Icy Weather, New Project and Irish

WoooHoooo!!  It's warming up outside.  We went from 79/81 degrees to the bottom dropping out and a high of 29 within just a few hours (less than 12!) and have not gotten over the freezing mark since Friday.  It is a balmy 33 degrees right now and warming up, but I still don't want to go out.  Not because it's cold.  Not because the roads may not be clear, but because all the ice that is falling from the trees and power lines.  It sounds like my house, yard and alley are getting bombed by ice!  I looked out the back window awhile ago and - OOOH big bomb just hit  - that was a huge one - anyway, I looked out the window and watched the ice fall off the power lines in huge chunks.  (about 2 inches around and 20 inches long)  That last one fell from the tree next door and hit something.  It was loud.  Those chunks are a lot larger.  They are about 3 inches in diameter and 6 inches long.  Huge chunks!  That last one may have hit the garbage can outside because it sounded like someone throwing away a large bag of trash into an empty container.  BAM!  For those of you that don't live in the Midland/Odessa area - or anywhere in west Texas, it has been cold and icy this past weekend.  We had a major storm hit the area and have been covered in ice for the last 3 days.  Since this area has some of the worst drivers on good weather days, I try to stay inside on bad weather days, because those same drivers become complete idiots.  If driving 55 in a 40 and weaving in and out of traffic is okay on good days, then driving 70 in a 40 with icy conditions is even better!  (they are still trying to weave)  Oh, yes, and let's all try to pass each other on the overpasses because we all know that those don't freeze over!  Within a 30 minute time period Friday morning, 3 overpasses in Midland had major wrecks on them and they had to shut down the loop.  Come on people!  Overpasses are the first things to freeze and ice over.  See what I mean?  Idiots live and drive among us! 

Okay, enough ranting for now.   It's time to actually get dressed in real clothes - not loungy pajama clothes - and get some work done.  No more snuggling on the couch and watching television or playing games on the computer.  I have to come up with a project to teach at my retreat in February.  My mom suggested doing a quilt like this so I made a couple of blocks. 

I like it, it's simple, but I am not completely sold on it.  I will need to cut some more background blocks and find my 5" squares tub (I know where it is - in the garage - I just don't want to walk outside to get it, yet)  I will continue to work on this idea along with several others I have over this week (can you cheer for having the entire Thanksgiving week off from school? YEA)  and see if I can put something together that is easy enough for the newbies and that might have enough of a challenge for the seasoned quilter.  Just haven't hit on the right project yet.  (even though, seeing this picture it's kind of growing on me)

On a sad note, Irish, my oldest Shi Tzu, passed away on Saturday.  He was 15 years old and lived a good and pampered life. He was the best little traveler.  When he was little, we drove to Dallas about 6 times a year to visit my mom and he would get in the car, look out the window - had to keep the baby locks on or he would roll down the window and then sleep most of the way.   My vet called him the miracle dog because he had a stick go through his eye - thank goodness for a fantastic doctor out at the pet emergency hospital, you couldn't even tell which eye - he had testicular cancer at age 5 and had to be neutered,  he was attacked by a pit bull - thank goodness for having a ponytail that everyone made fun of - it saved his life - left a few teeth holes in his head, but he never bled - had a tumor come to the surface of his neck and rupture in April and survived the surgery to bounce back to running around the house - well as well as a blind, deaf 14 year old could run - but he did run around a bit.  Yep, I would say he  definitely was my miracle dog.  He is the one on the left in both of the photos below.   He will definitely be missed.

 

 

 

Let it Snow, Again

 You never know about the weather in west Texas.  A couple of days ago it was in the upper sixties/lower seventies and today - - - today we have another 6 - 8 inches of snow on the ground and more falling. 

This was taken about 15 minutes ago over my back fence.  You can't see the snow falling in this picture due to the angle of my camera. 

This picture - taken 25 minutes ago - is out my back window and you can see how hazy it looks with the snow coming down.  Little bitty snow flakes now.  The flakes  were big and fat on the way home from school. 

Yes, we did have school today, but unlike every other school district around us, we were there all day.  Most of my students weren't, but I was.  My largest class of the day (83% there) was this morning when there was only about an inch of snow on the ground and the roads were slushy.  I ended the day with only 28% of my class at school.  I had no students at all from one of the high schools.  (I teach students from two different high schools and they bus over during the day for my class).  When you live in the desert, anytime it gets really cold here, attendance drops.  Add in some snow (okay, a lot of snow today) and attendance is practically non-existent.  We just aren't used to this.  This has been our third major (more than 4 inches) snow storm in about one month.  We had a large one in early December where we got to stay home and have a snow day.   We had a beautiful white Christmas for the first time in about 18 years and now, another white day.  Like most of the students, I am hoping that our school district calls for a snow day tomorrow, but they don't make those decisions until about 4 o'clock in the morning.  So, I will  have to wait until tomorrow to know if I get to stay home and sew or not.  Oh, well, I will get up early to find out tomorrow.

Speaking of getting up early, I read until almost 1:30 this morning finishing a book and then the dogs woke me up at 2:30 barking.  My first thought, was great, they are out of water.  But, no, it had started raining and Taegan is afraid of thunder storms.  So, they all joined in to wake me up. (except Irish, who slept through the entire night.  Being deaf, has it's rewards)

Previous picture of Taegan sleeping on the floor

Now, it wasn't thundering, mind you, but Taegan knows that thunder and rain go together and so, when it starts to rain, he panics.  I got my phone, set the alarm clock, grabbed a quilt and layed down on the couch to snuggle with my scardy cat dog.  I also got McCallum and Fiona in the snuggling deal. 



Fiona and McCallum out in the snow today.  They would look at me and then I would start to take their picture and they would turn their heads. 

Once Teagan was comforted and had moved out of my arms to the other end of the couch, I went back to my bed - much more comfortable than a couch with three dogs laying on you.  However, the alarm went off really, really early and I am looking forward to an early night tonight and hoping for that snow day tomorrow where I can crawl back into bed and sleep for a couple extra hours. 

edit:  school just got cancelled for tomorrow!  This is unheard of for them to cancel this early (6:00 p.m.) but I guess too many parents had complained and we are expecting more snow overnight.  I am glad that I don't have to even set my alarm clock tonight.  Enjoy . . .



Oh, the weather outside is . . . Delightful!!

Yes, it is. Even though we have snow on the ground and the temperature is 16 degrees with a windchill of 3. I don't have to get out in it!! School was cancelled today. Hopefully it will be cancelled tomorrow, also since it hasn't gotten warm enough to thaw out the ice on the roads. I think the ice will be worse tomorrow since the heat from the cars/people that are crazy enough to be out and about will melt the snow/ice. The temp will re-freeze it immediately and then - poof - more ice and more danger. It is crazy here when there is snow and ice. Since we rarely see it the people in this community don't know how to drive on it . They still go their 50 or 60 miles an hour in a 35-45 zone and decide at the last minute that they are in the wrong lane and zip across three lanes of traffic to make their turn on the other side of the road. (no turn signal to boot!) I don't like to get out if I don't have to on days like this just because I know the crazies are out there and I am glad that I don't have to today.

Here is a picture out my upstairs window of the lake yesterday afternoon. I have never, in the 9 years I have lived in this house, seen the lake frozen over. I mean, completely frozen over.


This second picture is from this morning with a layer of snow over the top. It is beautiful, but crazy. It was 79 degrees on Monday!!

Thank goodness I went to the store Monday, with all the other people that live in this town! I just put on a pot of beef stew in the crock pot and can't wait until tonight when it will be ready. Unfortunately I didn't have enough beef broth to put into the stew so I cheated and used chicken broth and a little bit more beer than I had intended. That was interesting. Going to the 7-11 and purchasing beer. I asked the clerk if there was a smaller one that I could purchase individually than that large 32 ounce (I think) can, but there wasn't. I think he thought I was not all there. Of course, I probably wasn't totally all there since I had just spent a couple of hours fighting the crowd at the grocery store.

Now, on to playing in the quilt studio to work on my intuition quilt. I almost have the third quadrant done. I need to take some pictures of it so I can blog about it here and at 15 minutes play.