A Letter From a Friend

Laura says February is letter-writing month so I'm writing y'all a letter.  

Hello Dear Friend,

     Just thought I'd drop a line and say Hi.  You said your weather was not so much to your liking.  Well now, you should see what Old Man Winter has in store for us.  I am actually fond of the snow.  I would prefer to stay home and drink tea and bake cookies, but alas I must venture out to what is necessary.  We are encroaching on St. Valentine's Day.  Do you have a sweetheart?  I hung the pendant I made across the bookshelves.  I need to do something different with it, because I can't see the clock.  I only know what time it is by the chimes, or I have to go in and look at the clock on the coffee pot.  Some folks still have their Christmas trees up and have them decorated for Valentine's.  I put our tree out of the house 2 days after Christmas.  It's in the burn pile now.  I certainly wouldn't want to try to dust a tree.

Do you decorate for St. Valentine's Day?  I was thinking about the little cards we used to exchange when we were kids.  They were sure cuter than what was available last time I saw any.  We were careful about which card we gave to which person.  Friends received the "best" ones and those we were only obligated to give to got the ones with a nice wish but no indication of liking them - Egads!  We wouldn't have wanted that.  That sounds so mean now looking back, but as kids, we only felt what we felt.  

     Well, as I said above, we are supposed to be in for some real winter weather.  It's snowing now, and the ground is white.  We were supposed to have some friends over for Valentine's dinner but the weather is keeping them afar.  It's difficult being away from friends and family but good to know they are warm and safe rather than stranded on the edge of a road somewhere between here and nowhere.  The weather will break and the mud will soon be with us.  That's the part I don't care so much for is "mud season."  At least I'm not trying to pack water out to the critters in 5 gallon buckets in it.  That was always the worst. Now we just have Rip's heated water dish to keep full and Hucklebunny's water to defrost and refill morning and night.  She's so funny.  She gets grumpy when her water freezes.  I don't blame her, but it's still funny.

     I stepped aways from this to get supper going and here it is Presidents Day.  We have a couple feet of snow on the ground.  This is the most snow I've seen since we've moved here.  The past two nights in particular were very cold.  We brought Hucklebunny and Rip in the house for the night.  They each have heat lamps and their own houses, but we were concerned it wouldn't be enough.  They didn't seem to mind.  Bunny was ready to go out to her hutch in the morning.  She doesn't like to potty in her carrier.  I've also filled the bird feeder each morning since the snow has fallen.  The little birds are flocked around the house.  The lilac bush has little feathered globes on nearly every branch :-)  Today was slightly warmer but more snow is expected tonight.  Then tomorrow is back to work and is supposed to be 5-10 degrees warmer yet.  Hopefully it will be enough to thaw the roads.  I saw the plow go by earlier so it shouldn't be too bad.  The rigs going by are still driving pretty slow.  

Yesterday, we went skiing for St. Valentine's Day.  I didn't seem to have my "ski legs" on.  They felt like lead so I was sticking to the calm runs and not going crazy.  I don't know the mountain very well so generally just do the couple of runs I'm familiar with.  Well, late in the day, I thought I was going down one of the easier runs and ended up on a run called "ego" because you have to have quite the ego to go down it.  It is narrow and was mogulled out.  Suffice it to say, I should not have been on that run!  I eventually made it down but was wiped out by the time I reached the bottom.  It took me longer to get down that section of the run than it did for me to do a whole run that matches my level (my level being not that great.)  It was still a good day.  It snowed all day and the trees were simply gorgeous.

I could have tried to go into work this morning but not sure how much I would have been able to do with most other businesses closed.  So I stayed home.  I've been trying to work on making a slipper pattern.  I tried 3 different styles and didn't like any of them so am fashioning my own.  I think I've come up with one that will work.  When I get it all worked out, I'll share more about it.  I deep cleaned the kitchen which was very much needed.  I think after supper, I will turn the self-clean cycle on in the oven.  It needs it and produces quite a bit of heat over the course of several hours which might help keep the heater from kicking on quite as much.  Better now than in summer I'm thinking.  I need to go finish up a load of laundry so will try to get this in the mail before I start on the folding.

Hope you are keeping warm my friends.  Would love to hear from you.

Tootles,

Me