Scattered Thoughts . . .

We had just finished the Christmas lights outside the house... sunny weather nearing 70 degrees... then we had heavy rain through the night... which quickly turned to big snow flakes falling out of the sky.  Now... Sheila is outside shoveling all the snow so we can get out of the driveway.   I guess this means I'll be raking the roof tomorrow...

We awoke this morning to a light, but crunchy, layer of snow covering everything. Our Christmassy weather has finally begun! Sheila and I are both feeling pretty good this morning so, in the spirit of our newfound Christmassy weather, we might take the grandkids out Christmas shopping this afternoon to see where their interests lie at age 4. This will give us a better idea of what to get them for Christmas this year (in addition to the usual staples of trains and dolls... which we've already purchased for this Christmas).  After shopping, we'll come home and I'll make a nice meatloaf dinner for Liza and the kids. Sheila hasn't eaten at all in a few days so hopefully she'll find something she can tolerate today because her stomach is grumbling for some food! I'm hoping for a really nice and pain-free day today...   EDIT:  We've been to Toys 'r Us with the kids this afternoon...  followed by some New York style pizza in South Burlington. Th

Snow lightly falling and covering my sailboat. It looks like I'll be indoors again today since it is snowing out there again. One of these days I'll be able to pull my tools outside to get some carpentry done! I also need to get the sailboat and kayaks ready for our journey to the lake house in a few weeks. Today, since it is cold and snowy, I'll be looking for things to keep me occupied indoors... which should be easy...  My desktop computer started whistling again late last night and fixing this is a project I've been putting off for about six months. The whistling comes and goes and gets annoyingly loud. In fact, it gets so loud that it is even tough to hide the whistling by playing music.  I'm fairly sure I've isolated the problem to my power supply. My plan is to order a power supply this morning... and, while I'm ordering parts needed for my computer, I'll also order a graphics processing unit.  I'm taking a course in videography

It would be absurdly silly to complain about awaking to some snow falling out of the sky this morning after a winter of rain and mud so I'm not complaining at all... It definitely looks nicer out there this morning than yesterday morning... fresh snow covering dead leaves, mud, dead grass, more mud, and bare trees.... I suppose getting the boats ready for the lake is on hold for now... I usually cover the grill but this snowfall caught me by surprise. At least I hadn't already opened up the bedroom wall to install a window alcove yet.  I actually have some things to accomplish indoors... including finding the paint brushes I put away after renovating our bedroom in December so that I can paint this other bedroom...

This morning we awoke to some snow on the ground which is highly unusual this winter. There was only an inch or two of snow out there but it was nice seeing everything covered in fresh snow for a change. Other than quite a few patches of very slick ice, our landscape has been far from winter white! By 8am, the snow had turned to sleet and, unfortunately, it is raining out there now. Actually, it is pouring rain out there now... 32 degrees and pouring rain... fun.  While everything was clean and white outside, I decided to grab a camera and shoot some photos out our living room window. I limited myself to using my longest lens (just like yesterday while I attempted to get my first bird photo of this year) but I used a different camera body than yesterday. I chose another old, cheap camera (freebies because they are so old) just like yesterday but this one is so tiny it is difficult to hold steadily. I managed to capture a few decent photos though. I think it is supposed to cont

It has been very Spring-like through December this year. We occasionally had some snow flurries but it was so warm during the days each day that we had some flowers blooming in our wildflower gardens as Christmas approached! As of last night, our temperatures have dipped down into the single digits and today promises wind chills below zero. And, we even had a bit of snow yesterday!  I think winter has arrived! My health was not feeling well enough to wander outside last night but I did manage to get a few photos from inside our house through the windows. Before it is time to turn off the Christmas lights, I'll need to get outside with a camera so get more shots...

Church Street Every year, we put aside one afternoon and evening for an annual visit to Church Street during the Christmas season. Yesterday ended up being the perfect day for this annual event.  Church Street is a nice place to visit anytime but it is especially nice at Christmastime. Yesterday was no exception and the Christmas spirits must have been looking down upon us, providing laughter, warmth, Christmas cheer and even some snow!   Wendy, one of Sheila's coworkers, joined us yesterday at Ri Ra's for the first time. Actually, she got there a little bit prior to we did and saved some prime seats for us! She was a nice addition to some of our usual attendees... Frank, Christine and Liza. I do believe everyone had a really nice time. We did have one casualty yesterday... I dropped a lens and damaged it beyond repair. I wasted half my shots yesterday trying to shoot photos with a lens which consistently missed focus before I realized that my shots were all out of

This past weekend we trekked out to the woods to choose and cut five Christmas trees.  The day we chose was a relatively beautiful day, thankfully, because the snow was deep! If it had been cold outside on this day, we would have had a rough time out there in all that snow. In the preceding days, we had a pretty nasty storm here in Vermont...  a lot of snow, followed by a lot of freezing rain...  more snow...  more sleet and freezing rain...  more snow...  more freezing rain...  Many areas were left with downed power lines which included the area where we went searching for five perfect Christmas trees. On our drive up the mountain, we passed a line crew working on a number of downed lines. They had about a hundred yards of line left to hang on the utility poles. The downed trees and limbs were already cut and removed by the time we ventured into this winter wonderland but the tree farm was still left without power.   When we reached the tree farm and parked our cars in the sno

Just like many others across the midwest and the east coast, we got a bit of snow this weekend.  We had originally planned to cut a Christmas tree today but we canceled our plans so we could stay off the roads. The single digit temperatures also factored into our decision to cancel our trek to a tree farm to cut a Christmas tree today. Staying home for the day allowed me to get some more work done on our fireplace project.  I spent some time staining our new maple and aspen paneling on the wall behind the fireplace. Then I managed to rip a bunch of 2x4's that I had sitting around from a previous renovation. I ripped the 2x4's down into 1.5"x1.5" which I intend to use for framing the fireplace structure.   After all that ripping, I cut out a test architectural brace for the fireplace. This original design had a compound curve in it that is difficult to cut at the thickness of this test piece. Turns out I didn't like this design. I decided on a simpler design

The kids came over again today on this long snowy Thanksgiving weekend.  (I just realized that I had also written just a few short months ago about a snowy Memorial Day weekend... will we ever catch a break?) The grandchildren spent some time this afternoon out in the backyard building a snowman with Grammy. Their attention was split between building the snowman and the sailboat sitting under a few inches of snow.  Eventually, their attention went to the kayaks standing tall and strapped against the house. Those boats seem to constantly call their names whenever they visit.  Today was no exception. A note of interest here:  I was the same at my grandparents' house... the boats always beckoned... I can still smell that home on the water and hear the waves lapping at the boats, dock and bulkhead. There is just something excitingly intriguing and special about boats, trains and airplanes... especially to kids. We did the usual "Sunday dinner" at the house this evening.