Snowmageddon Continued

I posted photos from last Friday, but it kept snowing through Saturday, and then we had another storm on Tuesday & Wednesday, so I'm finally getting around to posting the Saturday photos! What a week. What a winter!

Here's our patio set and grill on our deck. There was no wind on Saturday so the snow just piled up on top of everything, so the stool in front looks like a big white-capped mushroom!


I took this photo to show the top-heavy, snow-laden trees leaning over our deck in the back, and only noticed afterward the snow-covered wind-chimes; that really shows how little wind there was if the snow could build up like that on wind-chimes!


Our birdies may not be able to bathe but instead of a bath they now have a large, puffy, white cake. Or pillow?


We kept shoveling throughout the day and all the neighbors worked together. Here's our neighbor Steve helping Jason shovel our driveway.


We love our neighbors! Notice how high the snow is piled up to the left of Steve... it's hard to tell but at the height (just in front of the large bush in the background) it's as tall (or just taller than) his shoulders!


I went out into the front yard to check the snow level. 22" of new snow so far at this point, and 27.5" if I punched through the ice left from the previous snow and went down to the ground.


Here's our house, taken from Steve and Roxanne's house across the street.


The trees were getting so overloaded with snow that a lot of them fell. Our neighbor two houses down had one land on the house and roll off onto the deck.


And turning around 180*, here are two trees down in our next-door neighbor's yard.


I don't think the garbage man will take the garbage like this. And the mail man will soon have a hard time finding that mailbox in the back!


Jason and Steve did a good job on the driveway (even though it kept snowing and built up again by the time I took this photo).


Our poor little trees in the back were so weighed down with snow they were bent over double!


So we shook them all off and they stood up proud and thankful! :)


The power was out so I killed some time outside shoveling the little bit of snow in the driveway.


I came back inside for a bit to take care of a few things. Here's a view onto our back deck:


Jason decided to shovel out part of the deck so he could get to the grill so we could cook dinner (we have an awesome glass-top stove that is a lot less awesome when there's no power).


For dinner we made maple-chipotle glazed chicken, mixed grilled peppers, and baked sweet potatoes. Pretty darn good for having no power, huh? Jason is a grill master (and I am a planning and idea and prep master, if I do say so!). :)

Then we headed out to Brian and Marlene's driveway to meet all the neighbors.


I love this one with Jason and Brian in profile. :)


While we all sat outside around the fire, talking to (and over, lol!) one another, the porch lights suddenly came on and we all let out a huge whooping CHEER! It was so awesome! We were all so excited to have heat in the house overnight! A lot of people left at that point to head home and sort things out (and turn the heat up, lol!). I used the camera flash on the final few left; here's Brian, Jason, Steve, Howard, and my dear and fellow female holdout, Maren.


Then I went home and took a HOT shower, blow-dried (blew dry?) my hair (a choir of angels sang Hallelujah), put on comfy pajamas, plugged things in to charge, and crawled happily into bed. Ahhhhh.

Snowmageddon

The power keeps going on and off but people have been asking to see photos so I'll put up a couple here quickly while I can. These were all taken last night.

The view from our porch:


Jason started shoveling the driveway when we had about 6.5". He's down there somewhere, I think!


My turn to shovel. I love my very warm cute snow outfit and my awesome red very warm Sorel boots!


By the time we finished shoveling the driveway, the mailbox was almost buried:


And I needed to sit down for a break!


Our neighbor Brian and I made snow angels in the middle of the cul-de-sac! Here's mine:


By the time we shoveled everyone's driveways we were up to 10" of accumulation so we went back and shoveled them all again.


Then we headed back inside to the warmth...


...where we suitably rewarded ourselves for our hard work.


Yummmm.



Random fact/thoughts in list form because I'm rather scattered right now:

• The power went off during the night so we woke up to a cold house.
• Trees are falling down all over the neighborhood because of the weight of the snow; I'm just hoping none of the trees land on and damage any of our houses.
• When Jason walked to the back yard to check out our trees, the snow came up to his thighs!
• The power came back on but it's going in and out. A couple of our neighbors have generators so we'll be fine.
• There's a TON of snow outside but I'm not sure how much because I've been inside cooking while we had power. Jason's outside shoveling and as soon as I post this I'm going to go join him.
• Jason had his cell phone in his pocket while he shoveled last night and it must have gotten wet because today it won't turn on. I have it in a jar of rice, which I've heard sometimes works to draw out the moisture. In the meantime, don't bother calling his cell phone. :)
• I have my cell phone charged but I'm trying not to use it too much, and I'm keeping it on the charger whenever we have power!
• We have awesome neighbors who are all like our family so we'll take care of each other, so don't worry about us! :)
  

And speaking of that, they're all shoveling so I should go join them (and take some more photos)! If we continue to have power I'll post more photos later.

Favorite {Photo} Friday--Snow Men

We went out to shovel the driveway in the snow, because it's easier to shovel 6 inches at a time than to wait until it stops snowing and then try to shovel out through 24-30" or whatever they're predicting. Of course we turned it into a neighborhood party. Here's the men!


Mark, Jason, Steve (aka Santa) and Brian. Love our neighbors!!

Have a good, safe, and warm weekend!

Favorite {Photo} Friday--Oh, Deer!

We've had a couple visitors around here! On Wednesday I went out to get the mail and I surprised this little dude in my side yard. Then he went to the back and started snacking, where I took this photo:


Then yesterday his mama (or someone's mama, anyway) stopped by, too.  [Note to self: always put your camera back on Auto mode when you're done, so when you spot a deer in the yard your photos don't come out all wonky when you just start shooting away without checking the settings!]


I know some people consider them a nuisance but I really like seeing them. Until I plant a garden, anyway. :)

Lots going on around here and lots more is floating around in my head.  I like bulleted lists, so let's go with that.

• My aunt Susan moved back to Oregon last Sunday and I've almost pulled myself out of the depression it left me in.  (Almost.)  I miss her!!!  I can't think about it too much or I'll start crying again.
• One loneliness leads to another, I guess, because I've been feeling lonely for all my friends who are scattered across the country (and the world), too.  I need to start booking plane tickets to go visit some people!!
• I just feel OVERWHELMED by my To Do list, most of which has been on the list for far too long at this point.
  
• I'm feeling guilt for leaving some of my friends' stuff on the To Do list... if they were normal etsy customers I'd've had their stuff done a long time ago, so why do I think it's okay to slack when it's my friends' orders?  Guilt guilt guilt.  Sorry, friends, and it's coming!
• I've recently received a whole slew of custom jewelry orders, yippee!  I'm going to finish my friends' stuff pronto so I can get on my other orders.
• My house is such a mess and I really want to get everything in order and finished the way I want.  Yet another thing that's overwhelming!  We put together six HUGE boxes of stuff to donate to the Salvation Army, which is a good start.  (Now I just need to drop it off to them so I can have my garage back to park my car inside!)
• I'm taking Cathy Zielske's MicroBlogging class (yes, it's a scrapbooking class based on Twitter and Facebook Status Updates!).  I just went out and bought Photoshop Elements from Costco so hopefully next week (after I finish my jewelry orders!) I can make my pages.
• I'm also taking a couple classes from SISTv, which I won, wow!  Claudine's class rocks, as usual, but the other two are just so-so and make me glad I didn't pay for them.
• Taking a couple online classes is making me really friggin' happy that I did not have to take any college courses online.  I get antsy watching the videos and need to do jumping jacks or something! We have two monitors on our computer and I find myself doing something on the other monitor while the video is showing, then I have to "rewind" it to see what I missed.
• I joined this cool quilt-along with some of my Inspired friends.  I KNOW, I'm already stressed about my To Do list, let's add making a friggin' QUILT to the mix, right?  But I think that it will be fun, and so many of my fab friends are making it, too, that it kind of feels like we're hanging out together and bonding.  Or something.  And I found some fabric that I ADORE... it's on the way to me right now, I can't wait to get it and cut it up to catch up with the rest of the gals... and then show you!
• I'm starting the South Beach diet on Sunday.  I wanted to start it right after Inspired but then, you know, life happened.  So Sunday it is!  I think that my most vicious cravings from starting South Beach will coincide nicely with my PMS cravings schedule, so it should be interesting.  But I'm not putting it off another week, dammit.
  
• In the interest of supporting me, Jason offered to stop drinking beer (and switch to wine) until I'm off of Phase One (two weeks after I start on Sunday).  That lasted exactly 21 hours, until John found out he's being promoted to Major in the Marine Corps Reserves (which, I agree, calls for a toast... but still). 
• John's schedule is changing next week as he takes on a few graduate classes.  He'll be staying with us every night but won't be getting "home" until about 9:30 at night.  I need to remember to adjust my grocery buying since I'm used to him eating with us three nights a week!!
• Tomorrow we're going to a Crawfish Boil with my friends Elizabeth, her parents, and our friend BJ.  We went last year and I'm hoping for better weather but just as much fun tomorrow!

Have a great weekend!

A Few April Creations

I've been writing so many text-heavy posts lately that I thought I'd throw up an image-heavy post for a change with photos of some things I've been working on lately. :) Which I can DO since our big computer is back up with new photo-editing software (which I am slowly-but-surely getting used to!)!! Hooray!!!!

Here are some more charms I made for another swap with some Inspired ladies. (And oh my goodness I love my 50mm 1.4 fixed lens! Which I only used for this shot out of all of the ones that follow, for some reason; I need to play with it more.)


Another Inspired swap. This one is for art journal pages, designed for people to be able to draw and write on, focused on our personal One Little Words for 2009. It's hard to tell in the photo but the pattern is made by glimmery-inky spray (made by me) sprayed onto each page over a flower template (Maya Road Sheer Sheet). It's really shimmery in real life; see how there are variations of greens and yellows in the photo? Really it's just one color but the more yellowy parts are where it's reflecting the light more. Then I stamped my word on top.


I kind of wimped out on the back and did the definition on the printer instead of by hand, but as you may know I'm kind of anal precise about words and their definitions and I just imagined myself writing all this out 31 times and I almost passed out. So the printer won out, and then I stamped flowers in the top corner. Also, the outside edge is punched with a new EK Success mini scallop punch which is apparently so new that it's not even on the EK Success website until May 1 (as I found out when I tried to embed the link and there isn't one). Little did I know I'm such a trend-setter, ha ha! (The slimline punches are all AWESOME, by the way.)


Sweet, sweet Claudine lost her beloved adorable puppy Toby to cancer this past Thursday. Claudine was an instructor at Inspired last year and we've stayed in touch via Facebook and Twitter. (Yes, for real.) For the past few months I've been reading daily (and sometimes hourly) updates on Toby's status and was so, so sad for Claudine when she announced that he'd passed. She was so, so good to him and she is such an animal lover that I wanted to do something for her. This is a photo of Toby that's mounted in a sterling silver bezel setting and then covered in epoxy.


I gave this to her at the class Michelle and I took from her on Saturday but told her not to open it until she got home (she was doing a remarkable job--via avoidance--of staying upbeat and super-professional considering she lost her dog two days before!). I got an e-mail from her later saying that she loves it and was wearing it non-stop. Man-oh-man do I love to give gifts that touch people and that they enjoy.

Speaking of gifts, I've been busy fulfilling orders for Mother's Day. Here's one I just made (ordered by the grandma) for a mama with four kiddos. The crystals represent the kids' birthstones.


Here's another order for Mother's Day that my sweet friend Marliss ordered for her daughter. David is the husband/father and the three little hearts each bear the first initial of her triplets. (Triplets? Mamma mia!)


Remember when I had to get industrial? When I tried every-damn-thing and still couldn't fuse until I broke down and got propane? GUESS WHAT?!?! It was the stupid brick I was fusing on. Long dumb story, but I bought a new brick while I was in Seattle and now I am a fusing freaking expert. Okay, so maybe not expert. But holy crap, what a difference! I've been so busy I hadn't even had a chance to try fusing until this week and within a short time of using my new brick I'd made this sweet bracelet:


I freaking love it. I made it out of silver wire! It was a spool of silver wire and then a while later it was a bracelet! That's so freakin' cool. I put three little birds (which I did not make) on the end of it to remind me to not worry (if anyone knows why this is you get a prize. No, really, the first person to comment with the correct reason--and why they know it, and Google does not count--gets a prize!) but I'm going to have to take them off because they get caught on everything. Seriously. Today I was driving and when I went to click something on the GPS the birds got stuck in the air vent. The light was turning green and my right hand was stuck to the dashboard, which was a problem considering I drive a stick shift! I had to reach over with my left hand and unclasp the bracelet to change gears. So the birds are coming off. This is also a good reminder that I should personally field-test all my new designs before I sell them! :) But I still love the bracelet.

I took these last two photos while walking my 10-mile training walk on Tuesday. I love walking under these trees. I'm so tempted to bring a chair and a book and a glass of wine and set up camp under these trees!


I don't usually pick random people's flowers, but I must admit that on my way back home I snapped off one of these beauties.


They're this gorgeous for such a short time and I wanted to enjoy it fully. I kept smelling it and putting the blossom up against my cheek. Divine. Soft and fluttery against my cheek and all the more gorgeous for being so short-lived.

Unsuitable for Combat

If I Were President... I would make everything go in REVERSE alphabetical order. That's what happens when you get a Yates for President.

So I went to Traffic Court today. Yeah. It sucked. But it was also kinda funny. Granted, it's taken several hours and two glasses of wine to get to "kinda funny," but at least we're there, right?

My ticket was for speeding, which here in Northern Virginia means, "Keeping up with the flow of traffic."

I brought a book so imagine my disappointment with the huge "No reading material including newspapers, magazines, or books not related to your case" sign on the door into the courtroom. What good does this do? Can someone please tell me?

So I wrote my updated To Do list, and then I sat and listened to the dozens of cases that were further up in the alphabet than me.

I heard one case involving a man who explained, through an interpreter, that he doesn't have a valid license because he can't read or write (even in Spanish) so he can't pass the driving test, but he has to get to work because he has a wife and four kids.

I heard one case involving a young nursing student who was traveling 96 mph in a 55 mph zone (on the freeway late at night, which is not at all uncommon here (although I would never do it)). She had a lawyer present her case and screamed in anguish when the judge sentenced her to 30 days in jail. She was crying so loudly in the holding room that the bailiff had to go in and move her so her cries of, "I'm scared!" wouldn't affect the rest of the proceedings. I listened to her father weeping two rows behind me.

I heard a bunch of false apologies for things like rolling through stop signs, making illegal u-turns, and expired tags/expired licenses/expired safety checks. And the judge just handled each case like you'd expect a traffic court judge to handle them. With an "I've heard this a hundred times, who the heck really cares, $100 plus court costs" attitude. (Even for the girl he sent to jail.)

When there were only about six of us left I was finally called up. I told the judge that I was nervous and I hoped he wouldn't mind if I referred to notes I'd written. He suddenly got very animated and said, "I don't understand you people who are nervous for traffic court. You and that other girl earlier. You are totally unsuitable for combat," and kind of looked at the bailiff and laughed as if to say, "Look at this idiot, she's going down at the first round of mortar attacks!"

Pardon?

I was so shocked that all I could say was, "Uhm, I'm not going into combat, Your Honor."

So that kind of threw me.

I proceeded to attempt to give my explanation of what had happened, all the while wondering why in the H-E-double-hockey-sticks the judge has referred to COMBAT. Am I not in traffic court?

I explained that while I don't have "positive points" here in Virginia (the point system here is such that certain offenses remove a certain number of "points" from your license, while every year you go without any offenses adds one "point" to your record), I haven't even been pulled over for more than 12 years (since I was in college). I have a very very good driving record and pride myself on being a safe, attentive, defensive driver. I was explaining that even though I don't have "positive points" here, it's only because I'm new to Virginia.

Somehow, I either did not manage to explain myself well, or (more likely) the scales of justice had been piling up on one side all morning, because all of a sudden the judge snapped.

I received a tirade about how many people die in Fairfax County every month due to traffic incidents. How it doesn't matter if I'm not a chronic offender, all it takes is one incident to kill someone. Etc, etc, etc, etc. It was as if he was making an example of me, only there was almost noone left in the courtroom to hear it.

Meanwhile, I started crying.

Meanwhile, I'm saying, "Yes, Your Honor." "I understand that, Your Honor." "Of course, Your Honor, I was only...."

Meanwhile, I'm thinking, "All these idiots with worse offenses went before me and you said not one word, and I'm the one getting yelled at?"

So imagine my surprise when he suddenly says, "I find you guilty and suspend the fine. Pay only court fees."

Huuuuhhh-errr? Wha...? I thought he was going to throw the book at me the way he went on and on and on and on, but then he suspended my fine?

The bailiff actually had to tell me to leave. I was so confused at the sudden change.

Court Fees: $62. Parking lot fees: $8. Time spent traveling to and waiting in court: 5 hours. Having a Traffic Court judge tell you you're "unsuitable for combat": Priceless!

Finding My Voice

Ciao Tutti! (Hello, everyone!) I've had a few worried e-mails arrive in my inbox since I have been fairly absent here lately and that is just so stinkin' sweet I can't stand it. So please let me assure you that I am fine. Super, actually! Just super busy. :)

On Friday I did eventually get to Teri's and had a great time chatting with her. I met her through an online message group for Close To My Heart Consultants who are also in the military or are military spouses (or were, in my case). Pretty specific group, I know. :) Anyway, she posted a message that she was moving to this area and did anyone have any advice for her... and long story short she now lives five minutes from me! She's so fun and it's great to have her here in NoVa (Northern Virginia), let alone so close to me! :)

Saturday I finished up my Christmas Advent swap; I'm so excited about this one! There's an online group for those of us who either went to Inspired last year, are going next year, or (like me and so many of my friends, hooray!!!!) BOTH! Someone organized an Advent swap, which means that 25 of us signed up to make 25 of the same little thing and wrap each one up in a cute little package. Then we send it all to the dear sweet swap-hostess Marsi, who divvies everything out and sends it back to us so that we each get 25 different presents, each labeled with a number. Starting December 1st we'll be able to open one little present per day, through Christmas (just like an Advent Calendar, hence the name of the swap)! Isn't this a great idea? I made necklaces and that's all I'm going to say 'cause I want it to be a surprise and I know a couple of the other girls read my blog. :) I will say that I was super-mega-über stoked to be surfing etsy (after I finished my necklaces) and stumble upon a very similar design selling for $18 each! Sweeeeeeeet.

(This picture should go further down but all this text with no photos started bothering me!)

Saturday afternoon I headed up north to meet with some lovely ladies for my first-ever event with the NoVa Kappa Kappa Gamma Alumnae chapter. It's the 60th Anniversary of this alumnae chapter so they organized a High Tea (is your pinky extended? :P) and we also did some of our ritual, which I haven't done since college. It was awesome. I am totally a ritual person; I admit this freely. I'm a Lutheran and I love our liturgy; this could be a wholly separate blog post, so we'll just leave it at I love ritual. Depending on the ritual, it makes me feel centered, part of something, relaxed, etc; I even have a "nighttime ritual" to help get myself ready for sleep. Ritual reminds Jason of a cult but we'll leave him out of it for now. :) It was great to go through our ritual with a bunch of other women I had never met and yet am connected to in a way that is important to each of us. It was also awesome that there was a lady there who received her 50-year pin; she's been a Kappa for 50 years! That in itself is cool, but what is even cooler is that she was such a firecracker that all of us "youngsters" were yearning to be her friend! I'd say that I hope I have that much energy when I'm her age, but I barely have that much energy now. :P

On Sunday (yesterday) I started silver fusing! I followed along with this book that Kellie got me for my birthday and the ease of making my own ball-end head pins alone is worth the cost of the torch. Holy moly! How awesome is it to think, "Oh, I wish I had some (insert previously dearly-paid-for item here)... oh wait, I can make those now." Puh-lease! I also got a few rings fused but let's just say I need some practice--or something, anyway!--on some other aspects of fusing. Today I was at it again and in these two past days of metal-stamping and fusing I've made some pieces I'm really happy with. Which will be going on etsy this week (really this time)! I feel as if I'm finally "finding my voice" when it comes to jewelry making and design.

And out of that, I have a new favorite necklace! Can I just tell you that photographing shiny silver is hard?! So I'm cutting myself a big fat slice of slack and carrying on with it. :) Here it is:


I love it! In fact, I'm wearing it right now! :)

Tonight I'm running off to book club to discuss this book. It's my first meeting with this group and the author will be attending... good thing I don't think the book sucks, huh? :P

Have a great week!

Favorite {Photo} Friday! #22

Holy stinin' heck how is it Friday already? I honestly don't know where this week has gone. There's that whoooooosh again! I almost didn't post today but then I remembered, it's Favorite {Photo} Friday! And I'm shaking it up a bit by posting two photos today.

Our neighborhood has lovely trees in it, which Jason and I both love. Here's some pretty blossoms on our neighbors Steve and Roxanne's tree (just after a rain).


And here's a gorgeous leaf that fell from a tree and was in Steve and Roxanne's front yard (thanks for letting me trespass, Roxanne!).


Since I usually do a theme of some sort every week, can you guess what my theme is? Spring and Fall, you say? Do I hear yin and yang?

Actually, these two photos were taken on the same day. Today. The weather has been so crazy here that the leaves are changing and falling off the trees and some of the trees are blossoming! Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy and 65 degrees, and Sunday is supposed to be gorgeous and sunny but with a high of just 42. Crazy, I tell you. But I'll take it.

So that's the theme of the week; crazy things comin' at me, some of which I've expected and some of which I haven't, but I'm just rollin' with it all.

Today I got in a couple orders I've been waiting on and so tonight I'm a metal-stamping fool. I hand-stamped 25 little pendants with the word "JOY" and let me tell you that any word starts looking awfully strange after stamping it that many times. :) I'm hoping to get things finished up enough so that I can pack it up and take it over to my friend Teri's to work on finishing the necklaces; she's having a scrapbooking crop at her house and I'm going there to chat with everyone while they scrapbook and I make jewelry. :)

Tomorrow I'm headed to meet some other Kappas and have a fancy High Tea. Time to break out the dress-up clothes. :) After that I'm switching gears and trading my high heels for safety glasses; I got in the tumbler and razor flush cutters Kellie kindly bought at discount and shipped to me, as well as the fine silver wire I ordered and the butane I picked up at the cigar shop for my torch. That means tomorrow I will be fusing silver, baby! Can't wait--I already have ideas for jewelry I'll make so I dang well better be good at silver fusing, that's for sure. :)

Alright, I'm off and running to get to Teri's. Have a great weekend!

Wine Tasting & Gratitude Day 4

This past Sunday we went on a wine tasting tour organized by the very lovely Kerry. After pulling ourselves out of bed the morning after the costume party, remembering halfway there that we were supposed to bring lunch and stopping by the grocery store, and being fortified by a Pumpkin Spice latte (me) and double shot (Jason), we made it to Kerry and Mike's. From there we headed to the first winery!


Left to right: Jason, Dabney and Kris (thanks for the photo!), Emma, Kerry, Mike, me, Stephen, and Julia.

Then we settled around the chimenea outside to enjoy one of our favorites from the tasting....


...and enjoy the gorgeous scenery...


...and even a cool car that drove by!


We stopped at two other wineries, one of which was situated on rolling hills reminiscent of Tuscany. [I saw these two sitting at this table and thought how cool it would be to have a photo of oneself here, so I gave the couple my card and they e-mailed me so I'll be sending this to them next. Fun!]


It was a gorgeous day and the fall colors were beautiful! These trees provided the perfect backdrop to our picnic lunch location.


It was a really great day spent in a beautiful location with great people, and big thanks to Kerry for organizing it all!


I am thankful (for):

1. Nine straight hours of sleep!
2. Feeling a lot better today.
3. Our DVR that allows me to fit TV into my schedule rather than the other way around. :)
4. Sweet Jason taking care of me when I'm not feeling well.
5. The mac and cheese I keep in my pantry "just in case" which came in handy when I didn't feel like eating anything else last night.
6. Swaps and projects with my artist friends coming up and forcing me to think creatively in new ways.
7. 30% off coupons arriving in my inbox for things I have to buy anyway!
8. A friend asking me to do her a favor that she could have asked of anyone (but I'm so glad she asked me). :)
9. Samurai Sudoku, oh my goodness I love completing these!
10. The joy I receive from doing nice things that people don't expect.
11. Piles of unread books just waiting for me!
12. Photo editing software. :)
13. Finally finding a color I want to paint our living room. :)
14. My camera tripod.
15. Natural light.
16. Jason knowing me completely and not only loving me "anyway" but loving me more for it. Ah. Maze. Ing. HUGE. The greatest gift ever.
17. Having a small grasp of html coding. :)
18. Friends who organize trips and invite me. :)
19. Comfortable shoes.
20. Remembering to have Jason take a photo after I voted on Tuesday, which you'll see tomorrow!

Have a super Thursday and I'll see you tomorrow for Favorite {Photo} Friday and my next 20 things!