Daily Ooos: Tuesday, February 16

[faerywings]

Good morning to all of you. I am truly hoping that today finds you warm and with power. The ice storm by us ended up being more freezing grain/sleet than hard ice. That is the really good news here. The not-so-good is that my basement already has water and the day has just begun I am ever grateful that we have heat and electricity because some of the scenes coming out from TX/OK/AR are mindboggling. So crazy.
I continued my "bored with winter" streak yesterday and the only exciting thing I did was bake a triple batch of banana bread. I have a pan, a loaf, and a dozen muffins. Had. We had a dozen muffins, they are almost all gone. Even though I was able to get the snow off of the hedges, I couldn't reach the overhang and I am a bit nervous that the gutters aren't going to make it through. As it is, I am going to have to shovel/push the snow/ice/water/slush away from the house today. I know I will complain about being cold and wet but at this point, any time off of my butt and away from my desk is a good thing.

So yup, no big plans today. I am almost halfway done with the second mitten and then I will find something else to crochet. If I can scrap another page for Christopher's book... I should try to do that... but the mojo is gone. If it was ever was with me. mmph.

Wishing everyone a terrific day!

 

[faerywings]

@nancyr I am guessing you ended up getting mostly rain? It cracks me up how Luther would rather be outside in the cold. Wow, you are really moving along with your book, three more pages? I am in awe! I see little bits of Men In Kilts from my Twitter feed since I follow Diana Gabaldon and those two guys must be a trip to watch. Hope that your hockey day was fun!
I don't know why I thought the kids were older- they must be so cute to hang out with.

@felis- I used the Dummies book to teach myself too!

@Cherylndesigns I am sorry that the weather is so awful for you. It has to be so frustrating and exhausting. Did the switch replacement do the trick? What a crazy situation with the truck and hay bales. Thank goodness your family is so wonderful and helpful with each other.

@taxed4ever How much snow did you get in total? It seems like it has gone on for days. I imagine that the novelty of the snowblower is wearing off by now Thank goodness he has it.
I feel for Heather, we had a blizzard after one of my surgeries and I couldn't do a thing to help anyone other than keeping the coffee pot brewing. It has to be really hard for her to do the things she wants to so I understand her wanting to drive a bit. But as a mom- I also understand your concern!

@scrap-genie Did you end up getting more snow yesterday? Your Valentine's Day sounds like it was just perfect!
Yeah, this winter compared to last is brutal.

@BrightEyes OMG soooo cold!!! That is good that you don't have to go out anywhere in that. That is what I do to with the bananas, although I have seen the others in my family putting yellow bananas in the freezer when they want me to make banana bread-- it is like-- Oh look, you have so many bananas in the freezer, now go bake us some bread!
What program are you using for your sketches?

@felis work in progress is a phrase that works for me, I prefer it over getting distracted and bored. ha!! I am happy that you can get out for some walks and the cold doesn't bother you too much.
That is a great way to look at Cheryl's situation, what a story for them to tell.

Cheryl- I hope that you can have the heat and water stay on all day today. hang in there- warmer days are ahead!

 

[faerywings]

Felis!! Great job on the circle! Did you use the magic circle technique? This was the one that made the most sense to me: https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/crochet-magic-circle-tutorial-4589016

 

[BrightEyes]

Morning, gals.... woke up to snow this morning. Looks like we got about 2" again. Glad we missed out on the heavier totals that fell on the mountain outside of town. At least it is 'warmer' this AM... it is 28* at 7:30 AM. Today is off and on snow showers so will be another hunker down day. We have been lucky and have had power during all this. The PTB have requested we set our thermostats at 68* or below even during the day. Mine is set at 65* at night - so am leaving it there even during the day. Glad I have thermals and layering top/sweatshirt and even slip on a fleece jacket if I am cold. My heart goes out to all who have been without power and/or water. Think I will end up spending most of the day either scrapping or reading.

Chris, I LOL over your family popping your yellow bananas in the freezer so you will make banana bread! I peel the really ripe bananas, half them and tuck them into a baggie before mine go into the freezer. 4 halves fit into the small baggie just right and I can stack them easily. Oh, I hear you about how fast the muffins and bread can be eaten up. With 4 of you in the family, they will disappear almost as fast as you get them made! Sorry you couldn't get the snow off the overhang or gutters. Glad you were smart enough to not try. Don't need to end up falling or hurting yourself.

Oh, Cheryl... I really feel for you dealing with no water for so long. Just glad that you have family close by who have water and heat. One day you will look back on your 1st winter in OK and talk about "it never has bad winters here". Our 1st year here in Albuquerque we had snow before Halloween... then 14" of snow before Thanksgiving. One snow storm after another that year.

Time to get another cup of coffee and get dressed. CYL

 

[VickiStegall]

We're good but cold here. Got about 8 inches of snow and luckily still have power. They are doing rolling blackouts though so we are trying to be good and keep everything turned off to help conserve so maybe we won't lose power.

They are telling us to expect another 6-8 inches this evening. blech.

 

[taxed4ever]

Morning ladies... The sun is shining on the mountain top that is sparkling white with fresh snow, it is so pretty! The temps have warmed up a bit and we are finally done with the snow storm. All in total we accumulated over 11 inches of the white stuff. It is our Daughter Heather's Birthday today, so we hope to get in a good face time with her this evening My Gary is a bit stiff from all the snow blowing, but our neighbours sure think he is the best LOL!! One neighbour even dropped off a bottle of scotch for doing their driveway over and over again. Well I started this about an hour ago and then Heather and the boys called. Had a great talk with them all! Read a few stories to Hunter while Heather got their lunch ready. They just all got back to going to school and now wouldn't you know it they have a snow day! Sure loving the draft feature of the new forum, so great that it saves everything from being lost and that you can check other messages while you are still commenting! LOVE IT!! Yesterday was not what I had intended as I did not get any scrapping done, but I did make two cards to get sent to Isaac and Sadie along with a short letter to each of them. I am hoping it will encourage them to write back and give them some practice for their writing skills. So I will attempt to find my mojo to scrap at some point today. I have swimming at noon, it will be good to get out of the house for a bit! Oh and yesterday I made a batch of bone broth in my Instapot. So nice that it only took a couple of hours from start to finish instead of the two or three days of slowly cooking in the Crockpot! Not that awful smell either. I always hated the way cooking bone broth made the house stink! Loving my Instapot!

@faerywings - Chris I am happy to hear that you have not lost your power! It is unbelievable what is happening in TX/OK/AR ! Nice that you got all that banana loaf/muffins made and ya no surprise with 4 of you in the house that they are disappearing quickly! Too funny that yellow bananas get to the freezer, maybe you should leave the recipe out for the others to give it a try LOL. Yes I was concerned that Heather was driving, but she sure looked happy behind the wheel! Hope that you find your mojo again soon so you can get those pages done for Christophers book! I need my mojo to return also!

@BrightEyes - OMG you have to keep the heat down all day long?? BRRR!! Hmmm looking at the conversion from F to C I guess I don't keep my heat at much higher than what you are at. Mine is usually at 20.5C which is around 68F. Much cooler than that at night though when we have it set at 64F. Hope you are able to keep bundled up and cozy warm all day!

@VickiStegall - Vicki yikes it sure looks cold where you are! Had to LOL at the comparison of Oklahoma facing a tornado and then facing the cold and snow!! Too funny! Hope that the Blackouts don't last too much longer, glad to hear that you are ok and hope that your temps warm up very soon!

Ok I need to get my bag packed for swimming and get myself a little something to eat before I head out. Hopefully the roads are not icy downtown! Have a good Tuesday everyone!

 

[bcgal00]

Good morning, ladies. Our snow is pretty much gone and the rain has started. So back to our usual west coast winter weather, around 40-45 and lots of rain. The dogs sure did enjoy it while it lasted. I'm so glad they got to experience this together before Jen moved out. We won't see much of her for awhile after she moves out b/c of the restrictions so the poor dogs are going to be heartbroken.

I'm excited about a new camera I'm getting. I've decided to get the Nikon P950 which is a bridge camera (lens attached and not interchangeable with other lenses), smaller sensor than my D500 so the photo quality won't be as good but the fun part will be the really long zoom on it for getting bird shots and it'll be much lighter than my d500 so more portable for carrying around. The zoom is 3 x longer than the one I have now. It isn't meant for indoor use or portraits but for outside it'll be so much fun!

@faerywings Banana bread sounds good. I have some in the freezer so should make some soon too.
@BrightEyes Hope your power stays on Kay. Stay warm.

I'm getting to work now. Have a good day everyone.

 

[bcgal00]

@taxed4ever We cross posted. Have a good swim and how nice to start the day off with a chat with the family. Hope H has a great birthday today. Isn't the IP great! I love doing my beans in it, it's so fast and easy.

 

[Cherylndesigns]

Good morning from Frozen Oklahoma! It's a heat wave today! 23 degrees! It was -6 last night. @VickiStegall we haven't gotten that much snow. Probably 5 inches, but we're expecting more tonight.

@faerywings we "almost" have all of our water! As of this morning, all of our faucets are running except the kitchen. We've been trying to keep a sink full of soapy water to keep the dishes from smelling. We'll be so glad to be able to run and dishwasher again and the laundry needs to be done. We've made it through - thank goodness for our family! These kids have made many trips on their Artic Cat to take our empty gallon jugs to Ava's, fill them up and bring them back full. I'm so thankful for all that they do! We are having rolling brownouts but no blackouts yet. The power grids are getting real low at night, but that's okay. We're comfortable and once we found out that it was the power company and not our furnace, we can deal with it. We have lots of blankets and warm clothes. Yes, someday, we'll look back and laugh. We took a "group selfie" on Valentine's Day to commemorate our first V-day here. We didn't have water then, but hey, we still had fun.

@BrightEyes so you know exactly how I feel. First winter!! Yes, it's wonderful to have ANY water! I'll never take for granted again. 4 days without it is a long time. Did you know that it takes almost 1 gallon of water to flush a toilet? I didn't. It's made us so mindful of the countries in the world that have little or no water. We're so blessed! We're also blessed that we have heat! Millions of people don't. Ours is browning out (by the power company) at night, but that's okay! At least we have some.

Waving "hi" to everybody and sending a great big group hug!

 

[nancyr]

I am very late posting. Such a bummer of a day. My husband walks out the door and then reopens it and says oh ice from the roof hit the window shield and it is shattered. So I call my insurance agent and they are sorry but all the systems are down and they cant really tell me if my window shield is covered. LOL I have my policy and I can read it and I am covered to I had the info when I called the window repair reps who make the call to the repairmen. She also apologized because she could not confirm my insurance but I called the repairmen directly and as long as I had the policy number. Luckily I had the info. But the problem of course is I have a doctor's appt. tomorrow and they cant come until Thursday to replace it. It is close so I asked my mechanic son and he says I can drive as the broken part is on the passenger side. And then more snow Thursday so who knows if they can even come and fix it. It was so weird Luther and I heard something as we were sitting on the couch together I just did not imagine it ice hitting my car. So now they are thinking of upping the totals of snow expected Thursday into Friday from 5-8 inches to maybe closer to 12 inches. I also have a doctor's appt on Friday so this snow is really annoying me. Spent a lot of time on the phone! I know those in TX, AK, and OK are having it really bad so my complaining seems a bit weak. Especially as OMgosh it was like spring out when I took Luther out. It was 50 degrees and sunny. That has made my day. Spring will come. The days are getting longer. Also I had watched this Canadian show called Heartland and Netflix now has two new seasons to watch. So that has been fun! I also watched Justin Timberlake in the movie Palmer. He was really good. It was a hard show to watch as the subject matter was hard but the young boy in the show was just terrific. But the best news is that my Devils are back and tonight is the second start of their season. They are playing the Rangers so should be a good game but I am sure my team will be rusty! But yea they are back!

@faerywings Chris we had no problems with snow or ice. Today walking every thing was melting so by tomorrow all the melted puddles will be ice and slippery. But it was so awesome to be out and not need gloves but still in my neighborhood some of the corner are still not dug out. Makes me so angry. Banana bread oh so good! Have fun with the mitten crocheting.

@Cherylndesigns wow no water and frigid temps. Glad you are getting most of it back to normal. Seems like it was not too much snow. And how nice now to be in the compound as everyone helps out. You will have stories to tell!

@taxed4ever Trudy happy birthday to Heather! How fun to FaceTime with them! I am glad they still have snow days as I kept thinking that if they were virtual the school could just have a virtual day and no snow day. Kids need fun in the snow! I bet your MG is a bit stiff! And a bottle to celebrate!

@scrap-genie Jean glad you are not getting too much snow! Your Valentine's day sounded lovely!

@bcgal00 Rae congrats on a new camera! I have the same type camera that I too use for birding when on trips as it is light. Have fun with it. Glad that Bella and Taz got to play in the snow! Their photos were too cute.

@BrightEyes Kay wow you are having a heat wave all the way up the twenties. You are a good do bee. I remember when Carter was President and we were asked to keep our thermostat at 65. I never want to go back to that cold again. I find 75 to be my minimum. It drives my DH and sons and even Luther crazy that I like it hot. Like today Luther spent a lot of time out doors even thought the heat was not on that much. Glad you did not lose any power!

@felis hope you are not having anymore problems with neighbors and dogs!

@VickiStegall glad you are conserving power. I went through 2 weeks without power after hurricane Sandy and I don't ever want to do that again! Good luck!

Have a great day all!

 

[felis]

Hello my lovelies!
I spend my free time of the day at the site that Chris recommended me. I hope soon to have finished product and then will tell you the whole story behind my wish to learn crocheting. But as I'm slowly knitter, if here happens the same I don't want to lose the effect of my story. It's not the same before to make this amigurumi.
Except that, everything else was just a regular day.

Chris, how strange that this winter is colder for you than the previous?! I can't remember well last winter here, but this one we are have only 3 real snow weeks, which is nothing for this climate. Of course Middleton unwrap my roses bush at the first snowing day, and I'm not sure do I was able to cover them properly in the cold. I hope the fact that it's not a young bush to save it from freezing! This dog really live just to destroy things. LOL! Hope your hedges to survive as well as the gutters to not fall!
Thank you so much for the links! So far I'm still on the first, but I found so many things on it, that will love to spend more time there. All sites are very helpful! I needed to see videos and all fall into place. The book already was teach me the stitches, but there was parts that just not sounds logical to me. I think sometimes I still not find the right hole, but now is much better! I want mostly to learn crochet amigurumi, so for now I need just the basic, and the book is too elaborate. I'll give it another chance at the end of the year, as once when gardening start there not left time for knitting.

Kay, stay warm and enjoy your books!

Vicki, lol, it's sounds as no one except me enjoy the winter! But I do hope that you're not gonna lose power!

Trudy, Happy Birthday to Heather! You should make one special dinners for you and Gary too. That's how my parents will do, as momy say it's her holiday too! At least my sister will come for Easter. Hope your family to be able to get together soon! Strange but we are celebrate many birthdays away from home, I can't understand why this year my parents take it so seriously?! It's not like Christmas or Thanksgiving.
I'm sharing your excitement the draft feature is awesome, so helpful and also this one for bookmark too!

Rae, the new camera sounds fun, and lightweight definitely sounds more comfortable to carry on in wild shots.

Cheryl, I often think about that how many water is needed for toilet, and actually how many water we waste for everything! I always promise to start to collect rainwater to use it for the garden at hot days, but actually never did it. This snow now for example, so many of it will go directly on the street and at the street shafts as the soil can't absorb it all. I'm saw lots of eco gardens to 'bottle' it for july and august.

Nancy, Ouch it's so bad and scary that ice hitting your car! Good there wasn't dog or humans!
lol, no, no new problems for me today. Just a quiet day! Yey, enjoy the hockey tonight!

 

[LSlycord]

Good evening all. Ugh...I’m not facing any of the awful weather that all of you are. But I’m just exhausted. And it is only Tuesday evening.

Sydney got to talk to her high school counselor today about classes for next year. I got to join in over the phone. It took less than 10 minutes because, although they made her sign up for classes, today they allowed her to modify her schedule and say that she won’t take any classes at the high school next year. All of her classes will be at the community college but that doesn’t open for another two weeks. Ugh...

Then we got a call from the school after both kids were home and found out that Sydney starts quarantine tomorrow. A kid in one of her classes has COVID so she is in quarantine for the rest of the week. She will miss her science Olympiad competition next weekend because she doesn’t get out of quarantine until next Monday. This is her second quarantine since October. Shaun has had one quarantine. I will be glad when this school year is done.

Weather is nice down here. High will only be in the 50’s tomorrow but compared to everyone else, it is balmy...

 

[LSlycord]

@nancyr how awful about the windshield. and then the insurance company had their systems down. Seriously? I hope that the drive to the doctor’s appointment goes smooth tomorrow.

@felis I am so impressed with your knitting. My aunt taught me how to make slippers about 50 years ago. I would love to start again.

@Cherylndesigns I agree that the memories will remain forever. And the whole family shares them. Just hope that the water stays on.

@VickiStegall that Picture is a crazy amount of snow. But you definitely know how to survive tornado.

@faerywings I know what you mean about being grateful that Cait didn’t need to drive in this awful weather. That was my least favorite thing about the winter in Iowa...letting the kids get into cars in the snow and ice.

Waving hi to all. Keep warm and safe. Spring is coming...it always does!

 

[felis]

@LSlycord aww, it's so disappointing to miss her science Olympiad competition. Is it possible to make a test instead of stay in quarantine? In my country we have that option and it's not very expensive I think it was around $20.

 

[LSlycord]

@LSlycord aww, it's so disappointing to miss her science Olympiad competition. Is it possible to make a test instead of stay in quarantine? In my country we have that option and it's not very expensive I think it was around $20.

We don’t have that option. Even if they test negative, they must quarantine for 10 day. Although she wasn’t quarantined the full 10 days because we weren’t notified in time. So crazy!