A Hodge-Podge of a Day

Even though we went to bed early (9:30) last night, when the alarm went off at 6 a.m. I needed a crane to help me out of bed. Then I stumbled around for a half hour before I felt halfway human. Too much sleep? No such thing. Just winter time. Dark. Want to hibernate.

Our lady carpenter friend, B, arrived at 8 a.m. to help hubby on some work inside the garage. She is such a sweetheart that it's more of a fun, laughing day to have her here than anything else. Besides, she brought presents. Christmas presents. A colorful bookmark she wove for me and some special thingie-bops for hubby. I still don't understand what they are . . . a tool/garage related thing. Plus a plateful of homemade cookies. Yum. She ran into the post office in town at noon because she was expecting a box of citrus fruit from a client that winters in the south. One-third of the box was pink grapefruit which she doesn't care for so she left them with us. Can't beat "help" like that.

We've had a very scroungy-looking timber wolf lurking around the property for a couple of months now. I hate to see an animal that doesn't look like it's in the best of health. B said she saw it on the first part of the driveway as she drove in this morning. Guess it can't be too sickly 'cause it's still around and can move quickly when it wants to. I've been trying to get a picture, but no success so far.

I had coffee with a good friend that is leaving Thursday for a six-week or so driving trip to three of her kids and their families scattered across the country. Her husband passed away ten years ago, but she doesn't hesitate to pack the car and head out on her own.
I admire her wonderful, upbeat personality and zest for life. She says she may be home earlier than six weeks because maybe the kids will get tired of her and boot her out. I cannot imagine that. She would be about the easiest house guest to have.

Got a few more presents wrapped today. I don't understand it. We don't exchange that many gifts. Why does it seem like there are so many when it comes time to wrap them?

The ashes in the Jotul were starting to choke the very life out of the wood stove so I had to let the fire die out today so I could shovel them out. I've decided we could save a lot of wood if we didn't feed the stove during the day. Even on this gray, damp day with no sun the house didn't get cooler than 64 degrees by the time I cleaned out the stove at 4:30. 'Course, my nose is more than a little cold as I'm typing this but it will warm up soon.

I'm wondering if hubby and I don't change clothes often enough. I had only two loads of laundry today; one light and one dark. Seems to me when you wear more layers in the winter time as opposed to just shorts and tank tops in the summer, there would be more laundry in the winter. But it doesn't seem to work that way for us. I think it must be because in the summer we sweat so much (well, glisten in my case) and there's no choice of whether to wear an outfit more than one day. And let's face it. I'm not crawling around in the garden in the winter and hubby has insulated coveralls on whenever he's outside these days. So I guess we really don't get dirty. Or smell. Umm, do we??

We are forecast to get 6-10" of snow tonight through tomorrow noon. If only. Sure would be nice to see. I even did some town errands this afternoon so I could stay home and enjoy the new snow tomorrow. I'll be happy to be out shoveling if we do get any appreciable amount.

Okay, gonna go do my snow dance now while scaring up something for dinner. Snow report tomorrow morning.