Snow Adventures (or How Janelle Did a 180 on Hwy 2)

Today, I watched it snow and snow and snow until about 11am. I waited for the plow to come by (otherwise I never would have gotten down my street). Then I got on my coat, hat, scarf, snow boots and gloves and went out and blew snow off my driveway for the umpteeth day in a row. I then shoveled the icy berm left by the plow at the end of the driveway. I've given up on the mailbox. It's almost buried under, despite my honest to goodness best efforts.

So, I'm escaping! It's sunny! All the sudden a plow thwacks a huge load of slush at my windshield but I do the "blind drive and pray my windshield wipers work" maneuver and keep going.

I drive the 15 miles into the northern part of Spokane. I'm headed to Costco. There's really only one main street through Spokane and it was absolutely jam packed with cars. Stop, go, stop, go, stop go for half an hour to get 2 miles. So I get to Costco. No cars in the parking lot. What? They closed it for fear that the roof will cave in. Ugh! I needed stuff at Costco.

I tool down the street and I see one total roof collapse (it was a futon store next to a picture framing store) and several partial collapses - a tire shop, a well-known florist/gift shop and not that I shop there much if ever, even Wal-Mart is shut down. I swear, I haven't seen sights this bad since I went to New Orleans after Katrina (for pet rescue).

After a few stops to "hunt and gather" the things I haven't been able to get for a month, I decide it's time to go home. I knew there was black ice on the road - the sun had been shining on the pavement and some of it was even showing through. However, now it's 4pm and 14 degrees (on its way to -2). I think I was only going 30 but some guy in front of me slams on his brakes (for no good reason that I can tell). He starts fishtailing so I slam on my brakes (like an idiot that didn't get her driver's license in the middle of a snowstorm). My Kia Sportage does a little ballet - seemed like slow motion. I drove into the slide (which is what I kind of remember you're supposed to do) and I come to a halt in the middle of a busy freeway in a turn lane (thank whoever you thank), turned the wrong direction and looking at cars coming at me. No harm done - seriously none, except that my last nerve was twitching pretty hard. I got myself going back the right direction and on home at a very slow pace.

Did I mention that I might not like this place right now?

Here's to a great 2009!

As the year comes to a close, I'm reminded of just how blessed I am. I'm living through the worst winter I've ever seen but I have a warm home, a snoring Pug boy and dreaming French Bulldoggy girl next to me, more hobbies than I can shake a stick at, and friends that check in on me (making sure I haven't fallen into a snow drift, I suppose)!

I wish everyone a wonderful 2009. My goals are to become more gainfully employed - that means working for someone else or turning those millions of ideas floating around in my head into that million dollar cash out (uh huh). Like everyone else, I'd like to exercise more and lose that winter (and summer and spring and fall) weight.

I'm going to take a trip - not sure where yet. Somewhere I've never been, I think. Any suggestions?

Well, in my characteristic fashion, I can't sit still so I've started a new quilt (yes, before finishing the last one) and I've been knitting the neighborhood puppers sweaters. Hey, it's cold out there! HAPPY, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Productivity

The snow makes me decidedly unproductive - but I did make myself get stuff done this week!

Knitted this hat for a friend's mother-in-law who has been going through chemo. I loved knitting this. Used Debbie Bliss Rialto Aran, which is Merino and very soft.

Put some stuff in the electroforming bath -

It's snowing like nobody's business again this morning. I'll see what else I can force myself to do!

Where my snowshoes at (or enough already)!

Ok - it's probably actually too early to start complaining about the snow. However, it's December 23rd and little ol' Deer Park is absolutely BURIED in snow! At one point, we got 30 inches in 24 hours. That was so last week! I can't find official totals but it *has* to be 40-45 inches by now. By comparison, last year (which was pretty terrible), we got 110-120 inches for the whole season. I am more than bummed as I am supposed to fly over to Seattle tomorrow - I don't think it's going to happen. I'll post more on my "serial hobbying" in this cabin-fever-inducing weather but in the meantime, enjoy a little of my snow chronicaling here. We had a snowstorm on the 12th that dropped about 6 inches - that was nothin'! The above photo was taken on December 21st.

This one - a few hours later - It's so hard to show the magnitude of how just how much snow this is. I can't actually get to the backyard, but if I could, it would be up to my thighs.

And yesterday -

It just keeps coming down! Temps have been hovering around zero, although I did wake up to -11F the other day.

I've become verrrry fond of the snowblower -

This is the third time this week I've had to rescue my mailbox from the snowfall and the snow plow.

Finally, my Andrew Carson kinetic wind sculpture may not be getting much action today but it is a nice, colorful distraction against all of the whiteness! If you'd like to see it day before yesterday in the mini blizzard we were having, have a look at it here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPsGoZ9wfas

I am OFFICIALLY old!

Yup - it's my birthday.  Kind of a non-starter really but I am going to go and have a crafting evening with my best friends in Deer Park today.  Can't think of a better way to celebrate.  Should I take my wheel? My loom? Knitting? It would only be better if my twin sis, Lya, could be here with me.  Happy birthday sis! 

Funny thing is that I just don't feel an age...some days I feel like I'm still wet behind the ears and sometimes it seems like I've been there and done that.  I do hope to have many, many more years to ponder the meaning of life though.  It's never easy but it's always interesting!

We make the most of it (well, we try, I think) and this week I've been up to my eyebrows in websites, weaving, and listing items in my Etsy store.  Here are a few goodies - http://janellezorko.etsy.com/.  This isn't really meant to be an ad but I so rarely post my work, I thought you might like to see it.

Thanks to everyone today for the happy thoughts and well wishes - I appreciate every one of them!

Family Tree

So, finished A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon this week - no small feat.  I adore this series.  It's a story of time travel mixed with historical fiction and each huge book keeps me completely riveted to the end.  In these books A LOT is said about the clans of Scotland.  Since I became a weaver (ha!) last week, I started thinking...hey...somewhere on my mom's side, I think I'm Scots Irish...yeah...I wonder what my tartan woud be...I wonder if I could weave it...

So I call my mom and say, "What do you think our clan name would be if we could trace the ancestry?"  Keep in mind that most of my family is Hungarian or Austro Hungarian or German.  There's something like 1/16th that might be Scottish.  She decides that it might be "Dalrymple" from her father's mother's side.  He ended up with some middle names that included "Augustus Dalrymple" - of whom, it turns out in my research, there really was one mentioned in history.

Soooo, I look up the tartan and guess what?  No disrespect intended...none at all, but I'm not sure I like it.  It's not horrible and I may still try to weave it but here it is -

Well, you can't choose your family - but maybe you can at least find out who they were.  I'm going to research them further.  Maybe it's that I have a milestone birthday coming up - maybe it's that I think it would be a shame to forget.  No matter what, it's bound to be interesting!

Weaving and Bobbing Along

What a few weeks!  I find all of the sudden that I have more time on my hands for various reasons.  That is good and bad.  More time often comes with less money, know what I mean? 

The good part is that true to my "serial hobbyist" moniker, I have now taken up weaving!  I had to go and do it - I found a used loom on Ebay.  Yes, like I needed another hobby...  It sat on the dining room table oh, for about 5 minutes, before I started pouring over the manual to learn how to warp it up.  Those people at Ashford really know how to write an instruction booklet and within an hour, I was ready to weave!  I wove and I wove...and I wove some more and finished a scarf, this time for ME (I tend to give away everything I make).  I was very excited to have finished something without any help and I think it looks pretty good!

Someone who does not look pretty good?  Why, that would be Beanie, my normally fluffy, fluffy Persian kitty boy.  However, around this time of year, he starts to get more than a little matted and being the declawed guy that he is, he bites like a son of a gun when brushed.  So, off he went to Grrs and Purrs for a little salon time.  Poor dude - does he look silly or what?  He's cold all the time now but the sweater lasted all of about 10 minutes as he kept walking backward, thinking that would get him out of it.  He's my boy - no matter what he looks like!

Back to (cold) reality...

Back home and while I truly didn't buy any souvenirs, I got one anyway. I believe I brought some Mexican bug with me. Anyone who knows me, knows that if I have no appetite, I must be sick!
Came home to a cold house - the furnace had decided to go out while I was gone. Again, I can probably thank my lucky stars that it wasn't the middle of winter. The pests were so happy to see me. No matter what the temperature, it's a warm welcome when you have two dogs, four cats, three rabbits and a fish vying for your attention. Annie did some might fine dancin' and Beanie McPhee asked to be picked up and purred up a storm - makes my heart hurt!

Zippy!

As my birthday present (a bit early), my mom paid for me to go on a zip lines/canopy tour.  It was awesome!  The tour I took was the "Canopy Veranos" trip.  We left the hotel at about 9:30am and headed up into the mountains south of Puerto Vallarta.  It was a nice, air conditioned tour bus - for which I was eternally grateful, given the heat this week.  It took a considerable amount of time to get up to the tour site due to road construction and generally bad, narrow and bumpy roads.  The trip is gorgeous though so even the rough ride was ok.

 

Got to the place and had a good training on how to ride the zip lines.  Cute guides who all spoke English reasonably well.  We were outfitted with harnesses in good condition, helmets and gloves.  We flew through the air on zip line after zip line, crossing over people below us at times.  The zip lines were hard-earned as we had to climb some pretty steep stairs and steps built into the mountainside.  The air rushing across my face as I "zipped" helped to dry some of the sweat worked up from the climb.

Being the animal lover that I am, I'm not sure if I enjoyed the zip lines more or the end of the tour at which you could actually feed spider monkeys, coatimundi and pygmy marmosets.  Very cool! 

I came "home" to the hotel at 3pm happy and tired and very glad I went!

Janelle

P.S.  The pygmy marmoset looks kinda sad, but rest assured, they were fat and seemed very happy with all the attention they receive.

Same day...new cat!

Ok - had to check in again because I got a picture of my Gattito friend.  He's a sweetie pie.  He enjoyed a little snack of kitten Friskies.