One Down - Two (or maybe three???) To Go!

It is a beautiful day here in Kentucky!  We got snow over night and now the sun is out, making everything look bright, clean, cozy.  I started the day off at 9, when I decided to get myself out of bed to shovel the snow off the drive and walk-ways around the house.  Of course, I locked myself out of the house, but I decided to just go on with the work and see what would happen.  This is not the first time I have slammed the door locked in my own face, so I decided to bide my time before panicking...  Luckily DH came home around the time he is actually supposed to come home.  He is on 3rd shift right now so he should be home about 10 in the morning, but with the roads covered with snow in a southern state, you never know.  Anyway, I was quite pleased that I did not have to break myself back into the house.  (I am sure that he was too, since he is the one who mends the house back together after I do what I have to do in order to get back in.)  We decided to get over to the grocery store to get some bird food for the "poor country cousins" (aka "outdoor birds").  They are having a feast out there right now.  We got a bunch of starlings hanging from the suet feeders and life is grand!  Our birds will sit on the couch back-rest next to the window and look at the poor country cousins for hours.  DH fixed eggs and bacon for dinner/breakfast and I folded the laundry - I am so lucky!

BTW, if you are not familiar with the panic snow causes in a southern state, let me tall you.  (Being from Sweden, I guess that I find parts of it pretty amusing...)  First off, the chaos starts already when the weather forecast predicts snow.  Droves of people will actually drive over to the grocery stores and buy up all the milk and the bread that can get their hands on.  Don't ask me why - I mean, in case of a weather related emergency, wouldn't you go for the non-perishable foods?
Then, when the snow finally hits, the school buses stops running and all the teachers and students get "snow days".  As far as I understand, these are not holidays, but the schools will have to make up for the snow days when the summer break begins instead.  This means that everything gets much trickier for parents out in the work force, since you don't have much choice other than to take vacation days to look after the younger kids (unless you are lucky and have family or friends to rely on).
Oh, and traffic gets absolutely insane!  Since people have probably only heard about snow tires and dub-decks but never used them (to be afir, it would not make a whole lot of sense here), everything gets a whole lot slicker.  Some drivers make up for this by driving extra fast, so that they can get out of the mess as quickly as possible.  Generally does not work well.  DH apparently sat out on one of the main roads for 2.5 hrs yesterday, while waiting for a 10 car pile up to get cleared out.  Poor DH - he got stuck about 7 minutes away from our house.  It normally takes him about 45 minutes to get to work; yesterday he left at 9.30pm and got there at 1.15 in the morning.  Not a fun night for anyone involved and I truly hope that everybody got out all right from the accident.
I love it!!!  The snow I mean!  I don't miss the incredibly short winter days back in Sweden, but the snow is quite lovely in mu opinion.

What is less amusing are the ice-storms!  I have lived through (dramatic, I know!) three of them since I moved here and boy, are they a mess.  Generally, we loose power for about 10 days.  You can't even break out of your house or into your car, since everything is encapsulated in thick, thick layers of ice.  You have to decide to live on the edge in order to actually walk half a block.  Last winter, we got hit really bad.  We had no traffic coming in our out of town and the ice-storm was followed by a really cold period.  There was talk about not getting in any gas or food for weeks.  We realized that when the gas stations ran out of gas, we would be stuck and not be able to escape to a better place, if needed.  I had to stay at home with a generator for 10 days to make sure that the parrots wouldn't die from the cold.  They even closed UK and that is pretty much unheard of.  This is when I just have to insert "it was better back in my days" (I graduated 6 years ago and they did not give us 1 hr extra when a really bad ice-storm hit back then....  ;-)).  Anyway, last year's adventure was actually pretty scary. 

Well, less babbling and more Show & Tell.  Here is the Prairie Moon Halloween fob I finished yesterday.  All the fun beads and charms were included in the chart pack, so that was really neat!

This is the project next in order - the address book.  Current state:

(BTW, this is what I use MY jug of liquid floor cleaner for - what about you?)

This next picture shows exactly why I tend to be so frugal with my linen and floss!  I decided to make an extra little pin-cushion to go with my Halloween Pin Garden, but since I (for once) actually started this project in the center of the linen cut that came with the kit, I will now have to squeeze everything in...  I knew it all along: frugal = good!

(BTW, some of the comments regarding Daffy-cats TUSAL were just hilarious.  Some stitchers feel that they are a bit too frugal to fill up an ort-jar at a moderate pace.  I am one of them.  Examples that were brought up were threading of the needle while it is inserted in the linen just to get those few extra stitches in with an 1 inch long (short) piece of remaining floss.  Or using the longer (like 2 inch) snippets later on in the project to save time and floss...  I use both tricks.  Regularly.

Speaking of Daffy-cat; I did yet another "spruce up session" with the TUSAL jar.  (Yes, I agree that I seem to have some difficulty focusing as of late.)  Here it is - note my ever-lasting Halloween tree - that baby stays up all year long:

And finally, some great e-bay finds.  One of the e-bay stitch stores went out of business, so the outrageously priced charts were more reasonable.  I found an old Prairie Schooler (12 Days of Christmas, #74), a couple of Goode Huswife (Angel of Tulips and The Easter Rabbit Sampler), Sheepish Designs (Life is a Flower), Carriage House Samplings (Baking & Roasting & ....), and Homespun Elegance Christmas ornament kit from 1997:

Well, take care, have a wonderful Saturday and talk with you real soon!