Waste of Snow

Finally, snow. Unfortunately, it's Saturday. We haven't had a snow day ALL YEAR. Stupid global warming.

Got a cold and taking it easy today. Watching Ultimate Factories-Lego right now and thinking of all the Lego fans in the family.

Can't post on anybody's site right now. So I'll just wave from here. <<wave>>

Ephipany

I like the Nativity at our church. I thought I'd take some pictures to show it off:

The kings have arrived. The miracle is that Mary gave birth to a six-year-old child! (one, small irritating thing in an otherwise very fine Nativity.)

I think there must have been two sets which were combined. I love it because there are so many shephards.

I love this camel-tender with the red sash. A better view of the shepards and the other king.

Quiet Holiday

I had a nice New Year's Day. The highlights:

* Watching parts of the "Twilight Zone" marathon on SyFy. I was able to catch so many of my favorite episodes.

* Seeing my "Church Ladies" at church this morning and catching up over breakfast.

* Planting the Amaryllis bulb I received from one of my students. I had one before and they are fun to watch grow and bloom. Having planted it on New Year's Day, I can keep a mental record of how long it takes to bloom. I also planted some berries from the holly one of my student brought in for me. Maybe I can grow my own holly.

* A nap. Always a good thing.

* Getting a few items checked off my list. Graded enough papers that it won't be a huge task to finish tomorrow.

* Roasted my turkey breast I bought at Thanksgiving. Got it all ready for sandwiches for lunch for the next week or two. I decided to make a true meal of it today - I made mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and even cranberry. I even had a gingerbread cookie left over to top it off. Nice.

* Puzzles. I picked up a few puzzle books at after Christmas sales - crosswords (which is too hard, unfortunately), logic, and word roundup (like word searches, but with clues.) I still have pages left in my hangman calendar from last year, and I have a stockpile of sudoku 'high five' puzzles from Sunday papers to work on. It's great to have time to excersise one's brain.

Only two things missing - the Rose Bowl parade and my Sunday paper didn't arrive. But the parade will be on tomorrow and they promised to deliver my paper tomorrow too.

New Year's Eve is not a favorite of mine. If you haven't a party to go to or someone to kiss at midnight, there really isn't much appeal. But New Year's Day can be a nice, relaxing holiday. And this year we get a second, equally relaxing day to enjoy tomorrow. I might get spoiled.

A gift from St. Nick?

I've been looking for my mouse's nest. It had a little start of one in the guest room closet, but it was hoarding those poison pellets, and I wanted to find where. I checked around the guest room, but found nothing. Later, something told me to look in my bedroom closet. Poking around, I lifted one of my red boots and heard it rattle. Took it outside to dump it - in case any critters were inside. Poured out a big pile of poison pellets and mixed in were pieces of candy from my bedside table. 

In many European countries, children don't hang stockings. Instead they leave boots for St. Nicholas to fill. So is this a kinda weird gift from the beloved Saint? In a way. I feel better having found the hoard. Wish I had seen the dead body for proof that it is really gone, but I am pretty sure it is dead.

It was a bad idea to pour the boot out on the porch, however. It is made like a deck, and lots of pellets fell down between the cracks, and some got stuck. I swept up what I could, but I'm afraid there is alot of poison out in the open for wild critters to get, and maybe neighborhood cats. A few less squirrels may not be a bad thing, but I don't want to harm anything - well, except mice and rats. I got some fox urine powder today and sprinkled it around the whole house, so maybe that will work, for a while anyway.

Christmas 2011

  I took amazingly few pictures at Christmas, but other people grabbed my camera and took a few. I've uploaded most of the good ones. Here are a few of my favorites:

I'm sure most of you have better photos.

Season's Greetings