Catching Up

Last week, my neighbor passed away...she had been suffering for quite some time with rheumatoid arthritis and COPD and I'm so torn about her passing.  Her husband is my office partner at the library.  I know just how devoted he was to her and I'm sure he wasn't ready to let her go yet.  No one ever is.  A part of me wanted her to remain here forever.  Another part is glad she is now pain free and can breathe.  RIP Miss Sandy...you surely will be missed!

The same day that Sandy passed, I heard a noise outside the house and looked out the window.  A UPS truck (a huge semi truck) was trying to make a Y-turn to leave the cul-de-sac area and got stuck in my yard.  A couple of neighbors had come down with a big 4-wheel drive truck and they spent over an hour pulling that big semi out of the 'ditch' it created in my front entry.  Those track marks are over a foot deep!  I didn't go out there cause, let's face it, what could I do but nag at them to get that truck out of there and then fix the mess he made...Once the guy got his truck free, he never even once came to the door to let me know what he'd done!  I went out and took these pictures and talked to my neighbor who helped the guy and then sent an email to UPS asking what they were going to do about the mess.  I got a call on Monday afternoon from the operations manager at UPS Freight - he told me that they were turning the matter over to their insurance company to handle and that I could expect a call in the next few days. Sigh!

                                      

Yesterday was my day off and sometime mid-afternoon, the doorbell rang. 2 men were standing there from UPS...they said they were sorry that their driver had made such a mess - he had reported to them on Friday that he'd done it - and if they come out and fill in the tracks with new dirt and smooth it out and re-seed it, would that make me happy? Well, of course it would, gentlemen!  And thank you.  They apologized for the mess and said that, yes, their driver never should have tried to make a Y-turn on that narrow turn...he should have just backed out till he could get turned around. So it should be fixed by the time Mr. Wonderful gets home in mid-April!

We had some really fast winds all day yesterday and they blew in some wicked clouds, filled with wicked rain and hail.  Here are some of the clouds scudding across the sky from the west...made for some really eerie light; really bright yellow and shimmery.  And there was a ton of thunder - I really love thunder...really! The dogs and the cat aren't really fond of thunder but I just love it!  Add in some lightning and I'm one happy girl!  

They say we will be getting some more thunder and lightning later today...and probably up to 3 inches of rain in just a few hours!  Fortunately, we don't live in a 'holler' so no flooding is likely to occur.  

Until next time, thanks for stopping by!

First Finish

I've finished the first Round of Sock Madness 9 in under 1 week.  And I've already received my acceptance from the moderators so it's on to Round 2.  Round 1 doesn't officially end till next Sunday so I've got plenty of time to rest up.  In the meantime, here are my Alohomora socks: the little stitch markers are showing the moderators that I did 11 repeats of the pattern as required.

I took a bit of a tumble yesterday at the quilt shop; my own fault..not watching where I was going and going too fast resulted in a trip on an uneven join in the cement slab and my sprawling like a beached whale.  A perfect 6 point landing - both knees, both hands, my chin, and the tip of my nose.  Fortunately, no skin was broken...but it took a very strong young woman to literally lift me to my feet since I was unable to do so by myself. I was pretty sore by the time I made it home last night and slept fitfully...but today is much better and the only bruising I have been able to find is the heel of my left hand and my chin.  See?

Except for my embarrassment, I got off really easy, don't you think?  

On a totally different note, I am a most proud mama these days.  Our son lives in Utah and was recently awarded one of the top "40 Under 40" awards...now that would be awesome in itself...but he was told that the news of this award went much further than Utah...all the way to Times Square in New York City.  Lookie!

John and I are so proud of him. 

Thanks for stopping by...I'm off to rest my knees and get some sleep.

The Madness Has Begun!

It's that time again...time for Sock Madness.  Sock Madness 9 began at 1:30 a.m. my time on Sunday....the pattern was posted and over 760 folks began feverishly knitting this here-to-fore unpublished pattern. We have 2 full weeks to complete the entire pair, without ANY changes to the pattern.  Once the time limit is concluded, those finishers who have satisfied the moderators that they have completed a pair of socks absolutely according to the pattern will be separated into teams of about 40 people.  From that point, it gets really hairy - now you are competing for a place into the next round!  I have traditionally made it to the 3rd round at least...one year I made it to round 5!  I present to you my progress on Round 1...

Almost done with the gusset reduction and will proceed down the foot.  It's hard to see, but those 'bumps' are little boxes...A very cute and easily memorized pattern.  I don't think I'll have too much problem completing a pair by the deadline.

On another note, our weather is still playing hide-and-seek with us. On Saturday, we got 6 inches of snow.  Today we had temps in the 50's which melted most of that snow.  In addition, we had some pretty wicked fog...here we had fog that allowed me to see about 1/4 mile ahead.  I had to go south to meet up with a friend for lunch...down there it was really dense...see?

And this was clearer than it was right there in town...I was really glad to get home safe and sound.  

Tonight we are told to expect ice, snow, sleet, high winds....sigh!  I repeat, Sigh!  Can I just say how much I am done with winter?????

Will let you know once I finish the pair of socks...in the meantime, 

Thanks for stopping by.

YEAH!!!

Short post here...I couldn't say anything because we hadn't told the grandchildren yet.  Now that they know, I can tell you that we are NOT moving to Utah.

It has been increasingly evident that our dream and the reality just aren't moving toward each other.  Our house hasn't sold.  The cost of living in Utah is so much higher than we'd thought and employment for me is iffy at best.  I suppose if we'd made this move 10-15 years ago, it might have been do-able anyway.  But not currently.  So, after several heartfelt, and weepy, discussions while I was in Utah for the holidays, John and I have made the difficult decision to remain here in Missouri.  He has given his notice at work and will be coming home in mid-April.  This is bittersweet but it sure will be good to have him home!

All I can say is:

Thanks for stopping by. 

Scraping Snow

The ice storm we had on Friday nite put a small layer on top of the nearly 9 inches of snow we had earlier in the week.  My office partner/neighbor kindly picked me up and brought me home on Thursday and Friday - crushing the snow with his wheels on the apron to the garage.  Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but the ice on top of the crushed snow just made it more of an ice cube!  I watched several people try to go out to the mailboxes yesterday - slippin' and slidin' all over the road.  Now, that may be because they were young and thought it would be fun to do wheelies in the ice.  I don't know about that, but I'm not going to try to drive to work tomorrow till I know what the road looks like...and I'm not going to drive the road to find out what it looks like and then get stuck somewhere.  So I'm going to take my wonderful neighbor up on his offer for a ride into work again tomorrow.

I figured the ice on the apron will make it difficult for him to get traction to get to me and then to back up to drive out...so this morning I bundled up and wore Mr. Wonderful's chicken/pig boots and tried to shovel the apron to get some clear spots for him.  Here you see what I was able to get done.

There on the left is the double garage door...I got about 4-5 feet scraped.  The rest is a solid sheet of ice - you can see the tire marks from Friday..there's no scraping that yet.

Then I decided that maybe I should try to do the front walk cause if he can't get near enough on the apron side, he can drive straight on the drive and pick me up at the end of the walk...so I trudged thru the house and cleared that.  There was no traffic on it since before the snow so it came off relatively easy - well, easy for some.  I'm so stinkin' out of shape that I need a nap now that that's done.

We've got a bit of sun till nearly 2 o'clock today so maybe some more melting will be accomplished, in spite of the temps getting only near 22 degrees.  Then we are to expect a bit of snow from 3:00 till about 7:00...and, of course, falling temps.  I'm really done with winter!

I spent the day sewing yesterday.  Made a little table runner using a new mini tumbler template.  It's not quilted yet but I think I might use my embroidery machine to embroider swirls or something in those long white strips between the coloured stripes.  

Well, I've got a few more chores to do (including getting the tax stuff ready to mail off to the accountant tomorrow) and then I'm rewarding myself with knitting, or maybe some more sewing...or both.

Thanks for stopping by.

Frost Report

Hello from frosty southwest Missouri....we've had quite a week here...temps in the single digits or teens most days, over 9 total inches of snow, and last night insult was added to injury with ice!  Not a lot, but enough to make it dangerous to drive on the roads today. Thank goodness my 'taxi' driver and office partner needed to go to the grocery store before he brought me home from work yesterday.  I  got a few things to tide me over and have no further need to venture out for a few days.  It's still a tossup whether I will gird up the courage to drive in to work on Monday...perhaps I'll avail of my nice neighbor one more time.

I looked out the back and front of the house this morning and this is what I saw.

Ice crystals on the branches make these trees look gray and creepy...or beautiful, depending  on your perspective.  If I can look at them from the warmth of my home, they are beautiful.  If I have to drive thru them, gray and creepy. See? Perspective!

Please be safe and warm...know that I appreciate every single one of you who take the time to come to Pieceful Harbor Blog.

Thanks for stopping by.

5 of 5

I DID IT!  I can't believe I posted each of 5 days...in a row!!!

This is day 5 of the Art Chain Challenge started by Donna Greenburg. Each day for the next 5 days I will post one art piece and each day I will nominate another artist to participate. The projects do not need to be new and they do not need to be made especially for this challenge. I was nominated by Angie

I nominate Karen.

I took a class in miniature log cabin foundation piecing while living in New England. This is the result - 12 inches square, with each square being 2 inches finished and 36 pieces in each unit. It took over an hour to piece each 2 inch unit. The title? "This Guy Must Be Crazy If He Thinks Size Doesn't Matter". I exhibited it at Ozark Empire Fair and won Grand Champion for it's category.

And there you have it...5 in 5 days.  

On the weather front, we had a clear day today but it was wicked cold (for here - I don't begin to compare to New England's winter; they win the prize for most awful winter!) I snagged a ride with my neighbor into work and waited around for him to get off work to bring me home. Thank goodness we work at the same place (and even share an office!).  I'm wussing out and riding in with him tomorrow cause we are expecting freezing rain tomorrow morning. The operative word being freezing.  With luck, we will only have rain and temps above freezing on Saturday that will melt some of the ick that we've got built up and I can drive myself to work next week. 

Thanks for stopping by.   Keep warm and safe. More soon!