Hey, it's snowing!

I took this photo right after work. We already had snow on the ground and it snowed last night. It has been snowing all day and the weather-head on television said it could snow for another 12 hours. We easily have 9 inches in Des Moines. This storm may give us a total of 14, which means we would have close to 20. Last time this happened, we got rotten grass. I can't remember what that's called. It happened in 2003. We got snow after snow after snow with no times in between to melt and your lawn comes up in unattractive clumps. Consider yourself warned!!

I will let you know how the storm ends up tomorrow. I don't think I will be going into the office tomorrow: Not during a blizzard warning.

Resumes

Another fine example of what not to include on your resume (random capitalization and creative grammar included):

 

Being a Scorpio for 33 years ( my age ) very good at judging people and understand if a resource can be productive the way the Project want or not.

 

Ladies' Christmas tea

Today at church, there was a tea celebrating Christmas. I have not always enjoyed these in recent years as they are in early December and quickly followed my father's death one year and my sister-in-law's death the next year. But today's tea was really enjoyable. Every table is decorated by someone from church. I used to decorate a table, but I didn't get the super-décor gene, so I let others do it now. I do have beautiful dishes, though.

After the tea, I shopped at a consignment store. Well, three of them. I am looking for black jeans, but I don't really like jeans. Or slacks. I like skirts. So at one store, all the skirts were $2! I tried some on, but even at two bucks, I didn't feel it. I did pick up a really good quality cashmere sweater for $12. And speaking of skirts in the winter, why are tights so flippin' expensive? Walmart has flannel-lined jeans in their men's department and I considered driving down to try them one, but traffic was crazy stupid.

Everyone was out today shopping because it was sunny and (relatively) warm. I did wonder if the retailers were having a great day. I assume so because every parking lot was overflowing. I went home and took a walk. It was 5.5 miles long and toward the end it got reeeaaaallllllyyyy cold.

I should have worn that cashmere sweater on my walk.

A change in the day

Every year it takes me by surprise. The days get shorter and my schedule dries up. I marvel at how busy I am for most of the year, but for a few short months of short days, I can't find anything to do besides cook dinner and clean the house. It's so boring. I have running now, which I haven't had in years past and that's a good thing. I have the swimming pool and that's an excellent thing.

I ran again today, but I did it during my lunch break. It was the warmest part of the day at 29 degrees and spitting snow. It feels like I need to get used to running regularly and so in order to keep from trying to master the universe, which I always feel compelled to do, I decided that running and swimming in the same day, while enjoyable, is not actually necessary.

Nature Notes Thursday

Visit Michelle at the peaceful Nature Notes Thursday for the best education you will get for free.

Here is the tree outside my window. This is the tree the moon has been rising behind.
Keep in mind my little point and shoot is way out of its ken with a close up like this. I was sitting at my desk working and I noticed movement as a blue jay landed on the tree. He was followed immediately by a woodpecker. I took quite a few photos, all of them hampered by my camera's limitations, but I am very glad I had the camera with me. I should keep it at work with me all winter as I get vultures and hawks and deer visiting me all winter long.

The woodpecker moved around a lot and that made it difficult to get a shot at all. This was the best of the bunch. He moved up and down and around and around the entire time.

This fat, jolly fellow sat quietly as I got my camera and got a couple decent shots. I'm much obliged.

I was especially pleased with the pose here. I slipped him 50 cents for his work on this shot.

Grace in small things

1. Twilight: I ran tonight in the twilight. It was lovely and very unusual for me. I had never run in that much darkness before, but I found it very peaceful.

2. full moons

3. brown trees against blue skies

4. warm cats

5. fluffy birds

Full Moon Rising

Monday and Tuesday this week I had the most amazing view of our moon rising in the east in a pale blue sky through the bare brown limbs of a rounded, tall tree. I took photo after photo on my cell phone as I watched it slowly rise. It was poetic beauty; I promise you that.

I decided to take my camera to work this morning so I could get better shots. But as so often happens, the weather turned and the sky was thick with clouds all day.
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Last week I made a decision about my holiday charitable giving. I do several things including something for jailed kids and Toys for Tots. This year the bulk of my spending is for senior citizens. I took five ornaments off the tree at the grocery store. They wanted things like soap, shampoo, laundry detergent, a scrapbook and lotion. One woman wanted ingredients for baking. I feel sure I wasn't generous enough now that the gifts are returned to the bin! I know money is tight, but even a $3 lip gloss for Toys for Tots will help that hard-to-fill teen gift category. You'll be glad you did it!
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I like making you guys smile talking about what I talk about. I wish I had all sorts of funny anecdotes to write about, but my life isn't really full of the funny. I won't lie to you: there's no sitcom here. It's frustrating and rewarding. It's full of tears and victories. I feel overwhelmed with gratitude most days, but even on those days there is regret and disappointment, joy and friendship. I eat too many cookies and don't run far enough. I listen but I don't reach out enough. I cuddle cats and find reasons to watch more reruns than new shows. Yet it is the funny I wish I could share every day. I like being funny and I can crack up certain people effortlessly. Needless to say, I adore the people who laugh at my attempts at humor!

So that's my thing about this blog. I hope I make you smile and I know I don't always have to be funny to do that. But if I do make you laugh, feel free to mention it! I will adore all of you. I promise.

I feel better finally, but that won't make this a decent post

I have not been feeling quite myself lately and to top it all off, today was an unpleasant day at work. I came home to a bag of Trader Joe's pizza dough that really needed to be used by tomorrow, so I pushed that into a shape resembling a rectangle and threw it on a cookie sheet. Then I put Penzey's pasta sprinkle on it. I had some tomato basil cheese I had bought but wasn't loving, so I grated that and threw it on.

It looked a little dry, so I looked in the fridge and saw some Harry & David's pepper relish. I dripped some of that over the cheese in a here-and-there sort of fashion and put it in the oven.

Believe it or not, it tastes really good. Very good, even.

Now has anyone noticed the full moon? It is coming up while I am still in the office, so I get to see it from my desk as it rises behind a bare tree that stands in the faintly lit sky. It's so pretty. I mean to take my camera to work tomorrow to capture it on film and use it for Thursday's Nature Notes post.

We were in Milwaukee over the weekend and had a fabulous time with Sofia and her family. She kept everyone fed and entertained and I just don't know how she does it.

I had made a list of things I wanted to do this holiday season, but since I slept through Thanksgiving and wasn't allowed to run, jog or swim, I don't know if I am brave enough to go back and look at the list.