{"id":584,"date":"2008-02-06T22:31:19","date_gmt":"2008-02-07T03:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jayandcarissa.com\/carissa\/blog\/?p=584"},"modified":"2008-02-06T22:31:19","modified_gmt":"2008-02-07T03:31:19","slug":"more-snow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/?p=584","title":{"rendered":"more snow!"},"content":{"rendered":"

another teaser from my work in progress (fabric by alexander henry<\/a>):<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

wow.\u00c2\u00a0 it snowed all last night and most of the day today.\u00c2\u00a0 lots and lots of snow.\u00c2\u00a0 i got this link<\/a> in an e-mail today.\u00c2\u00a0 any weather buffs out there might be interested in the graphs found there.\u00c2\u00a0 be sure to scroll down!<\/p>\n

so i kept expecting to get a phone call that the library was closed, but… apparently we don’t close for anything.\u00c2\u00a0 or actually, i found out today that we stay open as long as the city buses* are still running.\u00c2\u00a0 not sure if there’s a direct correlation, but that was the rumor i heard anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 so, i shoveled the driveway, bundled up and made my way out into a white, snowy, blowy world.\u00c2\u00a0 here’s what the parking lot at work looked like when i arrived:<\/p>\n

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can you see the snow blowing sideways through this photo?\u00c2\u00a0 oh well, if you can’t see that you can at least see the drifts.\u00c2\u00a0 i went in, not sure if anyone would show up for my infant and toddler programs this morning. sure enough, some die hard (or cabin fevered) folks came to each program.\u00c2\u00a0 we even had some fun!\u00c2\u00a0 i had no other programs or meetings scheduled for the rest of the day and my throat was a little sore so… i decided to leave work a little early today.\u00c2\u00a0 i stayed long enough to give my co-workers a lunch break and left around 1:30.\u00c2\u00a0 by the time i left, the snow was up past my ankles (and no, i wasn’t wearing snow boots–brrr!\u00c2\u00a0 snow in my shoes!).\u00c2\u00a0 no one had shoveled the back sidewalk or the parking lot (we park in a private school\/church parking lot behind the library and since there was no school today–no plowing!)\u00c2\u00a0 i called mr. happy stuff (who had chosen to work from home as he is fighting off a cold and, well, the weather thing) to let him know that i was on my way home early, wiped the ice off of my windshield wiper, the snow off my windows and headed out.\u00c2\u00a0 hooray for vehicles with a high ground clearance!\u00c2\u00a0 i successfully maneuvered myself out of the parking lot and onto the street.\u00c2\u00a0 the highway between work and home was moving slow (perfectly fine with me!) and there really weren’t very many cars out at all (even more fine with me) but about halfway home, the ice on my wipers started building up and i was forced to scrunch down in my seat in order to see out of the one clear spot.\u00c2\u00a0 i decided to take an earlier exit than usual (to avoid several potential awkward merges) and although visibility was so low that at times i wasn’t absolutely sure where the road was, the car in front of me seemed to be doing all right and i could see its taillights, so i followed them.\u00c2\u00a0 at the first stoplight, i looked over at my passenger side windshield wiper and realized why it had been even less effective than the driver’s side.\u00c2\u00a0 i hadn’t wiped the ice off of that one before i left, but i think it built up a bit more on the ride home:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(that big chunk was between the wiper and the window)\u00c2\u00a0 whew!\u00c2\u00a0 i finally made it home.\u00c2\u00a0 the trickiest driving was probably on my own road, but they always plow that last anyway, so i wasn’t taken by surprise.\u00c2\u00a0 hooray for being home!\u00c2\u00a0 here’s my doormat (isn’t it pretty with snow?):
\n<\/p>\n

i shucked my snowy duds and went to see how my hubby and my cats were doing.\u00c2\u00a0 one of my kitties is definitely a cuddly homebody.\u00c2\u00a0 the other one is more of an intrepid explorer.\u00c2\u00a0 she always begs to go outside, regardless of the weather.\u00c2\u00a0 when the snow is this deep, i feel a little less nervous about setting her loose (the snow slows her down and i can catch her if she tries to make a break for it) so i thought i’d give her a treat and let her walk around in the cold stuff.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

she didn’t get too far, but then again, i didn’t let her go as far as she wanted to.\u00c2\u00a0 the rest of the day was dedicated to coziness.\u00c2\u00a0 i baked malt-o-meal magic muffins (recipe’s on the box).\u00c2\u00a0 they smell (and taste) so good and the ingredients are so simple that i always have everything i need on hand.\u00c2\u00a0 then, while i was waiting for them to bake, i curled up in the hammock chair with a pillow, two blankets and a bag of “tart apple snitz.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

i’d never heard them called anything but “dried apples” before i found these in virginia over christmas, but i like the term “snitz.”\u00c2\u00a0 i read a book and then took a long nap during which cuddly homebody kitty jumped up into the hammock with me and we were warm and cozy together.\u00c2\u00a0 mr. happy stuff said he talked to someone who talked to someone who is having to spend the night at her workplace because the roads are too bad to travel.\u00c2\u00a0 the snow plows are only doing the major roads and they can’t even keep up with that.\u00c2\u00a0 so glad i came home when i did.\u00c2\u00a0 i’d much rather be stuck here.
\n<\/p>\n

to extend the cozy just a little bit longer, i made easy black bean soup<\/a> and cheesy grits casserole from the more-with-less cookbook.\u00c2\u00a0 my mom made this a few times, but always served it with pintos.\u00c2\u00a0 we eat way more black beans than pintos, so i thought i’d give a try.\u00c2\u00a0 super yummy.\u00c2\u00a0 very cozy.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

okay, i can’t stand keeping you in suspense any longer.\u00c2\u00a0 my work-in-progress is actually done!\u00c2\u00a0 i finished it while i was waiting for the cheesy grits to bake.\u00c2\u00a0 wanna see it?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

it’s a lap quilt!\u00c2\u00a0 this is the front.\u00c2\u00a0 it was inspired by this photo<\/a>. i think they did their quilting a little differently than i did mine and if i made this quilt again (which is not particularly likely–i don’t like to repeat myself when there’s so many good ideas out there!) i would probably do the quilting much differently than i did here.\u00c2\u00a0 from this far away, you probably can’t see the large amounts of puckering, but since i just made it to cuddle with, i don’t really care.\u00c2\u00a0 i also had considered putting the binding on in a more correct manner<\/a>, and i’d even considered making my own binding, but when it came down to it, i was too impatient and just sewed ready-made red quilt binding straight on with one seam through all of the layers.\u00c2\u00a0 no hand-stitching.\u00c2\u00a0 i am certainly a slapdash seamstress, but i looooove the way it turned out!\u00c2\u00a0 here’s the back:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

the main fabric on the back is is what’s pictured at the top of this post.\u00c2\u00a0 i bought all the yardage they had at the store and it wasn’t quite enough to cover the whole back, so i pieced a strip that incorporates some of the colors from the squares on the front and used the pattern on the fabric to inspired a hand-painted strip of the pattern, enlarged.\u00c2\u00a0 what do you think?\u00c2\u00a0 i really need to learn how to take good pictures of finished quilts (is that possible without special lights?), but i hope you can get the idea here.\u00c2\u00a0 i’m so excited with the results.\u00c2\u00a0 i’m going to try washing it now.\u00c2\u00a0 cross your fingers that the reds don’t bleed!
\n*that word always looks wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 shouldn’t it be “busses” so that it isn’t pronounced like “fuses”?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

another teaser from my work in progress (fabric by alexander henry): wow.\u00c2\u00a0 it snowed all last night and most of the day today.\u00c2\u00a0 lots and lots of snow.\u00c2\u00a0 i got this link in an e-mail today.\u00c2\u00a0 any weather buffs out … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,11,16,13,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crafty-stuff","category-library-stuff","category-photography","category-winter","category-yum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisishappystuff.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}