Covered in a blanket of snow

So ... it snowed. Not tons and tons, but enough to stick. We have a good 2" on our deck and grass. The roads right now aren't snow covered, but are a solid sheet of ice (at least my street is).

We have the wood stove going, which is nice, but that's the earliest we've ever started to burn (which means we'll run out of wood earlier than usual), so I'm concerned a bit.

Days like this, I want to live in the Bahamas.

Today marks the first day of my DH's two week vacation. I asked what was on the agenda today. Cutting down trees. And, we'll be working in snow, now which thrills me to NO end.

DD is thrilled she'll be in school. Wish I had an excuse!

More snow is expected on Saturday, though. Looks like it just might be a tougher winter than usual -- which apparently the wildlife knew since there are NO acorns to be found anywhere. Whereas last year? The ground was littered with them.

I'm dreading the fact I have to drive DD to and from school everyday. Used to be if the weather was icky, I just stayed home until it wasn't. I'm not a confident driver in the snow (comes from two times sliding off the road in Colorado and Wyoming) which makes me a nervous wreck. Maybe it'll only snow on Saturdays?

The countdown to spring begins now.

Hope your weekend plans are warmer and less labor intensive than mine!

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You Are Hot Coffee

You are quick and elusive. You have keen senses, and you can concentrate intensely. You are charming, outgoing, and friendly. You make a good first impression. You are open-minded and flexible. You don't see things as set in stone, and you like to leave yourself open. You are energetic and fired up. You are always ready to take on the world.

The Hot Beverage Test

About half right.

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Weekend in Review

Crazy weekend here ... still waiting for a video to upload to YouTube while I type (apparently my phone takes really big videos which is YAY for the resolution, but UGH on the amount of time it takes to upload), so I'll share this with you first. My friend, Maria Zannini released a new book! It's the second in her Second Chances Series, Chain of Souls. Check it out:

Banished from Heaven for refusing to harvest an unwilling soul, Liam Chase drinks to forget night after night until the Angel of Death pays him a visit.

For the price of a few humans souls, Ziva promises to get him reinstated into Heaven. Liam doesn’t doubt her influence, but milking humans of their light is an unspeakable crime, punishable by eternal oblivion.

He’d rather rot on Earth than commit such a monstrous sin. But the Angel of Death didn’t get where she was by taking no for an answer. Ziva is a huntress of extraordinary skill and cruelty. If he refuses, his loved ones will be her next targets. And Ziva never misses.

Ziva has already set her sights on Shannon, the soul he once refused to harvest, and his beloved servant, Evie. He’ll do anything to keep them safe, even if it means his death.

But something goes wrong just as he concedes, and the chain of souls picks a new mistress before he has a chance to deliver.

Brought for trial before the most feared angel in Heaven and Hell, Liam discovers he has failed to protect his loved ones and now they too could share his fate.

Sounds good!! If you think so, too, know this: It's only $2.99 (the cost of that Starbucks you were going to get this morning ... but this lasts for more than a few minutes) and you can get it here: Amazon, B&N and Smashwords.

:::checks back at YouTube::: "About 4 minutes left"

*sigh*

So, DH decided that we should spend Friday, Saturday and part of Sunday taking down trees, stacking the branches and dragging logs in from the woods to load on the truck, bring home and stack in our yard for next year's burn.

It's not that I mind working. It's not that I don't LOVE free wood (we use about three cords a year, and it runs about $250/cord right now, so YAY for free wood). It's not that I don't love a warm house in the middle of winter.

What I mind is spending ALL FREAKING WEEKEND doing it. Because, hello, already have a full plate of chores and work that doesn't do itself while I'm off doing something else. I didn't get the LASR/WC website built for this week until last night. I have twenty-six active virtual tours on Goddess Fish that I'm filling, organizing and promoting. We won't talk about the 50+ reviews I edit weekly or the house that I cleaned. And DD wanted to practice basketball, so I needed to fit that in somewhere, too (amazingly, it didn't hurt my knee AT ALL).

It all got done (barely), but it wasn't fun. Nevermind trying to plot something for NaNoWriMo in a week.

:::checks back at YouTube::: -- Upload Progress 100%!

Okay, so I took one video of DH felling a tree. He did this when SIL wasn't there (she was driving the wood to our house with SIL#2 and stacking it) because she tends to flip out and stress beyond belief every time he takes anything down. It's not like he's dropped one on her house (he did hit the edge of her shed once, but that was actually her fault... long story). I videoed it because I knew she'd want to watch. It's pretty amazing actually, and DH is a lot braver that I would be. The times he gestures to me in the video, he's asking if the tree looks like it's falling the right way (it was). I was worried a minute because the wind picked up just a smidge, but it was blowing the right way.



That's a big tree. We had to clear and pile all the branches in the canopy, plus find all the bits of wood he cut ( we don't waste any -- even the smaller branches are cut up to burn) and haul it out the woods. SIL will have some very happy birds and chipmunks this winter living her her brush piles.

There are three more trees she wants taken down. That's on the agenda for next week.

*sigh*

What did you do this weekend? Anything fun? Let me live vicariously!

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You Should Get Your PhD in Business Administration

You love to work on a team, and you do your best to bring out everyone's strengths. You only work when it is very meaningful and profitable. You don't want to waste your time in a job. You have what it takes to be a top business owner or consultant. You have a head for money. Your work doesn't have to have a higher meaning. Making money is its own reward.

What Should You Get a PhD In?

Mostly right.

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Contests and Pretties and Woodstoves (oh my)

Go and wake up your luck. - Persian Saying

First off, a couple of contests for you:

Via Judy, I discovered that A Novel Woman is giving away copies of "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon. If you're a fan of hers or have always wanted to read "Outlander", then you should head on over and enter.

Mary shared with me a link to a big giveaway from Gotham Writers (including prizes like an iPad, a Kindle and a $50 BN.com GC).

LASR/WC are giving away a $50 Amazon or BN GC -and- a box of books during their Jingle Bell Blog Fest.

Why not enter and give yourself a Merry Christmas?

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I added a bunch of new pieces on DD's website... I sure wish I could figure out how to showcase the pieces better because they are really stellar.

Here are a few:

I'm not usually into dangles, but I really LOVE these:


These are so incredibly pretty -- I couldn't figure out how to take a perfect picture of them to show what they really looked like:


I almost kept this for myself... I still might.


I have several more pieces to put up, but it's time consuming, so I only manage a few at a time ...

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We're buying a new woodstove. Happy Christmas to us! We should be getting it some time after Christmas. I'm looking forward to having something just a little bit bigger than what we have now (fitting wood into our current stove can be challenging) and one with an external ash pan.

Here's what we're getting.



In anticipation, DH cut down three more trees yesterday and happily cut the logs 16" long instead of 12", lol...

I'm tired of moving wood. But I know I'll be pleased next winter when I'm nice and toasty warm.

====================

You Are Playful and Adventurous

You're the type who can't sit still for too long. You get bored rather easily. You love to travel, and when you don't have the time or money, you at least explore your hometown. You tend to do things very differently during the holidays. You definitely have your own style. You'll incorporate traditions that make sense to you, but your holidays are by no means traditional!

The Gingerbread Cookie Test

About 50/50...

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Truths and Trees and Trinkets

Never do anything that you wouldn't want to explain to the paramedics. ~ Author Unknown

So ... we took down three more trees yesterday -- all oaks. Two were fairly small, but one was huge and it was oh-so much fun moving brush and piling logs. I just kept saying, "I'm going to be so glad in the winter when I'm toasty warm." over and over. I wasn't entirely convinced of that, though, when it started to rain on us while we worked. *sigh*

DD has decided she wants her own laptop. So, that's her next "I'm saving for" item. The computer she uses now is my old, old desktop (from six or seven years ago). It's functional but incredibly slow. I've told her that just because she *might* get a laptop, she doesn't get to have it in her room. We'll see. She keeps getting tempted by other things (most recently, she stumbled on last year's Holiday Barbie on sale for only $15 and bought it), so the laptop may not happen for awhile.

I did put up a pile of new jewelry on her ArtFire site last week. For some reason, I really like these earrings:



DD's favorites from what I uploaded were these:



She's busily at work making Christmas earrings. I bought her a bunch of red and green Swarovski Crystal beads as well as small white ones. They're SO pretty and sparkly... I can't wait to see what she does with them.

And now, without further ado I give you for your daily giggle ...

Truths:

1. A best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5. Map Quest really needs to start directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I
know how to get out of my neighborhood.

6. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

7. Bad decisions make good stories.

8. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

9. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.

10. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

11. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

12. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

13. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?

14. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!

15. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

16. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch three consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

17. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys
in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey -but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away,in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time!

18. The first testicular guard, the "Cup," was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important.

Have a great Monday!

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You Are the Left Side of the Brain

You are a logical and orderly person. You have a system for almost everything in your life. You like to stay busy, and it's important that you stay on task. You prefer to do one thing at a time. You are rational and detail oriented. You love to analyze, and you have a head for numbers. You are also good with words. You love to read, and you've been known to write well.

What Side of the Brain Are You?

Yep. That one is right on...

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Adventures in Wood Cutting

If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason. ~Jack Handey

So ... yesterday. We finished splitting the wood out back and hauling and stacking it. While DD and I were piling the last bit, my DH went to SIL's house to take down trees. We followed about 45 mins after he left and when I pulled in to her driveway, she came marching around from the back. As I walked to her I saw she was crying...

Uh oh.

Of course I had all the things in my head that could go wrong -- first and foremost that a tree fell on her house. Thankfully, that wasn't the case.

It fell on her shed.

And on her magnolia tree -- her beautiful, amazing magnolia tree.

I knew she was crying for her tree and not the shed and I was right. Worse (for her... but a relief for me) was that it was her fault the tree fell where it was. She was responsible for the winch and didn't do the job right.

Thankfully the shed wasn't badly damaged. The windows didn't break, and only one decorative beam was shattered. The roof is shingled with metal and the cap has a dent, so will need to be replaced, but otherwise, amazingly it escaped nearly unscathed.

Not so the tree.

She has THREE more trees she wants taken down, but refuses to work the winch again. Which leaves ME. And ... uh... no. I'm not going to do it, not at her house. My house? Maybe. But I'm not taking responsibility for another person's property. So, if she wants those trees down, she'll have to find someone else.

We need 4 - 5 more trees to have enough wood for next year. Guess we'll see how things work out.

In the meantime, a little pictorial ode to a magnolia tree (no, these aren't pictures of hers ... but they're almost identical):




=================

You Are Down to Earth Fun

You are the type of person who really enjoys life. You have simple tastes and keep your expectations low. When it's time to let loose, you find a way to kick back. You find it easy to relax. Your friends can count on you to be practical and no nonsense. Everyone appreciates that you live a drama free life. It hasn't been a good night unless everyone has had fun. You're happy if your friends are happy.

The Pub Food Test

Okay :-)