Nap-attacked

 Both yesterday and today I was nap-attacked and wound up taking naps that were at least an hour long.

Change in the weather?  Or that I "peopled" on Friday and it wore me out?  Maybe both. 

We are continuing on our trend of weather that isn't acting like it should for this time of year. 

This morning it snowed. 

Big fat, wet-looking flakes. 

By late afternoon it was mostly gone. 

I was having a chat with one of my friends and she mentioned chili.  Suddenly that was all I could think of eating.  It sounded so good.  I didn't want to make a whole back of chili.

Then I remembered I had canned up some chili and put it up in the pantry. 

Woo hoo!  Canned foods for the win!

But, really, though ... today has been a really quiet day.  I did a little knitting.  Tidied up the kitchen. 

Went out hunting this afternoon. 

Not even a squirrel. 

Hunting season is coming to a close very soon.  I'm grateful I filled my antlerless tag, but this could be the first year since my first year hunting that I don't get a buck. 

Then I did a little stitching this evening. 

Can you guess? 

Oh, earlier today my husband and I figured out the yardage on one of the skeins of yarn I got from Temu. 

It's disappointing. Course now I don't remember the yardage for a single skein. 

I think for the entire 5-pack it's more than 600 yards. Not enough to do a sweater, right?  A person would need 10 of these skeins, or two packs, minimum to make a sweater. 

Sooooo ... I need to find a pattern that I can make with two colors. Not necessarily striped. Something to look for in the new year. 

Speaking of new years ... It's so close to the start of the new year.  Can you believe it? We are one week from Christmas. 

Remember this yarn?

I need to get my butt in gear and start making the gift I had planned to make with it. ... Only I can't find this yarn. Where did I put it? Ugh ... 

There's something else I want to make and have complete by next weekend. Cross stitch and the other things will be put on hold until I get these projects complete. 

In addition to wrapping up an issue.  We have a deadline on Friday. And making plans for the Christmas weekend, the big meal and all. 

A beautiful day

 I woke up to to a beautiful day today. 

Those pretty colors, through the trees, this morning. 

When I went out to do chicken chores this morning it was balmy out. I think that's the correct word.  Very temperate.  It felt like a spring day. 

In fact, towards the end of the day snow was melting off the roof and it was close to 50 degrees out. 

About mid-day I took a walk out to the back 20, to get the cards from the game cams. 

The sun was so nice to feel on my face when I was out there. 

Today was an early deadline day for work. Naturally a few things had to go wrong.  My email server has decided to hold on to my emails for a bit before doing an email dump. 

Then there was something going on with the website.  Thankfully that was taken care of fairly quickly. 

Have you ever heard of a grilled PB and J?  My cousin told me about them a long time ago. I forgot about them until my son asked that one be ready for him when he came home from work tonite. 

I made one for myself, too. 

Yum!

This morning before work I knit a bit on my harvest cardigan.  This evening I stitched another ornament. 

I think it is supposed to be evergreens and bobbles.  So far it's not my favorite. For as sparse as it may look, it sure took me long enough to stitch.

Making connections

 Last year, or the year before, when I first learned about flossmass I thought it was flosstubers who wanted to put a big focus on Christmas cross stitch projects and sharing christmas-related thoughts and making an extra push to reach out to other cross stitchers in what is typically a pretty busy time of year. 

I have a point.  Eventually I will get to it. In the meantime, my writing may be stream-of-thought. Sorry. 

This morning I started watching Coggie's most recent video. She mentioned she's been reading the reddit for craftsnark. I forgot about craftsnark so I went and took a look through. 

Okay, yes, I remember what craftsnark is about.  I didn't forget that part. Though I did have to remind myself that I was going to be reading people being snarky. 

It was a bit of a downer to read people's less than positive comments about flosstuber's and knitting podcaster's videos. Granted, they were talking about people I had never watched, so I really can't say if the comments were warranted or not. 

It's not easy to sit down in front of a camera and talk to yourself for any length of time.  Then edit the video, making cuts or adding in. It's a lot of work, actually, to put out something that most of the time there isn't a lot of feedback on. Unless you "make it" and then you are so busy cranking out content that you lose the spark you had for what made you start writing or recording in the first place.  In my opinion most people do it because they want to make connections to other people who also just as excited about the hobby they love.

Back when I first started writing this blog I was excited to "write a blog" and reach people out on the internet.  Though back then (16 years ago -- holy crow!) I didn't know what I wanted to write and share about. But I did know I wanted to leave my mark. 

Then a few years ago I made the leap and started making vlogs.  Then a certain world-wide thing happened and I stopped recording because the thought of recording myself talking while someone else was in the house was pretty unnerving. I often think about reviving that part of my youtube channel and sharing my excitement about the projects I'm working on. However, my nervousness and introvertednes keeps me from taking that step again. Down the road, maybe. For now, I'll be maybe making videos of garden stuff.  I don't have to show my face in those! 

Whether writing blogs entries or making videos for youtube, a person is making their self a bit vulnerable by opening up.  

And then trying to find the right balance ... *sigh* 

This is a topic that has been on my mind for a while. It sort of came bubbling up to the top today, apparently, after I read the craftsnark subreddit.  I don't frequent it a lot, if you couldn't tell. 

Well ... now that i've got that off my chest ... let me blather a bit about my day. 

My day involved a trip to the office and swinging by Menards. There I purchased a utility tub/tote and that is the last piece of equipment I need for the upcoming garden season. 

You know, for mixing up the potting mix for making soil blocks. 

I also picked up a suet cake holder and a small bag of bird seed. 

This evening I whipped out another ornament.  I say "whipped out" very loosely. 

Well ... that's it for now.  Catch you on the flipside. 

Now, for something different

 Tonight I worked on a quilt square. 

I am a pinner!

This is the sixth out of 12 squares. I'm halfway there!

The rest of the squares will have the bear paw-looking bits turned inward. 

After spending so much time lately on cross stitch and knitting it was nice to work on something different. It took a long time and I made a boo boo towards the end, despite having the pieces all laid out. 

Earlier today I was half-watching the birds while I was feeding my sourdough starter. 

I finally figured out a way to have suet out for the birds and the squirrels aren't knocking the holder down and taking off with the suet cake. 

I also put out some dried pieces of bread for the squirrels and the blue jays. 

The blue jays liked the bread.  I'm sure they would have rather had corn or some kind of seed.  Beggars can't be choosers. 

I managed a photo of one of the squirrels enjoying the bread, but the window was all steamed up so it didn't turn out. 

Yup, it was a happy crew out there. 

My sourdough starter ...  I'm struggling this time around. 

It gets a lot of the "hooch" going.  Which I read is okay. 

It's not behaving like I expect it to. I don't see the massive amount of bubbles or growth.  I've been reading a bit on The Pantry Mama's website.  I feel so invested in this now.  Maybe it's the time of year?  Not as much wild yeast floating around? 

And then I ask myself "Why am I doing this?" Cause I read that sourdough can be better for you than regular white bread and I want to test this out. 

Oh yeah, and I managed to eek out another ornament this evening. It took like no time at all. 

A quiet start to the weekend

 It's been a quiet day here on the homestead. No sun.  The weather forecast person was not on the mark with this one. 

And since it was a quiet day with not a lot going on, I don't have a lot to write about today. 

I did finish the ornament. 

Ta da! 

I also decided to break out my chiaogood bamboo interchangeable needles and start a new pair of mittens. 

The longer nylon cords that I ordered for doing magic loop had too much energy in them.  One of my knitsibs said the red cords should work with all of the chiaogoos so I tried them on the bamboos and they do work.  They are SO much better for magic loop. 

I have a feeling I'm going to cruise along on this pair. 

Cookies!

 Continuing with the very un-December-like weather for my area ... look at this beautiful sky and how the sun hit the trees this morning. 

I told my husband this morning (or maybe last night) that with how mild the weather has been for our area, I could have still been growing greens, or something. They could have been protected with some greenhouse plastic.  In past years I've had at least 6 inches of snow in the garden by now. 

I finally got that second green leg warmer unwound. 

I have four skeins of ramen yarn, ready for the bath. 

Seriously, this little project is taking me longer than I thought it would. 

Anywho ... 

Instead of spending most of my "free time" working on anything crafty, I opted to make cookies. 

Cookies for me, using a new recipe. 

I used a low carb/keto recipe as a base to make chocolate chip cookies.  I like them a lot. 

I made regular chocolate chip cookies for my son. 

And I made peanut butter cookies for my husband. 

Treats for everybody! 

Stitchy eye candy for the evening.  A few threads before bed. 

If I wasn't so bleary-eyed in the morning I would work on this before work.  My goal will be to get this done before Saturday morning. 

Busyish day, here

 Today was one of those days where I had a full to-do list, and was steadily busy from 7 a.m. til after supper. 

We are still having warm temps in my area. I took a long lunch and cleaned out the chicken coop for my girls.  

One barred rock kept popping her head into the coop, trying to figure out what I was doing, and if it was safe to go in.  I could tell she was thinking she could be really clever and run past me and out the open door, but she was terrified of the shovel. 

I also replaced the cover on my greenhouse. 

Way earlier in the year I was singing the praises of this greenhouse I got off Amazon a few years ago. 

Then we got a metric ton of snow and she couldn't take it anymore.  The zippers gave out on me. The frame is still solid. 

I have a lot of stuff stored in there. 

Off went the cover. 

It looks so different without the cover. 

She looks pretty with a "fresh coat of paint."

I'd say "I wonder if my husband will notice the new cover," but he reads my blog.  This will be a pleasant surprise for him. 

Speaking of surprises (ha, see what I did there?) I was surprised yesterday when I got an email notification that my seed order from MIGardener shipped.  I had totally forgotten I placed a small order when MIGardener had a 20 percent off seed sale for Cyber Monday, or whatever. 

*facepalm*

Seeds ordered were: 

Broccoli Rabe - Spring Rapini

Self blanching cauliflower

Mushroom red pepper

Big Jim pepper

Shishito peppers (I'm so set for these seeds now.)

Ghost peppers

Rutgers tomato

Tiny Tim tomato

Geranium Kiss tomato

Muncher cucumber

San Marzano tomato

Yeah ... I guess I'm totally set for seeds. Ooops.  What can I blame for forgetting the order? 

I also took a quick walk out to the back 20. The SD cards in the game cams needed to be swapped out. 

See? Still so much brown. 

Some neat things were seen. 

This evening, after dinner, clean up and doing some work-for-pay, I stitched a few threads on the ornament. Slow and steady.  I kind of wish I could just knock these out so I can FFO them and get them on the tree before Christmas. 

Yesterday I realized I "lost" my monkey sock project. This morning I remembered where I put it. I forgot I put it in a project bag. 

I need to give it some attention soon. 

Adventures and reclaiming yarn

 We got our smattering of snow overnight. 

Total was maybe an inch. 

It made a nice back drop for the Christmas tree. 

This morning, before work, I was scrolling a bit on Facebook and saw something that got the wheels churning and I did an online search for convertible mittens. 

I found a video that is a modification to the Tin Can Knits mitten I just made.  Hooray! 

Then I had an even better idea! 

Several years ago I knit some Mosey leg warmers. I hated them from the moment I finished them. So they've been put away until now. 

I decided to unravel the yarn. Reclaim it, and knit it into some convertible mittens. 

Great idea, right? Sounds easy, right? 

*sigh*

I learned that I'm *way* too good at weaving in my ends. 

This is what I thought was the end, after about five minutes of searching.

It was not. 

I gave up and snipped the yarn. That didn't work so well. 

I wound up with a hole. 

I kept undoing the yarn and pulling it out of loop after loop. 

Eventually I wound up with this thing. 

Honestly, no idea what was going on with it, so I cut it off. Then kept undoing the yarn.  Loop by loop. Twist by twist. 

Eventually I got it to where I could just unravel the yarn. 

One leg warmer is all skeined up.  I just now realized I forgot to take a photo. 

Here's my little pile of short yarns. 

I'm working on the second legwarmer.  I found the end on this one and I'm slowly, agonizingly, undoing it, in the hopes I don't have the mess I did with the first one. 

This evening my hubby and I went out on a little adventure. 

Tromping out in the wilderness and being amazed at how beautiful the night time sky was.  We were hoping to see northern lights in all their glory.  There was clouds. So many stupid clouds. 

Photos were still cool. 

It was a lot of fun. 

After supper and clean up I sat down and started working on the next ornament. 

Bet you can't guess what it is!