You are my sunshine

I didn't get the name, but Sunshine was around all day. I opened the door to leave and was quite blinded. I fished in my purse for my sunglasses, first time this year. Mr. You Know Who didn't even notice I left. Stupefied, I guess.

This isn't winter. I wonder when or if it will begin; if it does, how bad will it be. When it does, how long will it last; when will spring begin.What the hell is going on?

I remember walking our mile round trip on the old road, and mom saying "This certainly has been an open winter. Not good for the trees." In my very early fifties at the time, I needed "open winter" explained to me. A warm weather winter, with minimal or no snow fall. She knew of such winters from her farming stock relatives and ancestors. Open winters in her lifetime, 1918 to 1997, were rare, and happened in her later years.

Weather is on so many minds. The burning in Australia is unspeakable to us discussing it at Monday cards in northeastern Ohio; unbearable to a resident of Australia. We did agree how fortunate we are to live in this heavily wooded section of the state, instead of the burning in our west, or in Australia.

I've been busy this week, and not all weaving or sewing. My neighbor Cathy got a flu shot last fall, and is a sick as she has been the last three or four years. The first fall and winter I lived here, Laura and I used to carry a plate of dinner to her house, she was that sick. I took her to Emergency last night, and she has an appointment with her primary tomorrow, to get to the bottom of this.

And back in the studio, I got the cerise towels hemmed and on the shelf. My biggest problem was remembering where I had stored the sewing machine needles when I moved. I have added the cerise remnant to the dark stack, on the Good Ideas page. Here are the cerise towels.

On the loom, peacock towels. I may be hemming them by next weekend.

Driving into Peninsula early this morning, I passed a turquoise car. Interesting. Driving to cards in the afternoon, I came out of my park behind...wait for it...an Alpha Romeo. I followed it all the way to town. And coming home, the waxing moon in a turquoise sky.

The Pie

I went to town this morning, in drizzling rain. Cold, drizzling, if you want to count forties cold. We'll even be above fifty this week.

The climate is happening too fast. I think we need to fix terra firma before we colonize Mars. I also think, it won't be my problem. I'll just keep eating root veggies and beans, and recycling. My trash would be a bag a month if I weren't scooping kitty litter. One little brown paper bag a day of litter fills my trash can by week's end. 

Oh, and I still eat bacon, but only half a pound a month. And I could quit that, maybe.

So where was I? Drizzling rain, and looking for the heron at the pond. I've seen it (I just backspaced through 'him', though I'm real sure he's a him) several times these last six months. The golf course is looking really skanky these days, but no heron, no incentive to stop in the drizzling rain for a picture.

I had a big afternoon ahead of me, clearing out last year's files, shredding, new files. When I came in from the drizzling rain, I looked at the bowl of apples and resolved, after lunch, The Pie.

That recipe claims to take an hour and a half of one's precious time, and an entire hour is devoted to baking. This time around I did limit myself to six apples, but it takes me half an hour, plus to peel six apples. Eventually I put it in the oven.

In an hour I put it on the counter, to cool. It smelled as good cooling for another couple of hours as it did baking.

I can tell you, any little bits of crust that chip off should be approached cautiously. They remain at three hundred odd degrees for longer than a few seconds there on the rack.

Creme stix restraint

I will confess I ate two creme sticks on Tuesday, when I bought them, and was simultaneously distraught by the unexpected, by me, blast of winter. Apparently those with talking heads on TV's were aware, and those of us who rely on little mute snowflakes on our weather app were in wait and see mode. If we even noticed the little snowflake.

On the second creme stick I discovered the great nine second rule. At the end of that little delight I told myself I remained annoyed enough to eat the remaining two on the spot, or at least by bed time, but a nine second creme stick deserved more respect.

And so, yesterday there were two in the box, and today there was one left for my excellent lunch. During the nine second wait I even looked on the bottom of the container, saw it was recyclable plastic and put it in the appropriate container. I don't always do that with plastic, because we have single stream recycle. I don't understand it, though I was personally responsible for getting it on board.

After lunch I even took a picture of it's nine second self. I'm confident merely devouring them would have left not a trace. Except you know....

I have gone to my knees begging my computer guru to get into the guts of my computer and deal with the malware hitch on a blogger's site. He promised to do it Tuesday. Sigh. I just sent another email.

With my accountant's encouragement, I returned to rudimentary bookkeeping. She may shed tears laughing when I turn in my books later this month. I bought a black, three column, hard bound book. I poised my pen to head two columns, one Dr and one Cr.  Then I said Fuck No, and wrote $In and $Out. That really is all it's about!

Starting with the Open Gallery last May, I have faithfully recorded $In and $Out. I've tallied each page and carried the balance forward. At the end of the year (and I hope you notice that was barely a day away), I began tossing all those $Out into appropriate baskets. 

I don't have many. CGS, Office Cost, Postage Out, Freight In, Bank card, Sales Tax. And I'm off $20.68, at the end of the year. I opened the book last night, for another go. But all those $Out items are neatly ticked off now. In the very olden days, when I had to keep a very similar General Ledger, I'd use a dot the second time through. But back then I also had a printing calculator. 

So, I ordered a printing calculator. A small one, and two extra rolls of 2 1/4 inch tape.  It will not arrive until Friday. So I read blogs and went to bed. Today I wove all morning (actually less than two hours), until lunch and blog writing.  Now it's 2:15 in the P. I am off to weave until supper and some more Bill Bryson. I'd mention where I have laughed my way to, except maybe some have not read it, and those of you who have did not spoil it for me.

If I get tired of weaving, I have another apple pie to bake. Or, mac and cheese. Cards on Monday, and Cathy and I are off to see Just Mercy soon. 

So remember, nine seconds on those creme stix. 

Raising a cup very high to a celebratory New Year's Eve breakfast

My plans for today were to meet friends for breakfast, go back to their house for a short visit, go grocery shopping, thus replenishing a mostly bare refrigerator, go home and drop out of site until about next Wednesday.

As I entered my car, the snow commenced. In fact, it still is snowing. going on seven tonight, and I left for breakfast at nine this morning.  I announced at breakfast that I would skip the visit to them and go straight to the grocery store if it was snowing when we left.

Sadly, this made half of them unhappy, especially because it was snowing and I did cancel. They do not walk in my shoes, or up my stairs with groceries, or behind my snow shovel, so I was OK with my decision.

I tried to help Lynn understand my decision by sending her a picture of my car when I came out of the grocery, 

and my drive after I shoveled the deck and steps and all just to bring in groceries.

Not to mention that walking on that stuff scares the bejeezus out of me.

And for lunch for several days, chocolate creme sticks. I learned I can put one in the microwave for 9 seconds and have it emerge with the dough part barely warm, and soft, and the chocolate and the filling intact. 

Nor has it stopped snowing. Nor have the streets been plowed. I have lifted a couple more cups of coffee today.

Such a storm last night!

A terrible storm overnight woke me often, but could not keep my eyes open. It was not thunder, lightening or rain that woke me, but just plain noise. Finally I rolled over to see if the alarm would ring soon, and the alarm should have rung almost two hours before.

Le chat can no longer attract my attention in the morning, if he even ever tried. He now spends his nights elsewhere in the house. It's the same as removing a fifteen pound bag of sand from one's ankles. Shin's. Knees.

I moved through the house cursing clocks set askew by the power outage. I have two "atomic" clocks that keep the proper time. One is battery, one is electric. Neither is an alarm clock! Think about moving to the kitchen for the morning coffee, and time is flashing green all about you. Not a good start.

At lunch time I decided my current book, The Old Ways, by Robert Macfarlane is not for me. Shame. I've read so many of that genre. Not to mention, the front page after front page of two and three line praises of the book leaves me thinking I should soldier on. Which I will not. It moves to the right pile, and from the left I will next select Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods.

Tomorrow I'm going to New Year's Eve breakfast with Lynn and Jim. None of us are still up at midnight, and wouldn't know where to go if we were.

Spoiler alert: I'll be done with cerise this week, and on to a new color. I took down plum and turquoise green. Or any other color. I'm happy to compile votes. Also, that turquoise green is less like any color by that name! But I can't decipher it.

And since I was out and about today, here are the "ponies" for Dave. They're working on a new piece of the field.

And now I'm off to work on the new tab, Good Ideas.