here for this week.  You have a fabulous week!  Till next time.  :) :)