It's been a long year...

at least it seems that way. It was good in many ways, we learned a couple of very hard lessons, and next year will be better.
One of the best things? My sunflower fence experiment. I planted a row of sunflowers at the outside edge of that strip between the sidewalk and the street, with two rows of beans on the inside and ran a soaker hose between the bean rows.
There was enough shade from the sunflowers that toads moved in and puttered around the beans....
Next year I will plant sunflowers the whole length of the yard on the east side. It also keeps people from noticing when I haven't mowed...
Eventually, the whole east yard will be garden, as I don't forsee grocery bills going down soon.

Windflowers

They curved a bit more than I expected when I was ruffling them, but I decided that I like them that way...

Just in case

you thought I forgot about beads....

Snow deferred

We were supposed to get a storm last night, but it appears to have slipped away to the south a bit and missed us, though there is another front moving in. The storm advisory has been changed to tonight, and I'm kind of hoping it holds off til tomorrow, since hubby has to be out in it all day Saturday...maybe it will be cleaned up a bit by then.

We're making most of our presents this year, for several reasons. Finances is obviously one, but when I was a child we made presents. It wasn't til I grew up and moved to the city that I fell into the glittering trap of consumerism, and in the process, forgot how much I loved to embroider.....something my grandma taught me at eight. I still have a book that she bought me for Christmas one year.
I had planned to make the Punkin some clothes for her doll, and had the pattern hidden, I thought, under some items that were already cut out. Well, of course she found it, and being very analytical, went and measured her doll. The pattern is for 18" dolls, and here comes Con, "Mom, this will fit my doll, why didn't you show me this?" So we are making doll clothes together, and that's just fine.

Happy dance

The gas bill came today....you may wonder why in the world I would be happy about that? Well, we've been working on getting that bill down---keeping the thermostat on 55 at night, 60 during the day, shutting off the living room, and no dryer usage.
We had a cold spell, it was 24 below one morning when we got up, though it didn't stay that cold the whole time.
Anyway, the gas bill was almost half what it was last winter when we had comparable cold snaps!

Still no computer....

Still no computer....this is taking surprisingly long. Oh, well, it is what it is.

Funny thing last night--we stopped at the grocery store, Hubby dropped Punkin and I off, then went to get gas. As he was starting to drive away I remembered I needed him to come in when he returned, so I turned and rapped on the window. Punkin saw me doing this and decided to help by screaming "Daddy, no, don't leave" at the top of her lungs, which startled a lady just walking into the store into taking out her phone and dialing 911---thankfully she hadn't completed the call when she saw that we were not being abandoned, which is what she thought was happening.
I thanked her, even though I wasn't quite sure if I was grateful for her quick response or irritated that she thought she needed to make the call in the first place......

True words

"Picky eating is a learned behavior for most people (there are some adults and children with legitimate sensory issues that are different than ordinary pickiness) - while everyone has a few food preferences, real pickiness is a product of affluence, and if you don't tolerate it, will go away."

I found this on Sharon Astyk's new blog, and truer words were never spoken.
Further deponent sayeth not....

Still here

still haven't gotten the computer fixed---thank goodness for DD's little puter!
And the library, and the church....lol.

It's been cold, 12 below this morning, and we're trying not to owe the gas company too much, so things are a bit chilly around here. We've made little coats for the littles and Eddie has lots of fur, so he does ok. It's funny to look at the chair in the sun, two littles in a pile, a cat on the arm, and another cat prowling. He's like to be in the pile, but he's never gotten along with anyone, so they all ignore him and let him play puma all alone.

We are making presents for Christmas, so the creativity machine is revved up, and the mess is tremendous. Ten year olds are astonishing!

Laundry

I just ran out of liquid laundry soap, so I pulled out the bars of Zote that I bought last summer....I've never used the bar type laundry soap before, so I have some learning to do. I like the smell, it's lemony and nice, but not overpowering. There was an extra cheese grater in the drawer, so I pressed it into service as a soap grater instead----grated in about a tablespoonfull to start. It didn't make suds, but the smell stayed through the rinse, and the clothes appeared to be clean, so I'll settle for that, maybe cut back a teeny bit.
We had a front coming through, so I was able to get four loads done and hung---the wind made short work of the drying today. I love not using the dryer, every load I hang is a load I don't have to pay Kinder Morgan for!

Still using a borrowed computer, but I think I spent too much time on the computer anyway!