Merry Christmas!

Christmas can never be perfect again, because my father is not here. Yesterday Robert made a mince pie from scratch, which made the house smell like Christmas. My father loved mince pie, and I was listening to the Messiah and Bach Christmas Oratorio and I just missed him like crazy. Oh my God. I can't even write this without getting teary. We'll have good Christmases and bad Christmases but they will always be incomplete.

Sorry Martha

Last night we had a strange visitor to our bird feeder. I was sitting in the kitchen and something outside caught my eye. The bird feeder was swinging, but it wasn't windy out. So I watched for a few seconds and saw this very odd little creature run down the tree, over to the pole, shimmy up the pole and take a few seeds. He would then leap from the feeder back to the tree and scurry up it. A few seconds later, long enough to eat the seeds I presume, he would repeat the process. It was too small to be a gray or red squirrel. It was about the size of a chipmunk but didn't have the same stripes; this guy's stripes were different. Plus it was out at night, when most squirrels I know are in bed. So I looked it up and it's a northern flying squirrel. We took a couple of movies of his funny little antics and grabbed this screen shot off one of them. It turns out that they are a huge prey animal for owls, which explains his nervousness.

I saw this license plate on the way to school this morning. I wanted to share it with my niece, because we like to say naughty words to each other. Usually the words are around the calibre of "bum" but since she's been going to 1st grade, she's come out with a few words a lot naughtier than "bum". Eek.

We did our presentation this morning. It was great. It was also fun watching the other students' presentations. Robert got his quiz back and got a 115. We also signed up for Italian II next semester today. It's fun.

Tutta la giornata noi abbiamo lavorato su la nostra presentazione in italiano. Sono stanca.

So we survived Thanksgiving. The turkey, which was a locally-raised heritage bird, was awesome. I think it was the best yet, in terms of flavor. The dark meat was a little tough, but that could also be how we cooked it. I used my Burano tablecloth on the table; it was so pretty.

My birthday present came and it came broken! :(  I'm so sad and Robert is really sad. It was a beautiful piece by Lucio Bubacco. Such a shame. We haven't even unpacked it all the way. Here is Leda and the Swan, broken by FedEx.

This is what it's supposed to look like:

Well this stinks. I forgot to blog yesterday. I was so busy. I made the brine, picked up the turkey, made stuffing and helped make a pie. Then my mom came over and we went out for a nice dinner. Ugh. I'm very disappointed that I skipped a day. :(

So today I made the potatoes for Thursday. And I took a pie out of the freezer to thaw in the fridge. Tomorrow I make the stuffing and go get the turkey. Robert will make a pecan pie and the cranberry sauce while I'm gone. Then Thursday all that's left to do is to get the turkey in the oven and set the table. The rest is reheating, and I plan to use crock pots to do that. Genius!

Anyone want to read my palm? I took the picture for a thread on LE and then didn't feel like posting it. Anyway, Happy Birthday to me! I didn't take my Italian quiz as a present to myself.

Well, I decided to skip my meeting today so now I have all these peanutbutter cookies to eat. I think I'll throw them away.

This button I made the other day with one color of glass - Fire Lotus. It's such a neat color because it shifts according to how much heat it gets. I think it's my favorite of all the striking glasses out there.

Oh and the best thing is, my husband had a phone conversation with Angie and now Martha is dying to know what they were talking about. But mum's the word! It's fun to let her stew.

I am making cookies. The peanut butter kind with the Hershey's kiss in the middle. They are not for me; they are for my bead meeting tomorrow. Hands off.

The bead I made yesterday is on the right. The other bead I made last week. These will be made into ornaments. I think I will just run some red ribbon through them.

I'm starting to think about Thanksgiving and plan my menu and make my grocery list. I think I'll go shopping tomorrow; most of what I'll be getting is stuff that will keep. The stuff that won't keep, I'll buy later on.

Today Java had acupuncture. I made a bead, hopefully to be turned into a holiday ornament for an exchange I signed up for. I peeked at it just now when I went to turn off the kiln and it's very cute.

My Kindle Fire came yesterday and today I had some fun in the Amazon store subscribing to magazines. I'm trying out Art Jewelry, Bead & Button and a cooking magazine. So far I really like the device. It's kind of neat. And I love that it's in color.

It gets dark so early. I don't like it. It's only 5:00 and I feel like getting into my PJ's already. That's not right. In June it would be afternoon sunshine and I'd have all kinds of energy. I think I might need to break out my light box.

It was a very quiet day here. I don't know why, but I didn't feel like making beads. Instead I went to the grocery store, and forgot to buy milk. Again.

I've been trying to make a bead that looks like my friend's dog whom she had to have put to sleep last week. I did three tries last week when Amy was here and then this weekend, I tried two more times, and nailed it. I was cleaning them this afternoon and my dremel slipped and put a tiny scratch near the bead hole and onto the front of the bead. Gah! It's so annoying. I wish there were a way to fix that. I might have fixed it temporarily by rubbing a little cooking oil on it to darken the glass. I hope my friend and her daughter like them.

I love fleece sheets. Now that winter is coming, they are like sleeping on the softest soft thing ever. I don't want to get out of bed. I bought one set, and then bought myself another because I want them always on my bed. I love cotton sheets in the summer, but for winter, fleece sheets are where it's at!

I tried the pumpkin custard, and it's actually pumpkin pie filling. I used a recipe for pie and just put it in ramekins instead of a pie shell. So it's good, but it's not custard. It's pie with no crust.

Today I made pumpkin custard with fresh pumpkin I made last week. I like this time of year, because I tend to do more cooking and be a little more domestic. I loathe the term "nesting" but that is not a bad description of what I do. This all will culminate in Thanksgiving. Then that will be my fill and I'll go back to my non-domestic ways.

Last night I made crock pot oatmeal and proceeded to turn on the crock pot. I woke up to find out that I had left the crock pot unplugged, so we had stove top oatmeal this morning instead. Next time, for sure.

Dinner at Sarah's

 

We had a very pleasant evening at Sarah's. Spaghetti is a great meal to share with family. We missed Martha and Angie, though.

My new dishwasher came today! It has two drawers, so will wash much smaller loads. This way we don't have to wait until the dishwasher is "full" before running it. With just two people it takes a long time to fill up. Please notice the knobs I made; I took an extra-wide shot in order to include them.

Another day without a picture. I always find that a picture brightens things up and gives you something to look at. Amy came over and made beads. We went to MT's Local for lunch, which was yummy. We came back and we had both lost our beadmaking genius, so she went home. We had a good beadmaking morning, though.

Busy day today. I had the car inspected, went to the doctor, brought Bobby to the vet, went grocery shopping and made from-scratch pumpkin soup for dinner. It was delicious. The weather was gorgeous; I even saw a frog on a lily pad it was so warm! Not what I expected to see after last week's weather debacle.

In one week, my Kindle Fire comes. I'm really looking forward to getting it. I'm such a gadget girl.

Today the tree man came to assess our situation. Many of our trees have to come down because they've lost over 20% of their foliage-bearing branches. We are going to try to save the big oak in the backyard.  It's going to look like a Charlie Brown tree, but if we can keep it, I'd like to.

Also today my friend had to put down her little dog, Buster. I'm very sad about this. He was quite the character. Rest in peace, little man.

Robert and I are taking an Italian class this semester at the local community college. It is so painful. Many students don't do their homework and are unprepared for class. It drives me crazy. Maybe it's because I went to law school, but I can't imagine not being prepared. The assignments take an hour, or maybe two, a week. So the same people end up answering the questions in class. I feel bad, but it's either always answer or wait for someone else to volunteer and then struggle because they haven't done the work or studied.

One of the assignments is to do a cultural presentation. We can work in pairs, so we're going to do ours on glass. We only have 10 minutes, so I'm not sure what angle we're going to take on this: history, process, maestri or a little bit of all three. The hard part is it has to be in Italian.

Here we are. Dark at 4:30. Waking at 6:00. Hungry at 5:00. Everything feels like it's off at least an hour.

We had the dogs' portraits done. Isn't it awesome? The artist's website is Portraits by Nette. I think she did a wonderful job. I won this custom portrait in an auction to benefit American Boston Terrier Rescue, so everybody wins!

Today we bought a new dishwasher; the kind with two drawers. I think everyone in my family except my sister who is too cheap frugal to buy a new dishwasher has this kind. Since it's just the two of us, we have to wait and wait for the dishwasher to be full before running it. In the meantime we run out of plates, or forks or mugs. This way, we can run a small load in one of the drawers and not worry about wasting water and energy.

Oh boy, what to write about. Hmm....

Things are getting back to normal now that we have electricity. The yard people came and took away the branches that fell, along with a couple of trees that they were able to remove. The ones they can't remove will wait for the tree people who are coming on Tuesday.

They also put the net over the pond and placed the recirculator in. This will help keep the pond liquid over the winter. I also need to place a small heater to keep part of the surface open for gas exchange.

I don't know if I mentioned that Robert and I are taking an Italian class. We're going to the local community college. It's fun! I have to write an essay this weekend. Robert and I two of the best students in the class, probably because we are taking it because we want to instead of because it's a requirement. We're also two of the oldest people in the class. Probably even older than the teacher!

Hooray! The power went on about 5 minutes ago. As bad as I think I had it, there are a lot more people who are having it worse, so I'm very grateful and counting my blessings.

This is a picture of the oak tree with the widow-makers hanging down. 

I hope we can save the tree and don't have to have it removed.

The good news is that the tree crews are going up and down our street clearing the trees from the lines. That's the first step towards getting service restored. We also got a propane refill for the generator, so we don't have to worry about running out for a few more days. The generator has been running nonstop for almost 4 days now and it used about 1/2 the propane that we had. It cost $433.00 to fill up, and we think it's worth every penny and more.

Snowtober is over

So Snowtober is over and now begins November blog-posting month, where the goal is to blog each day in November.

We had a terrible snow storm on Saturday that has knocked out power to my whole town and to 237,000 people in the state. The estimates are a week until we are restored. Here are some pictures of the damage  around my house.

This picture above shows the branch that hit the porch roof on Saturday night. I was out there while Bobby was outside and it hit hard! The problem is that this snow came so early, most of the trees hadn't shed their leaves yet. They acted to catch the heavy, wet, cement-like snow and so the trees really suffered with the weight and just came down. There is a tree down at the back end of the bead cottage. It seems to have missed it by about 6 inches.

Here you can see a branch in the pond. It came off the oak tree on the right. That tree has several branches hanging down by a thread. I'm afraid to go outside because I don't want to get beaned by those branches.

Here's a couple of branches from the oak tree in the dog yard.

Here you can see that the top half of a tree has taken out the electric and cable wires to our house. This is a bummer because having this problem puts us at the bottom of the list to be restored. They are going to work on problems where they can get hundreds and thousands up and running before they work on a problem that will get one household up and running.

Thank goodness the snow is melting. I was genuinely frightened on Saturday night as trees and branches were falling all around us. Luckily none did any damage to us or the dogs. We have a generator so we have heat, light, water and internet. We are fortunate compared to others around here.

Last weekend my mother and I went to Cape Cod. We were supposed to go to a photography seminar, but it was cancelled, so we decided to go anyway and make our own fun.

We went to the Cape Cod National Seashore and watched a movie on the formation of Cape Cod. It was pretty interesting. We learned that the cape was made from the glaciers of the last ice age. They deposited their rocks and silt there and it formed the 'arm'.

We stayed at a nice little inn in Chatham, which is a fun town. We went shopping and had wonderful meals.

We also stopped at Nauset beach, where when I was 10, I tried to body surf and was bowled under by the waves. They were very strong and powerful and it scared me.

This blog is not abandoned. Not a lot is going on and I can't think of what to write about. I've been making beads, taking care of the dogs and enjoying my pond while it's still liquid. After the giant frog moved in, we didn't see the baby fish for a week or so and we thought he had been eaten, but we were wrong. I'm very happy about that, because I love my fish even though I said I wouldn't get attached. It's hard not to. I'm also thinking of adding to the fishy family by buying a betta. I'm not sure why I want a fish, but I do. I had Junior for 12 years and I don't really miss being a fish mother. It's a lot of work changing the water and keeping the fish healthy. So I think I'm going to try to focus on the hard part of fish keeping and pass.

I'm sorry that Steve Jobs is dead, but really. Do we need the tears and the memorials at the Apple store? Come on. Get over it people.

I saw this guy in the pond today. He is the largest frog I have ever seen. I know it's hard to tell from the photo, but his arms are the size around of my fingers and he himself is the size of a salad plate. I don't want him to eat my fish, and I think he might be able to. Eek!  I think it's a bullfrog. All my other froggies are green frogs.

OK this is a better picture to show the hugeness. On the upper right lily pad there is a frog that I would consider to be a medium-to-large frog that we've been seeing in the pond. The monster on the left is the bullfrog.

This little guy showed up in the pond on Sunday. Of course, he was probably in there for a long time, but we think he's our first offspring. Or rather, the fishes' first offspring. He's only a few inches away from the larger fish, so you can see the size difference. I think it's so cool that my artificial pond is natural enough to be a breeding place for frogs and fish.

Just some pictures of the dogs and some beads I made for a lilliput exchange. Things are going well. The dogs are good; Italian class is good and bead making is good. We're getting ready to shut down the pond for the winter soon.

Amy came over today and we made beads. We are going to try to do this every week if our schedules permit. It's so much fun to finally have the second torch station all set up and ready. I'm glad I had the studio built to accommodate two. This picture below shows the station; I've since added the kiln so there are two complete set-ups available. I have a Cricket torch there, but soon am going to hook up my Scorpion and try it out on some big beads.

Below is my station. Kind of messy.

Robert and I got another waterlily. This one is a peach-colored flower. It's so pretty.

I'm back from the Gathering. It was a blast, as always. Things around here are pretty normal. Both dogs are pretty good. I don't have much to talk about. I haven't sat down at the torch since I got home, though. I'm not sure why. I have a few things I need to make for fundraisers, so it's not like I don't have ideas.  This week Robert is taking a blacksmithing class so I'm home with the dogs. The pond is doing well. The tadpoles have grown into tiny frogs. Each waterlily had a flower at the same time last weekend so I had to take a picture. I've read some good books lately, including The Help and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,  both of which I absolutely loved. The weather has been very humid, but luckily not terribly hot. I dread the coming winter, so I'd love it if summer lasted well into fall.

Last night my credit card was shut off when I went to pay for a purchase I made at the live auction. I knew I was headed for trouble yesterday. So I called them at midnight and straightened it out. So much for that. The auction was fun. Lots of things went for more than their value, which is good when you're having a fundraiser. I did my part, let's just put it that way.

Today there are more demos and then tonight is the trading party. I'm looking forward to getting home, but also don't want the fun to end. I guess I can look forward to next year.

At the Louisville Slugger Factory & Museum.

The bead bazaar

My credit card is smoking hot right now.

The Gathering begins

The first presenter started at 8:00 this morning. We've been having a really good time. Amy has been finding us some really good restaurants that serve local food. Last night we went to the Mayan Cafe.

I shopped until I dropped yesterday. I bought 22 lbs of glass. I'm glad Amy's parents have a truck so I can ship it home with them.

My corsage

I just finished my class piece. Forgive the crappy picture. It's way cooler in person. This is a pin.