Posts Tagged ‘Christmas decorations’
Thin Ice
The first extended freeze of the season has finally arrived. Could it be an indication we might get a return to a more wintery weather pattern than we had last year? Seems like it barely got around to freezing last winter, and when it did, it was quickly followed by a thaw.
I checked out the ice on Paddock Lake yesterday morning and found it wasn’t thick enough to support my weight yet.
No skating allowed.
By the time I went out for the afternoon feeding, the edges of that puddle were beginning to disintegrate by sublimation. If we continue to experience a prolonged dry spell, it may just disappear without ever melting.
I don’t think the horses will mind that one bit. In reality, they are intelligent enough to be very wary when it comes to ice. They probably don’t even like me joking about them doing figure skating jumps and spins.
Cyndie is in the midst of double-duty activities to rain Christmas decorations down on our living quarters while also preparing to host Thanksgiving day for our kids and a few smiley folks from her clan. I alternate between following requests to help and staying out of her way as best as possible.
Just to add a little excitement, our clothes-washing machine produced an error code in the middle of a load, related to it not draining. Several go-rounds of bailing water out and re-trying proved fruitless, and we opted to call an appliance repair service.
When I saw on a YouTube video that accessing the drain pump meant tipping the washer and working through the bottom, I bailed out (pun intended) on trying to do the repair myself.
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving will be spent waiting for a repair person to disrupt life in our utility room downstairs.
My sanity is on thin ice while turkeys are thawing, green beans are flying around in the kitchen, pots and pans are getting used faster than they can be washed, both ovens are doing double duty, pie fillings are dripping, smoke alarms keep pre-beeping close encounters with full panic mode, and all the while Cyndie simply floats around like a principal ballerina as cool as a cucumber, glowing like an angel while doing the work of 10 Chefs plus two.
Basically, it’s just a normal November Wednesday.
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Sweet Anticipation
This is one of those times when any words I could assemble into descriptive sentences would pale compared to a simple photo to depict the sweet anticipation when Cyndie begins to prepare for her seasonal baking extravaganza.
When the cookie tins come out, and huge bags of baking flower, sugar, flats of eggs, and tubs of butter show up from the grocery run, I know it is time to dig out my excessive calorie warning.
The house is decorated, lights are on, purchased gifts are being delivered by all the acronyms (USPS/FEDEX/UPS), and songs of the season keep popping up.
The only thing missing is a hint that ours might be a white Christmas this year. There’s still a little over two weeks to go, but forecasts don’t sound promising in that regard. At this advancing stage of my maturity, a lack of snow bothers me a lot less than it did in the past.
The problem I keep needing to cope with is that our frozen mornings feel so dang cold compared to the warm afternoons we have been enjoying the past few weeks. The back and forth is more taxing on my body than when it just gets cold and stays that way for months. Or should that be, more taxing on my mind? Probably both.
Asher decided to do his best to contribute to the festive decorations Cyndie has been putting up in every available space of our house.
The snuffle mat Cyndie created out of a sink mat became a colorful spread of fabric and plastic shards this morning. It worked well while it lasted. I suppose Asher was just making sure none of his food nuggets had gotten lodged between the plastic and the felt strips.
He has no clue about the smells he is about to be smothered with from Cyndie’s kitchen this weekend. I have no idea whether it will compare to the animal scent trails he freaks out over on our walks around the property. Given the intensity of Cyndie’s Christmas cookie-baking process, I suspect the sweet aromas from the house will have all the wildlife in the vicinity at risk of spiking their blood sugar simply by smelling it.
Don’t worry about me, though. I’ll survive. It hasn’t killed me yet in the past [mumble-mumble] years.
Now, where is that special excessive sugar warning that needs to be re-issued…?
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Appropriately Festive
There was a lot of nesting going on in the days prior to Cyndie’s knee surgery, much of it cleaning nooks and crannies that haven’t received a similar level of intense attention since the days we first moved in. She wore a headlamp to better see the dust clinging to the seams of our tongue-in-groove paneling.
If she would be stuck convalescing in bed, it sure as heck wasn’t going to involve looking up to see the horror direct sunlight reveals this time of year. The low angle of the sun has a unique way of exposing gaps in hospital-level cleanliness.
At least the surroundings are currently as germ-free as the best of recovery rooms in your average hospital. Well, they were for a day, anyway, before a certain dog and cat made their way back in to scatter their hair and dander every which way.
After all the cleaning was done, Cyndie moved on to the Christmas decorations. As the days counted down to the appointed surgery, she accomplished the greatest of feats in making it look as festive as ever around here.
I even found boughs strung with lights staged by the barn!
There may be a pandemic out there squashing the best of our holiday gathering traditions this year, but you’d hardly notice from inside our home.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
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Sappy Mess
We are guessing there is a trick to making wreaths out of pine boughs that we don’t know about. If you have been following along, last month we lost a pine tree in a storm and Cyndie saved branches for holiday decorating.
When I came inside from plowing the driveway last night, the house was heavily pine-scented as production was in full swing.
What we don’t know is how others who work with pine boughs deal with the sap. Cyndie has resorted to wearing gloves, but has not mastered preventing the sap from getting everywhere.
She decided that she would include a pair of gloves with each wreath when she delivers these beauties to the intended recipients.
Don’t these look festive for the season?!
They sure smell good, too.
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Fires Return
Our chimney is fixed! What joy! But I don’t see how Santa is ever going to fit down it now.
It was back in the middle of October when we had our fireplace and chimney inspected, which I wrote about at the time in a post titled, “Important Inspection.”
They discovered evidence of there having been a chimney fire sometime in the past, which resulted in cracking of the original clay tiles lining the chimney.
Never fear, that company just so happens to also install chimney liners, for a (not so) small fee. At least they provide clear photographic evidence of the areas of concern, which our insurance company accepted without hesitation. Our repairs were covered in full, after we pay the (not so small) deductible amount on our policy.
This project benefited from the wonderful luck of the original chimney dimensions being large enough to make it one of the easiest installations possible, according to the guys.
They installed sections of stainless steel tubing inside the old clay tiles from the top of the chimney and didn’t need to break out any of the existing structure to complete the job.
A cement rated for high temperature is also used around the outside of the tube. Everything gets sealed and then checked for leaks. When they finished our installation, one of the guys burned some paper in the fireplace to verify the draft was good, and that was that.
It was instantly available for use. That meant I needed to haul some wood!
Cyndie and I filled the rack on the deck with one fully-stacked row of split logs from the wood shed. I had mixed emotions about the excitement of finally making use of wood that has been drying for a full year, and comical distress over seeing the stores in the wood shed decline at such a rapid rate.
I also found myself surprised over how moving it felt to have a fire in the fireplace once again. It has been almost 2 months since we learned of the problem, and at the time of year when we especially cherish the return of this cozy enhancement.
It refocuses the energy center on our main floor back to the special space that functions as our “living room,” with the couch providing a vantage point that takes in the fireplace centerpiece, as well as the doors and windows on either side providing views of the great outdoors beyond.
It doesn’t hurt that we just so happen to be undergoing a magical transformation into a Christmas wonderland this weekend, as a result of Cyndie’s never-ending visionary efforts.
I think the addition of last night’s fire provided her with just the right spark as a bonus.
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Relative Something 