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!