There’s been an ice storm warning for the U.S. Midwest since about 8:00 last evening, but it finally came up on us this morning.
10am as we were returning home from breakfast, and pharmacy.
the street was a glaze of ice
and we have decided the Honda needs new tires A.S.A.P.
Home at last
We still have electricity.
Who can say for how long….. the way the wind is blowing and the noise of ice crystals hitting the windows.
Stay comfy, no matter the weather.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Oy, Folks, I was not at a job today, but I stayed busy anyway.
I got my sister’s birthday gift in the mail—the line at the P.O. was long, but jovial.
Then I walked across the parking lot to the new bank building to get some cash 20s changed into smaller bills. At our schools, the regulars have a debit system in the cafeteria, but because I am not at the same building day-to-day, I don’t pay into any personal account. There is always one Cashier who is allowed to take actual money for lunch, but it happens so seldom that the drawer is often locked.
Anyway, I have learned to have exact dollars and coins to make it easier so the line can move along as quickly as it needs to. Hence, my stop at a bank where I don’t have an account, but the teller was quite willing to make change for me.
Onward to Latte Time for my Mocha Bianca Chiller, then a little stop at Wal*green’s to pick up pictures of the items we had on display for the craft sale.
Since I was going to Needlework Group, I thought it would be fun to be able to inspire memories. It was only 4 weeks ago, but time sure flies. Come to think of it, I was busy getting prints of pictures, so I haven’t taken them off the chip and into the computer.
Sigh. Eyestrain ahead.
With some of the money earned from the sale, a new stepladder was purchased for the storeroom, nice and sturdy, so we don’t have to be climbing up on awkward chairs any longer. Also, new storage bins for yarn donations. The place is looking fine, even with Christmas decorations scattered around before all the decking of the halls happens.
My show-n-tell was good. A few hats, my new peg loom, 2 cones of yarn. Another lady had 2 baby hats, one pink and one blue. She says they were done with the smallest knitting needles she has ever used.
One lady had a hat, scarf, slippers knitted with a black and silver yarn that would have given me fits if I had tried to use it. I realize that knitting doesn’t require such a tight pull through the loop, but I can just imagine how the yarn might split while in motion.
Great Work, and many willing hands make it fun.
There has come a request for scarves for toddlers. When my sons were that age I don’t think that keeping track of a scarf was high on my motherly radar, although I do remember much nagging about a hat or a hood, and having a difficult time finding boots for growing boys. My husband is always losing gloves, or coming up with 2 lefts just as he needs to rush out the door.
I brought home a nice variegated yarn and will try to make a couple little scarves with it.
Apparently, the word is out to several yarn groups all over town, so I don’t feel the pressure or anything.
This evening was an Ensemble at the ISU School of Music.
All the works were original compositions by students in a class.
Son Chris played a bit of piano as a part of a much larger group. Some of the sound effects were marbles dropping and rolling across the wood floor of the stage, a rubber glove being stroked beside the microphone, and a guy making wolf calls.
One set had 4 trombones, one in each corner of the room. Very odd feeling, the notes coming from behind the seats.
I don’t know that I think of any of it as music, but the sounds were not a spoken language and seemed to be telling a story.
I guess they need some practice to become the next David Lanz or John Williams.
I got 2 and a half potholders crocheted, and at Intermission had a nice conversation with the gal sitting behind me. She was quite interested in the yarn on a cone and the gadget holding it. My husband is such a fine craftsman.
One mother drove about 2 hours after her job, and had to return tonight so she can work tomorrow. Now that is devotion! I’m glad I live only 2 blocks from campus for an easy walk.
Well, we have come to the end of a very full day. I have to get up in the morning and get ready to meet some church ladies and be a guest for a Christmas Tea at the nursing home. The first social gathering of the season.
There will be many more to come, I’m sure.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Iffen you ever want to have some fun at a public gathering, take a 50% off coupon and go buy a little toy duck which goes QUACK when you press its back.
I got one while I was out and about the other day, then took it to Fellowship Hour at church this morning. Little kids, old guys, middle-age ladies get soft expressions when confronted with fuzzy cuteness.
And the stories….oh my! great way to get folks to talk.
Also on hand was a pretty rainbow-colored hat which I had worked on the round knitting loom, the pattern of which turned out quite by accident, but is lovely nonetheless.
100% acrylic, and very warm. The boy I made it for was absent today, but there comes a long winter ahead, so he will get it eventually.
Husband and I went out for lunch at Latte Time. I had a hankering for an Artesian Chicken sandwich on panini bread, and gee whiz, it was yummy!
A Sunday siesta on the couch with Mahalia snuggled in next to my ribs, some blog reading this afternoon.
This evening I had to go to Kroger to get a specific flavor of 9 Lives canned cat food. They’ve consumed only dry kibble for a couple days, while the seafood flavor in bowls was ignored for hours, then at long last tossed into the trash when I couldn’t stand the smell in the kitchen any longer.
Not that the beasts are catered to or anything like that.
Husband is watching The Simpsons on television. I can hear the voice of Sideshow Bob, so he must be out of prison for awhile. Poor Bart is having to watch his back all over again.
I’d provide more links, but lately we have had a terrible time with spam getting over the firewall.
Closing comments on old posts is a pain you know where.
I think I’ll go see whazzup in the kitchen.
Some good smells wafting over.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Yes, Folks, we had a fine Thanksgiving.
All the usual fixins. I’m a good cook.
Us and the 2 younger sons and one of the girlfriends.
I got through another holiday without hearing from our oldest son. One would think 5 years is long enough.
Then again, I haven’t called my own mom for over a week.
I finished the baby blankie and gave it just in time to my co-worker on her last day on the job.
The baby is due 11 December, and her last checkup says she is dilated and can go anytime.
She absolutely Loves the baby blankie.
click to embiggen
, 
and was telling everybody about it in the Break Room, but did not want her picture anywhere while she ‘looks like a whale’.
She’s gone until Spring Break. There’s a maternity leave replacement TA until then, so I’ll be in and out like usual.
My shopping on Friday was 4 craft stores, where I found not what I wanted but spent some money on a different set of knitting looms. When I got home, I got online and ordered the yarn in the colors I wanted. Such a useful yarn, the 4-ply cotton, so everybody pretty much works with it and doesn’t give it away. Other than my cousin in Alaska, but that yarn she sent is already half gone and is Spring shades while I’m looking for holiday colors.
Today, after breakfast, I got home to chores. The laundry is piled high, the ironing I’m doing all over again. One would think the guys have very few favorite shirts, since I wash and iron them twice a week.
Meanwhile, Alison Krauss is on the stereo and I’ve got 5 shirts and the pillowcases left to go, after the OSHA approved iron gets over its rest period and actually gets hot enough again.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
My Husband, aka Decrepit Old Fool
has put up a photo album of our anniversary getaway.
sidenote—there are more than a hundred photos in the album
We were in Hannibal, Missouri, the first week of November.
Some of the time, the best pictures I got with my little camera were of him taking pictures with his own
such as this one up on the hill called Lovers’ Leap
(note how he uses his cap to shade the camera lens)
when he got this (the monument to the young lovers)
Go on over and have a looksee at what he’s laid out.
You’ll be glad you did!
~~love and Huggs, Diane
the ironing board has been in the living room for days
the towels are folded but need put away
the container holding items for re-cycling overflows
Maybe if I get these chores done this morning, I can have a little fun without feeling anxious.
The Needlework Group meets this afternoon.
I’ll have some time for hook and yarn.
the granny squares baby aphghan needs worked together
~~love and Huggs, Diane
After sitting for a 3 hour ride, the town of Hannibal, Missouri was a welcome sight.
We needed to get out of the car and move around awhile.
The end of the street looked promising.
There were steps leading past a park, up to a lighthouse.
I’m older than 50 years and overweight.
Do I Dare?
Whither thou goest, I should go….
Ah, a resting place on the wayside
Across the parking lot
My guess is 80 more steps
Looks like we made it!
The effort was worth it!
the Mississippi River in early November
We climbed them once a day, all four days we were in Hannibal.
Anybody wanna guess how many steps there are?
~~love and Huggs, Diane
We saw an unusually beautiful little tree between the restaurant and hotel. Naturally MrsDoF had to pluck a leaf and carry it inside.
I got to the hotel room – no Mrs! I figured she’d either gotten into a conversation about the tree with someone in the lobby, or she’d been kidnapped by pirates in which case hey, too bad for the pirates. Finally she caught up.
Of course she ran into a professional horticulturalist from California, in the lobby. He had excitedly snatched the leaf from her hand; “It’s an Acer Palmatum! Well you can call it a Japanese Maple but that’s what it is. I have to see it – what latitude are we at?”
MrsHorticulturalist smiled indulgently…
Posted by DOF for MrsDOF, who is doing paperwork but still wanted to post the story.
Before I go out of town until Wednesday,
I guess I should give some Filler as an update:
My words have been scarce ‘round these parts, but I’ve been having a Whee of a time elsewhere.
I worked 4 days as a TA Sub in 3 different school buildings. I coulda answered another request for Thursday, but that was the morning I helped with childcare in the church nursery during the Moms Bible Study time. I sure do love being with the littles, even for only 2 hours.
The Needlework Group at the Senior Center is getting ready for a Craft Sale coming Thursday 08 November. The coordinator is real good at details, so we’ve been really busy. This is folks where I am the youngest person in the room, so I’m getting pretty good at figuring out what it is she wants moved.
This morning, I was a Volunteer for a Red Cross Blood Drive.
We got 44 Units! way over the goal.
The cute thing about this is, I’m a day early for donation, but while I was gone, Husband said the phone rang with somebody wanting me to set up an appointment. He said when he told her I was being a volunteer, there was an odd silence at the other end. I plan to go next Saturday to a different church and see if the goodies in the Canteen are as tasty as ours.
The high school across town had a Craft Sale today. I went mainly to get ideas about current prices for some of the handwork the Seniors will be putting on display next week. Of course I bumped into old acquaintances at least twice and had to stand around awhile to chat. (the plantar fasciitis of my left foot is howling in protest, even though all the hours at the Blood Drive and Craft Sale did not add up to one shift of being at my job)
One odd happening there was I had just paid for a little ornament and was walking away from the booth. A woman oh, my age give or take a couple years, approached and asked if she could ask me something. At my nod, she asked how old I am. I’ve learned, being a TA, to give open-ended responses so that the student does not feel put down. So I answered what year I was born. She seemed quite disappointed. I waited for her to go on, I mean, after such a grand beginning, there has to be more to the story.
Well, it seems that her friend from college, who has now lived in another country for 25 years, had a baby girl while they were young, and the baby was given for adoption. This woman, standing beside me, had been looking all these years for someone who would look like she could be her friend’s daughter. Apparently, I fit the description, except the baby was born in 1967, so I’m definitely too old.
At this news, I’m thinking that if I still look like age 40, as tired as I was at that minute, then I must be doing something right with washing my face and never smoking cigarettes.
Then she got all embarrassed that she had bothered me at all. I told her that I was born in the same town as my mother and grandma, so I know where I come from and I’ve only lived here with my husband since 1983.
I guess me and my playground voice were working over time. Someone else came up, a stranger to both of us, and began talking about how folks can look like others we want to be seeing. She said everybody loses someone they would like to meet again. A small world for sure.
Husband and I are going on a delayed anniversary trip to Hannibal, Missouri—the land of Mark Twain.
It’s close enough for an easy 4 hour drive, there’s a bunch of history to see and do, and neither of us has ever been there before, so we won’t be comparing notes.
For our jobs, I clicked myself Unavailable for days and he is using vacation time which might have been deleted later.
The youngest son (age 22) will practice responsibility for the house and the cats.
I would love to be able to write something more sincere and interesting, but the energy doesn’t extend so far. Although someone told me today that plenty of pictures will be expected as soon as possible.
There are plenty of pictures on my camera chip. Getting them from there to here also needs effort I ain’t got.
Which reminds me, I’d better at least put them into a folder on the computer to clear the way for more during travel. And charge the battery for camera and cell. And find my other jacket—last I saw it was at the bottom of the laundry chute. Doggone—that means at least 2 loads to put through the machines.
Gotta Go! Trip preps are calling!
~~love and Huggs, Diane
A rather mundane task of going to the craft store for a proper shade of blue 3-ply yarn got a bit sidetracked this morning.
These days, it’s not often that the car radio announces the name of the artist just as the song begins to play.
However, luck was on my side as to who is bringing us a tune.
The name Jon Bon Jovi usually makes my heart skip a beat, along with a catch in my throat.
I was just coming up to the entrance of a parking lot, and as I heard the first beats of the drum coming out of the dash,
I quickly decided to turn in so I could really be able to have a good smolder listen.
(You Want to) Make a Memory is on the latest album Lost Highway by the band Bon Jovi.
I read more about it after I got home and did an Internet search.
Always happy to make introductions.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
ps yarn purchased will soon become a granny square baby blankie
