Can someone explain to me why it is that whenever I really would like to find someone to talk to on-line, everyone is in sleeping, or out in the sunshine, or celebrating with their families or in general off living their lives????
I am probably on-line more than the average woman my age, but I have retreated from the point of being addicted to my computer. But on those rare times when I would really like to chat with a friend, it always seems that I am out of sync time-wise. Either my English friends have long ago gone to bed, or my local friends are otherwise occupied.
Why is that!?
I’ve been so busy lately working on two charitable activities that I’m out of touch with my friends. You’d think with all the bad weather and snow we’ve had, that everyone would be glued to their computers for lack of anything else to do. Perhaps laundry, dishes and cleaning have taken priority.
This too shall pass, and then perhaps I’ll be the one guilty of sleeping in, or weeding, rather than attending to my friends. If I have missed you of late, we are fine, we hope you’ve come through the bad weather well, and I’ll chat with you soon!

Mother Nature is chillin us out! We’re supposed to get to a low of minus six degrees F. tonight, and -11 tomorrow night. About all I can say is that Dear Husband better be prepared for me to snuggle!
I’m going to add an extra quilt to my side of the bed. I’m thinking about wearing an old long-sleeved turtleneck to bed with my flannel jammies. I’m going to burrow in!
I’m supposed to go to exercise tomorrow. I really need to be there, to collect granny squares for Share a Square. We have at least 80 ready to be sent off, I think, and I don’t want to miss picking them up. I want to have the time to box them so that they will be ready for the Post Office when I have to go out again on Thursday.
The mantra for this week, is BUNDLE UP, STAY WARM, STAY AT HOME IF YOU CAN!

Well, not really. We are one of thousands of households in the Chicago suburbs who have weathered the Blizzard of 2011. Our newscasters tell us this was the third worst winter storm since they started keeping stats on the weather here.
Tuesday morning, Dear Husband finished up on a job site and made it home in time to drive me to the grocery store. The roads were clean at noon, following a small snowstorm, and I could have driven myself, but I wanted to give him the chance to pick up whatever he might want to weather the storm. It started snowing around 3:00, and the snow was so dense that it almost looked foggy. It was forecast that we would have 8.5 inches of snow by 10:00. I think we lagged behind a bit, but obviously the snowfall increased over night.
The wind picked up, and it was fierce. I was so concerned about the wind bringing a tree down on the house that I gathered my clothing and anything I might need for today, and moved it closer to the interior of the house. We have a gorgeous old evergreen tree that stands next to the SW corner of the house. That corner has two skylights over our bathroom and dressing area, and I was worried about that tree coming through the skylights Still…I went to bed. There was no point in sitting up and worrying about it.
When I woke, it was sunny, and the wind had abated. Dear Husband was plowing the driveway and the area on the east side of the house. My stepson had shoveled during the night (he’s a night owl), and DH had even put out seed for the birds. Tomorrow, I’ll shovel a path to the bird feeders and fill them up again.
We think we got 22 inches of snow. It’s tough to get an accurate reading because of the incredible drifts. We have an herb garden on the north side of the house that is raised to the height of two landscaping timbers. You can see the head and shoulders of the St. Francis statue in the center bed. The southern side of the bed has two spare timbers sitting on one edge, and you can see just the side of the top spare timber! You can’t tell where the beds are and where the walkways are.
We lucked out. No interruption in electricity or any other services. The house is warm, we have light, and the computer and TV are working. I spent the day in my fabric sweatshop, cranking out pieces for charity quilts. It’s been a great day. It feels as though it should be Sunday.
One more thought. I was railing at DH that people no longer help each other because we are afraid of being sued, but today I heard TWO stories from friends about neighbors who had come to shovel them out. There’s hope for us all, yet! Go visit Joy, at the Joy of Six blog. She was one of the lucky recipients of neighborhood kindness.

How can it be that we are already at the close of January? I’ve been busy all month, as I am sure you have, and I’m satisfied with what I have accomplished, but there’s a lot left to do. Scraps on a Mission is coming along nicely, and I’ve got the tax planners for our personal taxes, and Mother’s final tax return. We plan to shop for carpeting for the hallway, and for the living room, which is long past needing to be replaced. We’re ready to face February and see what our shortest month will bring.
I was talking with Dear Husband about the need to clean out the basement. Our basement is truly a disgrace. I don’t trust my knees on the stairs, so I go downstairs very infrequently. I think I’m going to need to live in the basement during February, because so much needs to be done.
We need to destroy documents from our company dating back to 1986. We need to destroy personal documents that we no longer need. I need to gather all my Mother’s things into one section of the basement, so that my family will be able to see them, and decide what we will do with them. I need to store all the Christmas decorations in their bins, and throw away a collection of boxes that we probably no longer need. AND, I should go through a collection of ancient electronic stuff, to determine what needs to be given to the recycling center. All of February, right? Maybe I need to put up a bed down there, and add a hot plate and refrigerator! lol
I’m looking forward to Spring, and warmer weather, but not until this mess has been sorted out. I’ll take my cell phone with me, in case anyone needs me. *G*

Could you PLEASE explain to me why someone in a third world country feels it’s appropriate to spam my blog? It’s not like I have a gazillion readers, and by now you’d think they would have figured out that most comments have to be approved, and I’m just dumping them in the trash.
Please, you turkeys, go find someplace else to roost!
(Now, watch, it will take me hours to clean out all the comments. Sheesh!)

It’s time to practice 2011, 2011, 2011!
And it’s time to leave the weeks of celebration behind and get back to our usual lives. Well, almost! lol
My quilting bee meets the first Friday of the month. That would be this coming Friday. I leave my Christmas decorations up until they have visited, and then everything comes down. I really enjoy the wreaths and swags and decorations. I love the red bows and strings of lights. I’m glad to have them for just a week more, especially since they didn’t go up until mid-December.
Most of us are back to our regular schedules now. This morning I filled in for my exercise guru, and I’ll get to do that again on Wednesday and Friday. Wednesday’s class will be smaller, as many of the class will be on a trip to see “The Mikado,” in Chicago. Today, one of the class clowns, someone who must be nearing 80, turned the lights out while we were in the middle of a cardio exercise. I get that he doesn’t want to be there, but I wish he would find less dangerous ways to express himself.
I’m working on several small quilts for our charity quilting group. I’ve found blocks from previous projects, “orphans,” that have made a great basis for several small quilts. It’s wonderful to find homes for these pieces and know that nothing is going to go to waste!
I’m going to make apple bread this afternoon, which will be the last of the tea bread for a while. I made five loaves of pumpkin/walnut bread, two loaves of banana nut bread, and I’ll make two loaves of apple bread. Dear Husband has an early morning sweet tooth, and he takes a slice with him on his way to work. All the bread, with the exception of one banana-nut loaf is in the freezer. I won’t have to bake for a while. DH will make these loaves last!
And…..bills. I have bills to pay today. I wonder how many times I will print 2010 rather than 2011??? Onward and upward!

We had a beautiful White Christmas. Not too much snow, just enough to give a good cover and make everything look lacy and pristine. IT looked traditional, old-fashioned, even, and I really enjoyed it.
Yesterday, though, it started to RAIN! Who ever heard of rain in December in Illinois!? It was a light rain, but between the rain and the fact that it was in the forties, the snow was a gonner. Well, almost a gonner. We still have a light patch here and there, and the mounds that were plowed to the side of the drive are hanging on, but I doubt they will make it through the night.
We could have really used this rain in October and November. It’s hard on the perennials and trees to go into winter without adequate moisture, and it’s tough on perennials to have to get through the winter without the insulation of snow cover, and the resulting drink they get from the spring thaw. This evening our temperatures are supposed to drop back down well below freezing, into the twenties. Plants will shiver and party-goers will need to be careful on icy streets on their way home.

I suspect that we are all doing the same thing right about now. We’ve spent so much time working on Christmas in the past month that we need to play catch up during this last week of the year.
I have not had a chance to be in my studio for about two weeks. Two of my quilting friends have donated close to 500 yards of fabric to Scraps on a Mission, which makes quilts for people at our local hospitals. One of the Empty Nesters wanted to get a project like this started, and I offered my assistance. Now I spend my time cutting out kits for ladies to assemble this summer, and I am the keeper of all that fabric! I’ve organized it into six boxes, plus a box of kits, and that seems fairly manageable. I’ve washed part of it, and now I need to press some of the fabric that I want to cut. My goal is to get the cutting table cleared off, and two projects set up for cutting in the future.
AND….I have a quilt on my design board that needs to be sewn together. I have plenty to do in the quilt section of my life.
Do you still iron? For the most part I’ve found clothing that doesn’t need a lot of pressing, but I have a FULL to overflowing ironing basket at the moment. The napkins from Thanksgiving, white antique pillowcases with the crocheted or embroidered trims, a couple of small table cloths, my Mother’s Christmas apron, and an immense stack of quarter-yard pieces of quilting fabric all need to be done. I may set the board up in the living room and iron after dinner until I get it done!
I’ve been crocheting squares for Share A Square 2010. If you’re not familiar with this group, please click on the link to the right for more information. I’ve encouraged the members of my exercise group to make six-inch granny squares, and so far we have created 98 squares. I find that I can make one square while I watch (or listen to) a one-hour T.V. show. Over the past 45 days I’ve made about 30 squares. If I can make the time, I’d like to make two more before I send off my current mailing, so that I can say we have made an even one hundred! And, of course, this is on-going.
One of the reasons I need to clear off the table in the studio is to make a sorting area for personal papers. I hope this is a project that won’t take more than a day or two, and the sooner I get it done, the better. DH says I keep EVERYTHING. He’s almost right. There are a few insignificant things I throw away during the year. Which means, that before I do our taxes, I need to sort through all this stuff to determine if there is anything which needs to be kept for taxes. DH and I will need to be meeting in the basement on a nightly basis in the future to destroy documents. He gets to work on things for the company, and I will need to work on our personal papers. I doubt we need to keep the gas and electric and phone bills from 20 years ago. Besides, I want to reuse some of the binders to hold my cooking magazines!
I also need to file the papers I’ve been collecting on my Mother’s behalf. I’m pretty sure that I can get things down to several three ring binders, and I’ll check with the CPA to determine how long those will need to be kept.
I might see the top of the desk again, soon! What a pleasant and amazing thought that is! lol
So, I assume that most of you go through this same procedure, of catching up with your lives following Christmas. I wish you smooth sailing and great success as we move toward 2011.