Sunday, March 17, 2024

September 17: The Big Snow

Before the storm, the snow on the north side of our house had finally melted, the grass was beginning to green up, and the perennials were just beginning to show themselves again.  


During the storm there were grey skies and wind, then rain and snow that fell for more than twenty-four hours, occasional power flickers, and futile attempts to keep up with the shoveling required by the eighteen inches that fell in our neighborhood.   The snow totals varied greatly depending on the locale, with nearby Longmont getting only about five inches and Nederland, also nearby by at a much higher elevation, getting three feet. 


After the storm serious shoveling began, the snow plows did their work, and both dogs and people got out for their walks. 


And yesterday the sun was out in full force and the temperatures had warmed up a bit, so it was a very pleasant day.


When Ben dug out a space for my car so I could park it in its usual spot near our front walk, we declared the shoveling done! There's still plenty of snow out there but we'll let the sun take care of it!


We continued our "big snow" tradition of making cinnamon rolls to share with our nearby neighbors. In fact, I ended up making two batches since we just kept giving them away.  My mother used to make them for her neighbors, and so do I.  


Ben was no slouch in the "good eating" department during the snowstorm, making us not only Coq Au Vin, but Overnight French Toast, which was really good.

Another fun thing was that I was interviewed by NBC Nightly News. While Ben was shoveling I came out to brush the heavy snow off our cherry and red bud trees before I walked Turbo.  I spotted some folks with a big camera and made some small talk with them.  They told me they were filming for a segment on NBC Now about the snow storm and saving trees from heavy snow.  That didn't mean very much to me since we don't get cable anymore so we don't know much about what's airing on national or local stations. 

I walked Turbo down the block and as I returned one of the crew approached me and asked if I'd be willing to be interviewed while brushing off our trees.  Well, why not?  So we did it and it was fun and I didn't think any more about it until my friend Margi in Pennsylvania told me that she had seen me on the NBC Nightly News.  Well, that was a surprise!  When I do want to watch TV news, that's the one I look for on YouTube, where it shows about a day after it's run on mainstream TV.  After a bit of searching I found that another splice of the short interview aired on NBC Now with Hallie Jackson.  

It was all fun and added a bit of excitement to the day!


And now we've moved ahead to St. Patrick's day.  I'm making Irish Soda Bread to have with corned beef and cabbage over at Ray and Paula's tonight.  Looks like some nice warmer and sunny weather is on tap for this week.  



Sunday, March 10, 2024

March 10: A Beautiful Spring Day

It’s been that kind of amazing early Spring day with clear skies, lot of sun, and a high in the mid 60’s.  Everyone’s been out walking, hiking, biking, or just sitting in the cheerful sunshine enjoying the great weather.  It won’t last – a heavy snow is expected Wednesday -- so make hay while the sun shines!

This photo shows how the sun shone through the hexagonal window near our bed this morning and projected up onto the west facing balcony glass doors. I could tell it was going to be a beautiful day.


While Ben did a five mile hike with our friend Lotus up in Chautauqua, I did a three mile walk with Dawn and Turbo in nearby Niwot.  As we sat out on the patio of the coffee shop the warmth and the sun made me feel like we were back in Maui.  Later I took That Handsome Dog Gus, who has is visiting the past few days, for a short walk and I was excited to see that the crocus have begun to open. 



 Poor babies are going to get snow covered later in the week.  Predictions are currently for 4-8" of "concrete snow," which is never much fun though it is pretty. 

My little friend from Venezuela spent the afternoon with me last week while his mother was busy cleaning,  He quickly found the old chair that Ben used when he was a toddler and enjoyed figuring out how to make it rock. 


 After a while he got tired of that and began to play with some toys we keep around just for occasions like this. He was very entertaining and  I quite enjoyed watching him. 




After a couple of hours he conked out.  It's hard work exploring the world.!



As did the dogs, who were worn out from all the excitement of having a toddler in the house. 


Now it's late afternoon but the sun is still strong since we moved the clocks forward an hour.  Paul is coming over soon for a visit, which will be a nice conclusion to this pretty day.   

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

February 27: Bits of Daily Life




This is the view from my bed this morning; snow! It's falling fast and thick, at least for the moment. It’s not supposed to amount to much but right now is coming down hard and it looks like a quarter of an inch has covered the ground in about fifteen minutes.  
Checking the weather forecast I see that the area is under a “snow squall warning” with “Intense bursts of heavy snow and gusty winds leading to blowing snow with rapidly falling visibility. Wind gusts up to 35 mph.  Roads may get icy and snowpacked. Travel will become difficult and potentially dangerous within minutes."

Ah, well,  I was going to walk with Dawn this morning but that’s not going to happen. I think I’ll take my cue from Turbo and Ben and lay around in bed a while. 



I think I’d rather have a snow squall than the crazy high winds of the past few days.  The gusts toppled our lawn chairs and blew all the pillows around.  

 

The wind even picked up the secured and tied umbrella right out of the patio table and hoisted it up and over the fence and into the front yard where it was found by our neighbor.   

Coupled with our low humidity the strong winds put us under a scary “Extreme fire danger” warning. It was two years ago that the Marshall Fire, carried by high winds, destroyed 1,000 homes in nearby Louisville, so these kinds of conditions are taken very seriously here.  And indeed, a small fire did erupt up in Chautauqua Park at the base of the Flatirons (about a mile uphill from our house).  Our firefighters were busy containing it for about 36 hours before it was declared “out.”  A bit too close for comfort.  

Boulder Fire-Rescue


It’s been a busy few days. It has dawned on me that a bottom canine tooth of mine is slowly but surely following its own path to freedom, heading away from the gum line and out into the uncrowded free air away from the rest of the bottom teeth, but hitting the top teeth as it travels.  We can’t have that, but figuring out what to do about it is involving much time consulting with orthodontists and oral surgeons and researching and weighing the pros and cons of braces and Invisalign, both of which sound annoying and even painful. 


For solace I admire my lovely flowers.  I've discovered the Friday Special at a local florist which offers about four different but compatible flowers at special prices so you can make your own bouquet.  I've been treating myself every other week, and it's brought me a lot of pleasure.


I’ve also spent a fair amount of time helping my Venezuelan friend figure out how to get married to her partner of several years. The pre/Covid bureaucracy of obtaining a marriage license for US citizens here in Boulder was easy, but now the entire process is remote so your identification documents are submitted during a video interview.  If you are a newcomer with minimal online connectivity and out of country paperwork, things get more challenging.  I offered to help and I am, but it does take some tenacity and time. 

For fun I took my friend shopping and out to lunch for her birthday.  We had a good time. 


We  enjoyed browsing in the mall and quickly realized that bright pink is now the in color!  Shades of Barbie are everywhere.  Fashion news continues to break first on this blog!



And I've been making a concerted effort to sew every day and finish up a few projects, including adding borders and a binding to the counted cross stitch piece that my mother made fifteen years ago.  It was sweet to be able to add my work to my mom's and make something that will remind me of her and her many talents. 




Sunday, February 18, 2024

February 18: Enjoying the Snow

About five or six inches of light and pretty snow fell Friday afternoon and into Saturday morning.  It was a lovely backdrop to our dinner out Friday at Corrida, a "sophisticated Spanish-inspired steakhouse," up on the top (meaning the 4th) floor of a downtown building complete with a fun rooftop patio.  We had a table next to a window from which we could watch the snow and admire the pretty snow covered city below us. 


We could have reserved one of the enclosed glass huts out on the patio, but we appreciated the warmth of the dining room.  This is the second time that we've been up in the restaurant during a snowstorm and I think it's a great way to enjoy a snowfall.   


It was pretty outside as we waited for our Lyft. 



On Saturday Ben went to the climbing gym and Turbo went to the groomer's, so I had several hours to do some sewing without any interruption.  For a while I had my old Pfaff machine out to do some easy piecing on a kit that I had bought a few months ago expressly to have something easy and pretty to work on during snow days.  

It was fun to watch the snowy views out the window while also screening old Gilmore Girl episodes as a sewed squares together into none patch blocks. 


Later I got out a piece of cross stitch embroidery my mother had made years ago and never framed.  It's taken me more than ten years to decide to make it the center of a small quilted piece, surrounding her work with borders of batik fabric that echoed the sentiment of the piece, "To everything there is a season..."  I was pretty happy with what I picked and how I arranged the borders.  I got them sewn and then found a back and some batting and layered them all, so now the piece is ready to quilt. 
 



When I picked up Turbo the groomer gave him an A for good behavior and he looked really good.  Turbo loves Chelsea and does follow her instructions very patiently.  You can see here how he didn't even need a leash to stand still while she trimmed up his ears just a bit more before we left. 


And here he is out in the snow showing off his new haircut and blow out.  He looks handsome, doesn't he?







Thursday, February 15, 2024

February 14: A Flock of Balloons


I took my Venezuelan friend to the Dollar Tree today and look what we found; a flock of Valentine's Day balloons!   An employee was busy the whole time we were in the store creating bunch after bunch, each of which had already been spoken for.  Who knew that the Dollar Tree does a big business in these balloons? 



This little charmer, my friend's son had a great time toting one around the store.  


My friend left with eleven, enough to seriously decorate her apartment. 

I resisted the temptation as I already had some lovely flowers at home, the blue and yellow selection of roses, hydrangeas, and delphiniums shown here on the florists bench.  


And here at home. 




Wednesday, February 7, 2024

February 7: Snow Days


We did get quite a bit of snow last weekend, officially 9" and it was heavy and icy! According to the BoulderCast web site "Boulder ... finished with a staggering 1.74″ of precipitation — good enough to claim top spot as our all-time wettest February storm. New records were also notched for February 3rd and the single wettest February day (1.58″ on both accounts)."

It was a record storm. We shoveled once during the storm, and Ben shoveled for two days after. Paul drove over and helped out, and he and Ben did two big sidewalks, shoveled out my car (my new Audio Q3 is the families official "snow car"), did the neighbor's sidewalks (they are several years old then we are), and then did Ray and Paula's since they are out of town. Whew!  That meant all three households were in compliance with the city laws to shovel all sidewalks with 24-hours of a snow storm.  On Sunday Ben shoveled our the neighbor's driveway, which was a slab of concrete with the heavy snow.  On Monday we navigated our Meals of Wheels route and rested, and on Tuesday Ben shoveled out our own driveway so we could get the Tesla out and get to our trash and recycle cans.  Finally, this morning Ben shoveled out the dog's path down the patio out to the yard, so they could come and go without bringing in so much icy water. 

Today we see from the weather forecast that we're set to get more snow this weekend, but we hope it is the light and fluffy and delightful kind and not the dreadful concrete snow we just got through.  

Here's a fun photo of tired out Ben and two sleepy dogs which I snapped Sunday when Paul came over and helped shove.  You'll note that he is awake; well, he is young! 


You may ask why the dogs are tired out. After all, they don't shovel and while I do walk them, those walks are much shorter when there's so much snow on the ground.  Well, they like to wear themselves out by ripping up their toys.  



All this destruction is apparently quite exhausting!


The pups like the snow.  It invigorates 12-year old Gus.  When it's hot he usually take short and plodding walks for just a half a block or so, but when it's cold and snowy he suddenly finds a renewed vigor and surprises you by going all the way around the block.  Young Turbo will go for a two or three mile walk in the snow but always finds a place to stop and rub his snout in the snowbanks. 



In all this snow our trip to Maui is a lovely remembrance.  I thought I'd show you this little wall hanging I made for my sister, Jean, to commemorate our trip to Maui in February 2023. 



I bought the center motif of dolphins in a quilt shop on The Big Island last October and set it into the blue solid background   I added the lovely border of Hawaiian flowers I had also purchased in the shop.  You may be able to see that the flowers are heavily quilted.  Jean was kind enough to send me these photos since I forgot to take them myself before I mailed wall hanging off to her. 

Here's the back, showing more of the quilting.  It was a lot of fun to make and a nice reminder of our good time together last year.