April Snow Showers

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Or, how I woke up to snow yet again.

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Early this morning, I heard what I thought was rain, but wasn’t surprised to see a dusting of snow. It melted. By 9:30am, it had clouded over more and begun to snow, just a little. I started a fire in the wood stove, and when I looked up around 10am, it was really groppeling. You know, that whole sounds like rain, but looks like snow. By 10:30am, it had turned to big flakes. Now, two hours later, we have 2 maybe 3 inches of snow and the wind keeps picking it up and making little blizzards. BRRRR!

This is a vast contrast to yesterday.  Mom and I went to Pueblo and did the shopping. Dad had surgery on Tuesday, and just didn’t feel up to shopping. No surprise here. sigh… So, we had a ladies day out. 🙂  It was a nice relaxed day and very warm! The funny part of the day was when the young cashier at Joann’s offered me a Senior Citizen coupon for a sale on next Wednesday. I’m only 54! sigh… I giggled rather than get offended. I don’t dye my hair, so I guess to her I looked old enough. The high point of the day of course, was dinner at Romero’s. yum.

I’m planning to spend the rest of my day watching the snow fall, writing and maybe embroidering a bit. Oh, and going to lunch at George’s!

 

 

That itch…

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To clean. Yes, Spring Clean. It’s almost warm enough. Nearly 68F if you don’t derate it for the wind… 🙂 I want to be cleaning. To dust, sort, shake out, sweep and wash windows. (don’t faint!)

However, Dan is writing the last paper for his class. I have a crazy week to get ready for and my allergies are… impressive. Achoooo!

Instead of working on some grand project, I’ve been nibbling at things. I did a clean and organize on the main house. Swept floors, tidied up my desk, etc. Did a little of that in the Wendy House. What I’m waiting for though is next weekend. We are planning to build the closet. When this is done, a whole domino of events can take place.

  • move, sort and shuffle clothes. (winter to summer wardrobe)
  • put floor in WH
  • move big dresser into the living area of the WH
  • rearrange ‘office area’ in WH bedroom.
  • Clean WH. (yes, that includes washing windows!)

And that doesn’t count other things like making raised beds, moving the compost pile (yet again!) and other bits. Now to just get through the next few days.

Switching Centuries

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Last week was a small bit of hell. There is an event in late winter which we had planned to attend. This is Corazon de Leon III. It’s held in La Veta and put on by our own shire. Shire Villaleon. I wanted to make some new clothes for the event, as it is a Winter event. A nice balance to Battlemoor, held at the end of August.

I bought the fabric in November, and figured that I’d have PLENTY of time to make two hats, a tunic and a new overdress. Silly me. Life in it’s own way got busy. So, on February 1st, I put my foot down. I was going to SEW! Keep in mind that my sewing studio is unheated. If you go back through my posts, you’ll notice something… Every one of them from November on has the word SNOW in the title. Can you see my problem? It was too cold most days to sit on the front porch and sew.

I also forgot to mention something. On February 19th, when we were up in Denver for the CASB Legislative conference, I slipped and broke my nose. Yes, big goose egg on my head, slight concussion and of course, the obligatory Black Eyes from hell. I managed one day at the conference before the bruises bloomed, but that was it.

It also put my behind schedule, because I just didn’t feel good enough to use a little tiny needle…

March 1st. Of course, there was snow. I managed though to plan out Dan’s hat.

March 2nd. Sewed, ripped, sewed, ripped the hat. Finally realized I needed fur. Rabbit fur. We had to order it. Fast.

March 6th. Cut out my dress and Dan’s tunic. Did a little sewing.

March 8th. It snowed, but I actually got some stuff done. Worked on the viking coat a little and did the last minute drafts for the tunic pattern. Keep in mind, that unlike most modern sewing patterns, medieval patterns are sketched and measured onto the fabric.

March 10th. Meetings. Awgh! Sewing like a crazy person. I used the machine on the major straight seams. All the flat feld seams and hems done by hand. 

March 13th. Dan’s hat is done, as is his tunic and the main portion of my apron dress.

March 14th. While with my parents in Colorado Springs, I’m sewing like crazy. Dad is suppose to be in hospital for bladder surgery, but instead we ended up in ER. They thought he had a stroke. Craziness ensues. Dad ends up spending the night in hospital, and we go home. Only good thing… I finished my hat.

March 15th. Corazon. Well, we managed to be there for about 3 hours. sigh… At least we got to see some friends and wear our new clothes for a few hours. Later that day we went up and got my Dad. No stroke, but not sure what happened. A very rough weekend.

Here are the pictures of the clothes and some of Corazon. This coming week, I’ll be doing some adjustments to the apron dress.

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They said it would…

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Snow that is. Yesterday started out sunny and warm. Around noon, the clouds rolled in and it began to rain. Not much at first. In fact, it was just enough to show us where all the leaks from the damage caused by the wind storms. I worked on my clothes for the SCA event next weekend and moved various buckets and cups to catch the drips.

While I was cooking dinner, the sound changed. The gentle pitter patter of rain drops turned hard. We looked out the window and sleet was falling fast. By the time we ate dinner 40 minutes later, there was an inch of slushy snow on the ground. Brrr!

I headed off to the Wendy House and the wood stove. Dan stayed inside and worked on the satellite receiver that has been eating his life. ugh. When he came to bed, we had about 5 inches.

This morning, we woke to nearly 8 inches of snow. Wow! It is a wet heavy snow, which means we will net about 1/2 an inch of water. Yes, 1/2 an inch out of all that snow. The general formula is 12 inches of snow equals 1 inch of water. Or, in other words, the 18 inches of rain that Boulder and areas north of us got last summer equals 18 FEET of snow.

I took some pictures. Brandy was a bit twitterpatted by a large raven that was nearby.

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Wind Whistling

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… through my ears, the walls and every crack it can find. We’ve had a lot of wind this year. The last really nasty gusts, 83mph, ripped our weather station off the roof. It still isn’t fixed, so now I check our local weather station. (63F and 20mph gusts right now) Our dog, Brandy, hates the wind. You’d think a coyote/Shepard mix wouldn’t mind. Wrong! So, we woke this morning to her whining and wanting IN!

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Life is still hectic. While the last two weeks was busy with meetings and oddball schedules, the next two are travel heavy.

First off, I’m going to Denver tomorrow with my friend Jolene. We are going to IKEA to get stuff for her Pre-School class. Wednesday, after lunch with friends, Dan and I are off to Denver for a CASB Legislative Conference. It’s at the Brown Palace Hotel. Very swanky. 🙂 A pull out the high heels and leave the cowboy boots at home kind of thing. The last day of the conference is spent at the Capitol, meeting legislators.

When we get home, if the weather will allow, we will be doing more work on the Wendy House. Closets and maybe book shelves. That will open up the area and get our clothes out of the ‘dust zone’. 🙂

We’ve also been slowly whittling down our electric bill by using LED lights. Our next step may be solar and DC powered lights. We figured out how to replace the AC bulbs with DC LED lights, and not have to totally rewire. (thank you Scott!)

I’ve also got just under three weeks to get ready for Corazon. I bought a new book last night, Great Book of Celtic Patterns, by Lora S, Irish. Lots of very nice patterns to use with my Viking persona, Unna Farulfsdottir.

Happy Brrrrrr Year!

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Oh it has been cold!!! Cold enough that wood that should have lasted us another two weeks is gone. Brrr! And… three people, Morgan, Dan and I in one small main room was… Crowded! We were all snuggling up to the wood stove. Add in texting, videos, dinners, and phone calls for three and chaos reigned. While I was sad for Morgan to go back to school and Dan back to work, I have been glad for the silence. I might even get some sewing done!

I have a number of projects on the back burner so to speak. A coat, SCA garb, woodworking, knitting, and um.. oh yeah.. Writing! Biggest issue is keeping warm enough.

Dan and I had a nice New Year’s Eve. Smoked salmon and salmon paste in little pastries with fresh spinach salad, rye crackers, etc. We did stay up until midnight, and then curled up under the heavy quilt. 🙂

We did finish one major project before the new year. Lighting! We installed 4 lights and one ceiling fan. The difference is amazing! Next up on the Wendy House agenda is a ‘dog house’ for the plumbing connections that are outside, flooring in the living room and then closets.

Here are the lights. The pendulum lights are in the ‘living room’ area. The round ones are in the kitchen area and the ceiling fan is above our bed.

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Of Snowdrops and Sparks

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While in some ways it has been quiet, in others, it has not. we’ve been trying to get the Wendy House more “livable”. Our efforts with siding showed good results in that the snow storm two days ago was hardly felt. 🙂 Less draughts and cold seeping in. Dan’s filling in the roof ends with insulation worked! In this last week we finally got all of the ditches filled in and the step back in place! No more drawbridge to navigate in the dark!!!

We added 500 pounds of gravel in a drainage ditch and then filled and leveled the ground as best we could. Then we moved the large slab of sandstone into place and it only took minor feats of amazing strength to level it.

On the inside, we have been working on the electric wiring. Grandpa Sudar was a very clever and devious man in many ways. Over the years, we have dealt with many of his building oddities. A six inch long Louiseville slugger stub filling in a hole, drywall Not attached to 2×4’s hidden in the wall, and now the electrical work. We’ve been trying to figure out where the wires ran so we could upgrade the romex. We were stumped. So, Dan began to undo the light fixture we are replacing with a ceiling fan. Lo and behold… Grandpa had built itty bitty soffits to carry the wire! We had always wondered why there were 1×2’s on the rafters… now we know!

So, we will be installing the lights by the weekend. We are also upgrading lights in the ‘garage’ part of the Wendy House. Four LED lights from IKEA. They will replace four 100 watt bulbs with bulbs that use about 9 watts and give the same light. 🙂 I love that our electric bill keeps on dropping! Average so far this year is about $50 a month. We’ve moved from incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescents and now to LED bulbs.

Here are some pictures of our latest works:

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Oh what a crazy month!

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This month has been crazy. Chaotic. Dizzying. Now, I thought it was a little crazy, because I spent most of the first week at the CASB Winter Conference. This is the big school board association conference held every year at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. It was a very good, although COLD conference. Average temperature was about 13F outside for most of the week.

I went up on the 4th, as I was presenting at the New Boardmember’s Boot Camp Workshop. 🙂 Five minutes of fame. LOL! Well, it started snowing on Wednesday morning and I was taking a school district vehicle. The VAN. A huge 12 passenger van, which made me feel like a five year old. I nearly needed a step ladder to climb in. Granted, it was nice to have the weight, as I was driving in snow and on ice most of the time.

This was also the first time in almost a year that Dan couldn’t come with me. As it was so cold, he stayed home to keep Brandy from turning into a Pupcicle. We had no one to feed her or dog sit her, so there was no choice but for him to stay.

Thursday was great. I went to my first session about Rural districts and then presented that afternoon. Five minutes on ‘how data is important.’ The rest of the conference was good, and I was very glad to get home on Sunday. Once I got home, we went and picked Morgan up from La Junta. Monday, I spent time with Daniel and Angela. We went shopping in Pueblo and had a great time. I should have gone to a District Accountability meeting, but I didn’t make it.

Tuesday was our board meeting. A long one, but good. Thursday was busy. Two events. A school holiday party and a school district office party. Sort of stacked together, but we managed both. 🙂 Good thing they were next door to each other.

Friday, we drove to Denver. We did a bit of shopping and on Saturday we saw our computer client. Got home late Sunday. The week started out busy. A trip to Pueblo, work for Dan, the holiday program at Gardner on Wednesday, cleaning my parents house and then up to Denver again on Thursday because our computer client was having weird issues. Friday we did shopping and then drove home late.

Saturday was Solstice. Yule. We got up at dawn and enjoyed the sun rise. Then instead of a nice breakfast, we had to check on the school wrestling tournament. Should have been a 10 minute stop. Nope. It wasn’t. At noon, I left to go help my dad stack a cord of firewood. I was done in 90 minutes, and went back to the wrestling tournament. We were there till about 7pm. Afterwards, we grabbed dinner and then collapsed in bed.

We woke up to snow this morning. Today we did odd jobs around the house and tried to relax a bit. Oh, and Dan built a faux satellite transmitter to test his ground station. The rest of the week isn’t looking much calmer.

This is the song that I woke up with on Solstice.

Just a Flake or Two…

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Remember that we got a dusting of snow on Thursday and Friday? Well… it snowed a lot on Saturday, and even more on Sunday. We woke up today to over a foot of snow. This is wet heavy stuff. Not the dry squeak when you walk stuff like we had on Friday. Lucky for us, we got a load of firewood on Friday. Amazing how a bit of tree can make you so happy. (and warm!)

Today we slept in a bit, and we had just gotten dressed and finished breakfast when the phone rang. It was Dad. He needed help with the snow in his driveway. So, we got in the car, slid down the alleys and paid our water bill. (the Big job for the day). Then we drove, slid, rolled to my parents house. For all of the ten blocks difference, they got less snow than we did.

Dan used my parents snow blower while Dad shoveled a bit of the walk way. Funny bit is that at one point, I looked out and Dad was playing out the electric cord for the snow blower and all I could think of is “On Belay!” (Dad was a technical mountaineer for years, doing lots of rope work)

Then Dan got the truck stuck in the middle of the street. He grabbed the chains and lo and behold… when you change your tires, Always, ALWAYS check to make sure your chains fit! Ours didn’t. The two of them had to dig the truck out and use the chains for traction on the snow than on the tires.

After the truck was free of the snowbank, we headed to the grocery for Thanksgiving dinner. I’m bringing the pies and Dan is making rolladen. Yum!

As I was taking pictures, I realized that many of the pics look exactly the same as I’m using the same spot. So, I tried to change them up a bit this time. Two of the pics are at my parent’s house, and the rest are here.

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Dan’s Dominos

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Or how to knock over a whole slew of things with just one pull. 🙂 Yeah…

This weekend, we were finishing up the trim, electrical work and a few other bits and pieces on the Wendy House. I started on the brick wall in the main room that we use for a bedroom and my office. I took down all the bricks and then cleaned up a few of them. Then I put them back up on the wall with liquid nails. I was amazed at how fast and easy it went up. Better yet, how nice it looked. WendyHouseWork22 WendyHouseWork25Once I got the room put back together, I started working on the yard and doing a few other bits and pieces.

We had Daniel and Matthew as visitors too. Daniel borrowed some tools and Matt helped knock cement off of the bricks for me.

Dan started with the trim work and the shutters. He made me some cute ‘rustic’ styled shutters which I really like. As soon as we have the lumber, he will be making a planter to hang under the window.  We’d been talking about paint, what colors, whether we could manage this at the weekend, would the weather hold, etc. So, I started taking pictures. We were was almost finished when he realized that he had to add another piece of trim.

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Could he leave it alone? No. As he’d already put some of the tools away, he walked back into the garage and pulled on the cord of the drill. It was pinched under the chunk of drywall. As he pulled, it knocked the drywall, the siding, a few other things and… the bookcase. It was a beautiful (wince) domino effect.

We took a break. After a sandwich, a phone call and some planning, we started picking up the mess. I stacked stuff and he moved the big pieces.

Then he finished up the trim. About twenty minutes later, he was up in the ceiling doing the electrical wiring. The area he was in will eventually be a loft storage area and the ceiling to the kitchen area. After all that was done, we had to decide where to put the bookshelf. Moving that, we came to the realization that we needed to clean up the rest of the area too.  Mice droppings, dust, sawdust, spiders, (three black widows the size of dimes!) and leaves were everywhere. Up until last weekend, it had been only separated from the great outdoors by a rather old garage door. Not air tight or even dust tight.

WendyHouseWork23  It took a little longer than I thought it would, but it was worth it. We tossed all the lumber scraps in the firewood pile and placed the shelf in a different spot. Oh, and we tested the wiring job. That new kitchen light is bright! LED, but bright! We may replace it with a less intense one later.

Once we had everything cleaned up, sorted, and stuffed in the right spot or pile, we had dinner and then crawled into bed. It had been a long day! Productive too!

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