It was just what I needed

I was off work for most of this past week. Monday I had publishing day, and then I was off for the rest of the week.  My husband had time off, too.  I was a bit concerned with how the week was going to go because I started my vacation time off not feeling so great. 

Fortunately, it did get better, and I felt better. Towards the end of the week I'd say I was feeling the best I've felt in a really long time. 

What did it? Probably the sun! The glorious sun!

This photo was taken on Thursday, Feb. 26. Oh my word that was a wonderful day.  Friday was even better, but I'll get to that in a sec. My area had a few days of beautiful sun and warm temperatures. It did SO much to boost the mood. 

I tried to remember to take photos of various things through the week.  Let's see if I remember what was going on, shall we? 😃

Monday was publishing day.  It was such a better publishing day than the previous one. It didn't last nearly as long, thank goodness. 

I let the girls out of the coop about mid-day and a few decided they had to congregate on the deck. 

I suspect one didn't want to be by the others and a few of her sisters decided to keep her company. 

Tuesday we had to drive to town for my husband's work. It was not a very nice day. It was a rainy-sleet-type of snow for what was supposed to be a snow storm, or blizzard (?) I think that was the day it was supposed to last just the morning. 

I was hanging out in the vehicle while my hubby did his work thing. 

Then we ran errands and we *had* to stop at Menard's because I needed vermiculite for planting seeds later in the week. 

Funny story: Turns out I did not need that vermiculite. I already had almost two full bags of it out in the greenhouse.  Oops. 

I received some fun mail on Tuesday. 

I ordered a mystery box from Forbidden Fiber Co. It was to celebrate the 100th birthday of Winnie the Pooh and I decided to get it as a memory piece for a friend who passed away three years from cancer.  She LOVED Winnie the Pooh.

The chart and the needle minder are darling and I love the colors. 

In the evening I started working on a couple project bags. 

Wednesday was quiet-ish.

I plunked myself down and finally ripped the stitches out of the piece of linen that I was using for "Mother's Garden." The piece where I was working on the border and the border didn't line up. 

It didn't take as long as I thought it would.  I definitely don't want to have to do that again. 

I received some more fun mail on Wednesday. 

I won a share from JanetJabber's flosstube and it arrived.  It's super pretty. 

That evening I finished up my project bags and matching thread beds. 

I am totally set for a St. Patrick's Day project, and an Easter project. I have an idea for a project to put in the bunny bag already. 

Thursday ... Thursday was a gloriously wonderful day. The sun was shining, the temps were up in the upper 30s F, or lower 40s F. I can't remember which. All that mattered was the sun and the warmth. 

The chickens loved it.  They were basking on the steps of the she shed. 

In the early evening I trekked out to the greenhouse. 

I cleared away snow so I could actually get in the greenhouse, and then I cleared the snow off the roof. 

It didn't take much time to clear the snow off the greenhouse. 

Then I stopped for a few moments to enjoy the view. 

Last week I discovered we have a free and wild bun living in the yard. 

Thursday I spotted him on one of the cameras, hanging out with a deer. 

I'm sure that deer didn't know what to make of this little creature who was nibbling on the food scraps we tossed out there. 

Friday it was time. ... Time to plant some seeds. 

I pulled out the collection and started going through it. 

We loaded up a sled full of stuff I needed, and pulled it out to the greenhouse. 

Where I decided spur of the moment to shoot a garden video. Totally off the cuff. 

It's officially 12 weeks until the last anticipated frost date in my area. I can scarcely believe it. I wanted to start all the things, but had to tell myself no.  There's plenty of time. 

After I was done recording the wind picked up.  Oh boy did it pick up! I don't have photos of it, but the winds were gusting so strongly that it was knocking the pine cones out of the trees and we had a shower of pine cones and branches. It's a mess out there! I am thankful the wind held, mostly, while I was recording. There is a clip of the wind blowing at the end of the video. 

Saturday and Sunday we woke up to temperatures much colder than expected.  Which made for quieter days. 

Despite my talk in the last blog post about taking a break from crafting, I opted to diligently work on my "A Daily Reminder," and completed it Saturday. 

I had a goal of finishing it by the end of February, but didn't think it would happen. I did a complete color conversion on this piece and I'm thrilled with how it turned out. 

Today (Sunday) started a stitch-along with a couple of friends and fellow flosstubers. I'm stitching "Flea Market Flowers," by Lori Holt, with Alison, Mrs AZfamilyzoo Stitches and Mair SinCity_crossstitcher

A nice start to the project. This will be a year-long SAL, and I'm curious to see how quick I'll stitch up each monthly section. 

I don't know what I'll have going on in the upcoming week.  I *will* be recording a flosstube.  I just need to rewrite my shownotes. 

Stay tuned! 

In my slow era

Yet another blog post where I'm not sure how to start it. 

Also, I was *so* sure I wrote earlier this week. I just love how I keep thinking I written things out, but not actually doing it.  

I admit it, the month of February has been pretty crazy and I think (I hope) things are finally starting to calm down a bit. 

The new med seems to be helping. Thank goodness. I'm still sort of holding my breath, though. March 1 marks the two year anniversary since the health stuff started up. Two years. ... I'm still marveling over that little bit. 

Today was a quiet day.  I woke up.  Maybe a little testy. ... but that went away (I think) after I got some coffee in me.

I woke up to it snowing. More snow. *sigh* Not a heavy snow, but enough to put a damper on doing anything outside. 

What did I do today. Well, very exciting stuff, I tell you.  I tidied up the kitchen and took a sauna because I thought maybe that was helping me feel better. I still have the dregs of the cold, or whatever it was. That was about the extent of the excitement. 

I did a wee bit of cross stitch this evening, and that's about it. 

Oh, I've been crafting in the evenings.  A little bit of this. A little bit of that. Not with any real intensity, however.  Last night I started cutting fabric for some project bags. 

I started the year with the mindset of crafting whatever I felt like, when I felt like it.  I'm still taking that to heart. I just feel .... "meh" right now. 

Lie to me and tell me it's the weather. Winter, low barometric pressure and being stuck indoors? 

Or, maybe I just have burn out. That's a thing too. Burn out from work. The last few months there's been some work-related stress. I've mentioned the possible changes and that there are different scenarios my work could take this year. 

So I'm thinking about taking a week off from crafting. Kind of a reset, maybe.  Or maybe just put aside what I'm currently working on, and focus on something else? I'm in the homestretch to starting the first batch of seeds for the 2026 garden season. 

Okay, so maybe not expect too much out of me this next week.  Even though I am *way* overdue for a flosstube. 

All right ... so this last week ... well, it's mid-February.  Ash Wednesday and Lent started. False spring ended. We are right back to typical winter temps. Though the end of this coming week is suppose to have some nice temps. 

Remember this photo I shared in my last post? 

This was about the same area yesterday, no fog banks to obscure the bridge. 

What a difference, right? We drove up to Duluth yesterday and I thought to take this photo, to share what the area looks like, typically.  You can see how grey and dreary the weather and sky has been the last several days. 

And just to completely mess with the timeline, let's go back to earlier in the week. 

Nothing much going on.  Some crafting in the evenings.  A bit of crochet in the morning.  

I was informed of snow that would be happening Tuesday evening to Wednesday morning, or so. I kept checking the weather, and then the radar after seeing some local news people talking weather on the book of faces.  Then scratching my head because I just wasn't seeing anything on the radar.  I decided we'd just have to wait and see. 

Woke up on Wednesday and not much had happened. 

You can see my car did not get much new snow covering.  It was warm enough and what snow that came down was heavy enough that the solar panels sort of self-cleaned.  This photo was later in the morning. Close to 9 a.m., I think. 

My hubby went to work.  He made it to the edge of town, managed to turn around without getting stuck, and came home.  The closer you got to Lake Superior, the worse the weather was. 

I was supposed to go to the dentist.  I rescheduled my appointment and took a vacation day. 

The snow that did drop on my area was so full of moisture it bent this sled.  I know it doesn't look like much but that is a heavy duty sled we've been using.  I put it in the trailer to keep the tarp from blowing away. 

Looking over to the garden. 

Looking towards the driveway. 

Just heavy, wet stuff that froze solid as soon as the temps dropped. 

This photo is for my friend Ruth.  No pretty snow in the trees. No winter wonderland with this one. 

Thursday, however.  It was a different story. 

I had to go to town for my dentist appointment, so I was cranking along, getting work stuff taken care of, and then had to plow the driveway because the plow had gone by and socked us in. 

These photos are also for Ruth.

My drive to town that day.

The highway was pretty clear.  That bit was nice. 

However, one car slide in to a ditch on Wednesday, it looks like. 

The roads in town were terrible! 

I took a swing by the cemetery, to visit my mother-in-law, completely forgetting that I wouldn't be able to actually walk to the gravesite because of the snow.

You see the shepherd's hook? That's where I would have had to walk to. In kneedeep snow and I was only wearing tennies. 

So, instead of visiting, I stayed in my car and played some Allison Strauss music, on of her favorites.

Dentist went well. And then I was on my way home. 

A little bit of work on my Daily Minder, by Brenda Gervais. 

Friday was work and that was about it. 

Well, a little bit of knitting was done.  I worked a bit on my Armande cardigan. 

And that was pretty much the extent of the week. 

The February spring fake out

 I meant to write on Friday. Really, I did.  Swearsies. I had the day off from work, since I had put in so much extra time in for the special issue we were working on. I also planned to record a flosstube. I had written notes and everything. 

Then I woke up on Friday feeling terrible. My last blog post I mentioned my hubby picked up a bug from work.  I was unsuccessful in evading this one. I still feel slightly rotten. 

Since I didn't feel up to making a video I decided to do two things and call it a day. 

The first thing was to go haul out my seed collection. 

Have I gone through it yet? No.  I've decided it is still a bit early. 

I picked up the tip to keep a paper calendar like this from a homesteading youtube channel a few years ago.  I marked the weeks leading up to my last frost day. 

I even grabbed my three ring binder. 

And the seeds I already purchased. 

Then I sort of just stared at everything for a minute, contemplating which seeds I'm going to start first. 

I already know I'm not going to repeat what I did for the garden last year, which was focusing on tomatoes and peppers.  I'm going to scale back a bit and add variety back in. 

The other thing I did was spend some time out in the she shed. Things got a little messy out there post-holidays and new year.  I was moving things out there and just setting things down, willy-nilly, and things got a bit out of control. 

So much better! 

I also filed in some floss that needed to be put away. Floss that was picked up for future projects and left over floss from recently completed projects. 

This is my DMC collection. 

The bag of floss? That is floss for every Mudpuppy Stitchery chart I owned, as of last year. I took the time to go through each chart and figure out how much floss I'd need. When I say I'm set, I'm set! 

Friday was the start of some really nice weather. The temperature hit a high in the mid-40s F. It was nice. 

Saturday was more nice weather.  Oh! Such nice weather! 

But let me tell you, the early day weather was a bit ... unusual. The sky was clear out where I live. Then we drove up over to Duluth to do some shopping.  As soon as we hit the outskirts of Superior there was a fog bank. 

As we were coming down the hill I noticed the top of the high bridge was poking out of the top of the fog, and I tried to take a quick photo. 

Never, ever have I seen the bridge like this. The other structure is some sort of elevator, down by the docks. 

When I was moving photos around I had to stop and really look at this photo, because I didn't recognize it.  Then I saw the high bridge and it all started clicking. You can't tell in the photo, but that street is going downhill. 

We made it back home at a decent time in the a.m. and my hubby decided to run the tractor and move some snow around. 

The tractor is so nice to have.  

While he was playing in the snow, I decided to go out to the greenhouse and look for my soil blockers. 

Yes, still buried in snow.  I was able to slide open the door and get in. 

First thing I looked at was the thermometer. I did NOT feel like 110 F. 

It did feel good in there, though.  I stood in there for a few movements, enjoying the solar heat and sun rays. 

*sigh* I'm already picturing those benches full of 1020 trays and starts. 

When I stepped back out of the greenhouse I turned to the garden and was trying to gauge how much snow was left in the garden when I noticed a hole in the snow. 

Very odd. ... what could it be, making that mess and eating acorns? 

The rest of Saturday I rested and cross stitched.  I completed my February Cat piece on Valentine's Day.  I "woo-hooed!" and sent a picture to Patty, who I'm doing the stitch-along with. 

Oh, and before I forget, we did remember it was Valentine's Day.  With both of us sick with The Plague, we didn't pay much attention to it. Not to mention, we've been together for 101 years and we do nice things for each other all the time. 

Sunday did not disappoint, weather-wise.  When the sun hit a certain point in the sky we sat out and basked in it. 

The girls LOVED the sun and the warmer temperatures. They demanded to be let out as soon as it was light out. 

They enjoyed some sunbathing, too. 

Today I woke up still feeling crummy, sneezy, runny, and all the other dwarfs that would be appropriate in describing cold symptoms. Work was quiet.  We have a good start on the next issue. 

I spent some time this evening working on my "A Daily Reminder" by Brenda Gervais before writing this blog post. I hear we are supposed to get some snow last this week. Bah! 

I strongly suspect I'm going to take it easy this week, after two weeks of a decent amount of work stress, and now whatever bug I have. I'm really hoping to be over this bug by the end of the week.