A beachy weekend

Thanks to our niece and nephew, we had a couple of days at the beach. They rented a house on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and invited us for the weekend. The sea was amazing! We went to see Hatteras Light and learn how it was moved inland a decade ago, when it was in danger of being toppled by the sea. We found lots of intact shells, lots of birds, including pelicans who were waiting next to fishermen, who gave them treats. The sunsets were beautiful. We brought out Bananagrams set with and even the little guy got into the game, in his own way.

Happy

I made another chocolate and pecan pie, The recipe is here. We went to our friends' home last night and had delicious food, including the pie topped with whipped cream, a latte from the new machine, lots of laughter, especially when trying to play ping pong on the new p-p table, and some sets of Bananagrams, Here's what one "Bananas!" looked like.
I got a surprise gift in the mail yesterday, all the way from Lander, Wyoming. The soap smells sooo good and the earrings are handmade from glass. How perfect.
The snow is still on the ground, but it's no longer attractive. Rain is on it's way as well as above freezing temperatures, so hopefully, tomorrow the landscape will be back to what's more normal for our part of the U.S.A.

Holiday eats

Merry Christmas to all my friends out there who'll be celebrating this holiday tonight and tomorrow.
We're stopping by our neighbor's briefly before heading off to the country to be with friends tonight. I've made my yummy spread (yes, cheese and butter mixed!) and my chocolate pecan pie (which gets topped with whipped cream.) I'll be making another pie for tomorrow night's Christmas day dinner, which we'll celebrate with other friends, AFTER our niece's open house. Oh so much eating. I feel immensely grateful for such abundance. For any of you who may have tried to make my oatmeal cookies....big apologies. I forgot, YES, skipped over, two very important ingredients. Our cousin, the original cookie maker, tried the recipe and got tasty but odd cookies. Pourqoui, por que, you may ask...what I forgot was the flour and the baking soda!! In my haste to share the recipe, I never reviewed before posting. So Sorry! The recipe has been corrected so if you are game to try again, or even for the first time, you can find the recipe here.

Some more snow fun...

On Sunday, I got out and walked my pup (he didn't like it) around the block. I found a strong stick to use as a walking aide and put on my cute Ignatius hat! I love it, so Dr. Seuss! Today, the sun is so bright and at 40F the snow is starting to melt. I went out, shoveled the front steps (grunt grunt grunt) and broomed off the car (more grunting) and caught this shadow of myself on the neighbors front retaining wall. Pup went out into the yard and did some exploring. Without the usual smells, it's a whole new world out there for him (I think.) the bird house on the fence had a snowy hat. This will all be a memory in a couple days and the snow predicted for Friday will erase every last trace. So I'm enjoying collecting memories of a snowy Richmond VA.

SNOW and more SNOW

The snow started last night, about 5 p.m. and hasn't really stopped since.
You can see in one photo how it looked when it first started, then in the other just a short time later. See by the light, the snow still falling. It's very cold. Right now it's 28°F according to the weather channel, and 1' to 2" more snow is expected. In some areas, there are up to 18" of it. I didn't measure but you can see from the photos that we had quite a bit.

My honey got stuck in NYC, as his plane was canceled. He was scheduled to leave last night but the earliest I could rescheduled for was Sunday
afternoon. Now with the storm headed up the coast, he may get cancelled again. Oh, dear!

My back porch door got blown open during the night. Snow piled up outside, then snow was blown onto the porch.

I made a batch of oatmeal cookie dough and invited my little neighbors from around the corner to come over and bake. Not only did they make cookies, but they tramped the snow down on my front steps (no shovel!) and they played in the back yard. Recipe for cookies here.

My new nail polish and matching hat, and some mitts.

My sister has been busy knitting mitts for Fritzi, our Etsy shop. I love this little pair, which in reality have a gold metallic thread in the yarn, so they are all sparkly nice.
I got this brown o.p.i. nail polish on-line and it matches my new IGNATIUS hat, which I got on sale this past weekend. I was so happy to get one of their hats on sale!! yay! I love it. I call it my Lady Hat.

The pole, the candles, and new mitts

What a surprise! There is NO shelf, but the light pole is still there. I was alerted to the fact that there was a little hand on it. I went by on my walk with the dog, whew, it was still there and I brought it home. I was so excited to see it that I didn't take the time to take a photo of it on the pole. It's made of poly clay and have a glass bead in it. For those of you familiar with a U.S. penny you can see the scale (or those familiar with a hand...ha ha ha...me being silly.)

Candles were lit for Chanukah night #2 and LED lights were lit on my honey's new treat, which he got a World of Mirth, the best toy store in our neighborhood.

I've been busy knitting to keep up with demand (ha ha ha, making myself laugh with my being silly, again.) I got some terrific yarn from my niece last night...can't wait to try it...it makes it's own stripes! I'll post images when I can. I used some left over yarn that I'd gotten in Paris last year to make some interesting detail in this pair of mitts. More silliness! You can see what I'm knitting here.

Knitting and more knitting.

Here's a little blurry view of the sock I'm making, my first ever. I had class this evening, at The Yarn Lounge, and worked on "turning the heel." Wow! This is very cool. The socks are going to be big so probably will be more like "keep the feet warm at night" socks rather than wearing in a shoe. I've been selling lots of mitts from my Etsy shop, so am knitting lots more. Fortunately my sister, and partner in Fritzi (our Etsy shop) has sent me lots of her terrific, fun mitts. I put a few in the shop today, including these cool mitts I call Going to the Lodge! and little silver sparkly ones. I want to wear several pairs at once right now. It's sooo cold out and chilly indoors. Brrrrrr!

Smile

Our beautiful little Japanese Maple tree makes me smile when I see it. It's so RED and so delicate. Here's a quick pic with my cell phone on a rainy day.

This sign, also, made me smile. It's around the corner from the entrance to ArtSpace Gallery. So emphatic!

Knitting, bowling, and the studio in action

Here's what my studio looked like while my friend and I were working. My C brought us some refreshments to keep us going (ha ha ha like it was so arduous!) Just visible to the right is my copy of Good Mail Day book, which I am enjoying so much. Inspiration on a daily basis.

The day after T-day, I went bowling with mi hija and a couple of friends, oops, did I mention this already? I'm having deja ecrit as I write this. Anyway, here's a picture of the lanes and a picture of a bowling ball with a cute face. I did pretty good for not doing this sport for many, many years.

Today, after my Spanish class, I stopped in at The Yarn Lounge to get my one-on-one start up lesson for making socks. I'll be attending a class next week but have to miss this week's first class. This is going to be fun. I have been wanting to learn how to knit socks, planning to do it this past summer, but it never happened. So now...here's the beginning. I'm using o-wool in a color that I love to use for accent with all my black clothing. More on the development of my socks soon as I learn how to make a heel!

Thanksgiving

A wonderful feast, mainly vegetarian (except for the turkey which C cooked on a Weber grill outside and 4 people ate.) Everyone brought food to share. There was a cranberry sauce made with dried apricots and ginger, 2 kinds of bread stuffing (though neither was stuffed into anything other than a bowl.) We had three kinds of pie for dessert. Sadly, we were too eager to cut into them to take pictures. 2 grad students from India joined us and they brought a delicious chole, chickpea dish, that was wonderfully spicy. This is a photo of the table before some of the food arrived. We were thinking a bigger table might be needed. We put the turkey on the counter by the cooking range.

I’ll be putting my stuffed cabbage recipe and the recipe for the baked macaroni and cheese here, on my Vox blog.

I remembered to take photos as I made the cabbage dish. It was way better the next day so next year, I know now I have to adjust my schedule….start 2 days earlier. Because we were such a large group, we sat in the living room as well as at the dining room table (which is in the same space to the left in this photo. I hope this makes sense.) Here is a picture of the little plush turkey that we bring out each year. It is now back in it's drawer, the leftovers are mostly gone, and things are back to normal. It was a really fun evening, and we all gave thanks.

More autumn

I heated up my kitchen by roasting beets the other day and I made a beet spread. The recipe is here.

I snapped the image of Fountain Lake while driving home from my Spanish class last week. Today it was too overcast so I'm glad I caught this. The trees and sky looked so beautiful.

It's raining, misting, windy, gray and overcast for several days. The leaves are all gone from many of the trees, including the one in our back yard. C filled 12 giant (biodegradable) bags with the leaves. The little Japanese Maple in front of our house is turning a lovely red color. I really like the shape of the leaves from this tree. Soon all of the trees will be bare, creating line drawings against the sky, a winter look is coming.

Follow up on Sunday: my friend and I had such a productive time in my studio and we've set up the next "play date."