I have been having fun making these tiny beads with Boston Terriers on them. I've even been selling them on Etsy. I really like making them and I'm kind of enjoying selling them, too.

Surprise!

Betcha weren't expecting a post!

Now that everyone has stopped checking my blog for new posts, I can come back and write what I want.

A few weekends ago, we went to Las Vegas. We saw three shows and ate at three really great restaurants. On Saturday morning we went to the Hoover Dam. It is huge and a marvel of engineering.

These are the turbines that spin while water rushes through them to make the electricity.

It's hard to get the whole thing in the picture it's so big.

I got a haircut before I went. I love it.

We stayed at the Bellagio, where they have the Chihuly ceiling. It's pretty spectacular.

 

Las Vegas was fun, but it's not somewhere I'm dying to go back to. They allow smoking in the casino, and to get to your room, you have to walk through it. So I ended up smelling like smoke the whole time. Ick! Plus the room was allegedly non-smoking, but it still stunk. I did enjoy the shopping, and the food. We gambled a little bit - won $50 on the Patriots and then promptly lost it in the slot machines. I'm just not a Las Vegas kind of girl. It's up too late and too glitzy for me. 

Happy New Year! This new year finds me once again cleaning up my bead room. It had fast become a repository of all things bead, with no organization. I took an hour today and organized it; got the junk off my table, sent some things to recycling and put away the clutter. I joined an online crochet project and I'm eager to get started, but am waiting for beads to arrive in the mail. I have smaller sized beads, but I'd like to make the project with the large size, so I'm waiting it out. I can catch up easily enough.

I also joined another project, this time a photography project on the woofboard. You post one picture per week on a certain theme. This week's theme is New Beginnings. I'm still trying to decide what to take a picture of. Maybe I'll take a picture of my newly-neatened bead room. That's a new beginning.

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.