Countdown

Well, as the year winds up, I find that I haven't blogged nearly enough, there are hundreds of unedited pictures in my computer, and leaves still in my front yard. Peonies didn't recover and bloom, but I still bought more. I finally got around to purchasing bulbs to stick in the ground, but 8 are still unplanted and I don't know where I want to stick them. I have plans of a red clematis to let grow over my stairs, so they won't be an eye sore when I sit in my swing and its a lot of my yard without flowers.

The canoe eats up my weekends, but that's what its for. I wasn't really getting that much more mowing and garden preparation anyway, and there's always the time for that in spring when it's too cold to be on the water. Or fall. Speaking of which, I need to rotate my compost pile more often.

May 2008 be better.

Danger Will Robinson

Well, it's been a couple of weeks and still nothing has set off the traps aside from a shoe discarded into the wrong corner. I'm guessing the mouse moved on, if it was even in the house to begin with. Especially since the bird seed doesn't seem to be targeted.

I knew not getting a tree this year was a bad thing. I found myself cruising the bargin ornament displays and came home with a few. Not much, but a few balls and a set of bells for an uncluttered tree. Too bad the "green" for the year is a lousy lime green. Not at all what I associate with Christmas.

Merry Un-Christmas!

Christmas has passed. I got a semi-white Christmas by going to visit family. But even then, a big warm rain event washed away most of their ice and snow on the Sunday before. I did the whole spiel from making Christmas cookies to wrapping presents and writing Christmas cards. I got the card in the mail before Christmas, but only just. The others were hand delivered as it were. I don't do many cards.

My Christmas tree for this year was theirs. My December was too jumbled between the cruise and going up there on Saturday. And then New Year's celebrations are stretched out as well. But I got to decorate theirs, since my dad procrastinated until Saturday to buy one. Pretty good tree for a clearance tree.

On Sunday, with a little bit of prodding, my mom finished the top for the quilt she is making me. Big deal since she started hand piecing it in February of 1993. Let's just say it wasn't the most consistant sewing project. Especially since it took me about 10 years to get her to do the marking on her own.

Monday morning saw me crawling around on my hands and knees in the dining room pin basting it. Between her hip and the arthritis in her back, I couldn't let her do it. It was placed in my old Grace hoop yesterday. Go Mom! My brother requests that it take less than 15 years to quilt it... But he's just being pushy.

No Results

Well, last weekend's big ice storm missed us. All rain. Then wind. Then frigid temperatures. And I seemed to have lost my knit hat. Oh, well, bought a new one. That's how these things go.

No results from the snap traps. Which is good. It could have just been a dream reminent and I'm okay with that. I wasn't really awake that morning. Although, it did get me to fix the entry into the attic/crawlspace. Didn't realize that the one bit was only held in by the other blocks holding to the wall. Well, some nails fixed that. Closing that closet door helped with the rest.

Sweet Relief

In one of those nanny firewall incidents, it had looked like I was going lose posting on my blog and commenting on all blogger hosted sites. Yesterday, nanny blocked the log-in since it was flagged "web chat" in the documentation. I don't pretend to understand how websites do that to be seen in search engines and how nanny firewalls see that to block them, but it happens. Thankfully, someone protested to IT and Blogger is back on the approved list!

Unfortunately, this is tempered by the fact that I saw a mouse-like scuttle out of the corner of my eye this morning. This is really disturbing, despite the fact that it probably only just moved in with the cold snap and the week of no one in residence. The disturbing part is that it was on the second floor with the bedrooms. And it was going into the junk storage room. No food in there, but lots of boxes and mementos strewn about the floor. Precious papers and fabrics that could be used as nests. Eek!

Now I could understand a mouse being sighted in the pantry, or the kitchen or where I keep the bird seed and turtle food. Those are logical places. But upstairs where I sleep! No way! So, today after work, or rather after the Office Christmas party/dinner, I need to pick up snap traps and peanut butter. Yuck.

First Snowfall

Well, we had the first snowfall of the season here. Right at about the same time as everyone else, I guess. I wouldn't know. See, the snow happened while I was off on a cruise. Ha-ha! What timing! Granted, there was that low pressure weather maker in San Diego that gave us a few worries on landing. Which lead to a surprise landing in LA, before finally touching down in San Diego. But it was sunny and warm in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Beautiful too. Spent a lot of time in the pool on the ship, because it was open and I didn't feel like a shore exursion. I did set foot in Mexico to buy Chrismas presents/souveiners, though.

A rough front moved through and gave the boat a lot of chop. The sea was so rough, they closed the port of Enscanada, Mexico. Oops. And because it was so rough, they kept a cover on the pool. Now of course the funny part is that back on land in San Diego, we went to see the famous San Diego Zoo. Beautiful tropical plants all over the place. But it was so cool there, that they put the tortoises inside under their heat lamps. Booo! I missed Zeppe's relations. But still, it was rather impressive that they looked after their animals like that.

So, I'm back home to melting snow. The leaves need cleaned up, but it's too wet to go out with my mower. Fortunately, there are supposed to be some high fifty degree days this coming week, so I won't freeze too much getting that done.