December 26, 2009

It sounds like most of the snow is over. Yup, all over but the shoveling.

And the plowing.

White-out, Read-in

Merry Christmas, December 25, 2009. The weather radio said this would be an historic weather event. We are in a blizzard with white-out conditions. The south part of our pasture has disappeared into a haze of white, and we are not thinking of leaving the house. Well, actually, Dave did leave the house to feed Samson, our donkey. It was an adventure at 9:00 a.m. this morning, with hip-deep drifts and wind gusts of 45 mph. It will be worse if/when he goes out again before dark. I am hoping that he will so I won't have to! We have about 18 hours to go on the blizzard conditions according to the radio.
So, if you are stuck inside it is a perfect time to catch up on your reading. I stopped in at the library earlier in the week and picked up a few books. The first one I finished was Rumpole Christmas Stories by John Mortimer. We used to love to watch Rumpole of the Bailey on Masterpiece Theater (I think) anyway, on Public television. The books are even better. Unfortunately, John Mortimer died earlier this year, so there won't be any new Rumpole books. This book is a collection of 5 short stories featuring Horace Rumpole, the London barrister and his wife, Hilda (She Who Must Be Obeyed) during the Christmas season. Rumpole does his usual good job of sleuthing and upholding justice as he is dragged to a spa for a Christmas holiday where Hilda wants him to lose some weight (highly unlikely), recognizes a Santa whom he had previously defended, and 3 other great tales. It is a quick and very enjoyable read.
The next book I finished is the Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. I read a review of their new book Nanny Returns, but saw the first book on the shelf so decided to start with it. It is fiction, but is based on the authors' experiences as nannies in New York. It is disturbing to think that there are children being raised by such incompetent rich folk as Mr. and Mrs. X, and hopefully, the reality is not so bad, but I have a feeling that many of the situations depicted actually happend. Really, the problem is that Mr. and Mrs. X are not raising their child, Grayer, but paying their succession of nannies to do the job. They are more concerned with how their 4-year-old looks, how much time he spends at the Guggenheim, his French and Latin lessons, and where he will attend pre-school (so that he can get into the right college) than they are with spending time with him. I will look for the sequel.

Winter Storm

A winter storm has been in the forecast all week. School was canceled yesterday, mostly because of the ice, I think. This picture was taken yesterday on the east side of our house--the garage door is on the right. You can see how the ice is building up. Actually, I didn't think the driving was that bad. The roads were really full of slush during the day, but not ice, and the snow didn't really ever develop. We are in a winter storm warning until 6:00 a.m. on Saturday, but the accumulation of snow being forecast is only 2-4 inches. This presents a problem: we are invited to Dan's in Omaha tonight to celebrate Christmas Eve. The forecast doesn't sound too terrible, but if there is ice on the highway that will make driving difficult. If the wind is blowing visibility will be bad. Rob has volunteered to drive--I wonder if he still wants to. Maybe it will be easier to decide later in the day, but right now it feels like one of those decisions you agonize about, and wish the weather was either a whole better or a whole lot worse.

Trying to be crafty

It was my intention to knit gifts for my kids and grandkids for Christmas. I don't think I am going to have very many go give out on December 25. I made mittens for each of the grandchildren, but gave them out around Thanksgiving because the weather was turning colder, and the mittens were finished. I decided to knit something for Liz, Rob, Dan and Jill. Mark and Alan don't really need knitted items since they live in Mesa, Arizona, and besides, Mark knits. Anyway, I started a scarf out of some gorgeous yarn that I bought last summer from my friend Karen--she raises sheep, goats and alpacas (and used to own a donkey named Samson!), but I didn't like the way the scarf was turning out so it has been frogged (you know, ripped out-- rip it, rip it). Then I signed up for the Seward mitten program where you select a mitten from one of the local merchants and get all the gifts on the list and then they give the gifts to a needy child. There were four items on the list which fit nicely with the four of us who work in HR so we did that instead of buying gifts for each other. Be default I got the item "Hat and Mittens" and of course, I made those. Two hats, though, because the first didn't turn out as nice as I had hoped. I did find some beautiful yarn at The Yarn Shop in Lincoln and turned out one nice scarf, and then I got half way through another, but I know I am going to run out of yarn. So, now I have 5 days left and no hope of finishing hand made gifts for my kids. Plus, I am kind of tired of knitting! I think they will get checks!

Here is a picture of Samson taken by my son-in-law's dad, Rich. He was here visiting last week and got a shot of me slogging through the snow to feed Samson.