Getting ready for the winter

 It's been a moment since I last wrote anything. 

What have I been up to? A little bit of this, a little bit of that. I actually started writing a blog post a couple weeks ago. Got distracted. Forgot what I was doing and started working on something else. 

It seems to be the thing lately.  I feel like what I've been doing lately is so boring and not very exciting. 

The long and short is that my hubby and I were finishing up the big wood splitting project. 

I had a supervisor.  

She said my workspace was a mess and I should do something about it.  Well, she wasn't wrong. 

So I sort of did something about it.  Or, I had my hubby do something about it *wink*

The final round stack of the project.

I finally harvested those carrots. it was like the final kick in the teeth to the garden season this year. Or something like that. I did not get nearly as many carrots as I thought I would.  A real bummer. 

At least the washing process wasn't so overwhelming.  I have two one-gallon bags of carroty goodness in the back of my fridge. 

I got the carrots taken care of just in time, too.  It snowed the next day and the ground froze. 

I admit, it was kinda magical and beautiful for a moment. 

Then reality set in, along with the cold. 

I am a member of one of those Aldi groups on the book of faces and someone mentioned something about homemade bacon ... 

Yeah, you know we had to give that a try. 

We used some pork we had in the freezer and I found a recipe. 

Right after pulling it out of the brine

After slicing it up and before cooking it.

One word: YUM!

One of my very good knit friends sent me a box of goodies and one of the items in the box was this fun chicken. 

Cute, right?  I put it in Furby's space for a while.  I had to move it because we both kept thinking there was a real chicken in the house. 

In the midst of all this I have been doing a wee bit of crafting. In November I really focused on my One Piece cross stitch and finally sat down and started working on the porcupine boxes. 

I really had to psych myself up for cutting the fabric on this.  

It's so cute. 

I can't wait to show off the final pieces. I'm still not done with the one.  I'm still deciding on whether to put the pom-pom trim on it, or not. 

I went digging for the cross stitch ornaments I made earlier this year.  I was so bummed when I discovered one of the frames broke. 

Fortunately I have extra frames, but it was a bit of a pain to get that cut fabric back into a new hoop. 

Oh, and a bit of other *exciting* news ... you are in for a surprise. 

We ordered more wood. 

Yes, you read that right! 

Another semi-load of wood.  My husband and I both decided it would be a good winter project and there's no rush on it. 

This past week we started working on the pile. I don't have any progress shots of what it looks like.  

Crazy, right?  Yeah, i know.  The amount of wood sitting in our yard is an immense security. However, no more wood after this! 

Last Wednesday I had an afternoon appointment in town.  This was the sky as I was leaving the Aldi.

Beautiful. 

So that's a bit of what's going on right now.  I've been pondering and ruminating a bit. Mostly about the crafting stuff. Last year I made the point of making goals for myself for 2024. Then things went kinda sideways in March. I'm debating on whether to try that again for 2025, or if I should just wing it. I seem to do really good at winging it when it comes to my hobbies.