Friday Photos

    Hi everyone. Happy Friday to you. I've had  good week, at least as of Thursday morning as I write this post. One reason is because my husband went back to work (at least part time). Not that I am trying to get him out of the house, but that means he's improved enough to sit at his desk and do some consistent work. 👍 😏  It's good that he is healing so we can get back to regular life.

     I'll be linking a up to Nicole's Friday Face Off and also Gillena's Friday Lunch Break.

      I'll start today's post with some wintery views from last week when a friend and I went bird watching on Plum Island off of Newbury, Massachusetts. (Here's the other post about that if you're interested: T Stands for an Owl Hunt.) For those of you who are sick of winter (that includes me), sorry for the winter views, but that's all there is around my area.

Above is a plowed a pull off. Below, the snow pile at the end of this pull off was taller than me.

I like this next photo even though the bird isn't all that in focus, but you can tell it's a cardinal.

But you can see some birds and their faces in these next couple of photos. I know there's a blue jay but I'm not sure the type of sparrow is in this first photo.

This trail went out to a marsh view, but our exploration of it has to wait until there isn't so much snow (or no snow).

The salt marsh  looked like the tundra.

And ha ha, the bathrooms were shoveled out, but it was a chilly visit.

Even on the inside.

   My other faces for the week are these 2 moochers. They're looking so old, but then again, they are. 

   I have been knitting some evenings while I watch TV. (I've also been working on a 2025 photo book, and some nights I'm just crashing on the couch and then it's off to bed-😉.) I'm getting closer to finishing my sweater. I hope to finish it before winter is over, but I hope by that point  it has warmed up enough so I can't wear it until next year. 😉 

I lightened it up quite a bit so you can see some of the darker colors better. 

    I'm really liking how it's coming out, especially since I'm making my own design as I go along. 

    That's all for me. Have a super Friday and start to your weekend. 

Friday Faces- And a Knitting Update

    Hi everyone. Happy Friday. Today I'm posting to link up to Nicole's Friday Face Off and Gillena's Friday Lunch Break.

   It's been another fairly quiet week for me. The hubby is still in recuperating mode with his back, but he's definitely improving- actually quite a lot. 😏  We've had some snow and some cold weather this past week too. And there's some really cold weather coming this weekend and then a lot more snow coming this weekend also.  Or so the weather folks say.  Is it February yet? 

  For my faces this week I have a couple of things to share. First here's the cover of a homemade journal that I found. For some reason I made it and put it away  in a drawer, and I recently rediscovered it while looking for something totally different. I shared this photo in my post yesterday.

    Here's a new journal page that I made in a different (but store bought) journal that I'll be linking  up to my "What's Up?" challenge at Art Journal Journey. It also has a face on it.

    The words are hard to read since I used black letters for them, but they say,"If...Only".

    I've also done a bit of knitting, mostly last weekend while I watched some football playoffs with my husband.

   It looks like there's a lot of solid black up near my needles, but actually there are various dark colors that just don't show up. If I lighten up the photo more you can just barely see that. I think when I get past this area and add more blue and white you'll be able to tell better. At least I hope so.

   With the brutal cold coming on Saturday (they say it will feel like -20 degrees F/ -29 degrees C) and then some predicted snow Sunday into Monday, I think there will be a lot of knitting getting done. ❤

  To wrap up this post, I was wondering if anyone (in the northern hemisphere) had some good views of this week's Northern Lights. I went out to look for them, and with my phone I could just make out some color. But I did get some fun night sky photos  so  I'll end this post with those.

 

At first, it was too cloudy for any sky phenomena. 

I don't have a very clear northern view, but you can just make out some faint pink on the left.

This (above) photo is just interesting because the  horizon looks almost like daylight, but you can see the stars on the top of it.

And then (below) a little later just the stars.

And finally, the view when I left the deck light on. You can make out just a tad bit of snow in the trees.

    Have a super Friday and start to your weekend. I hope it's not too cold or if you are in the south of the planet not too hot. And that you have some good weather too! 😉

   

I've Been Knitting and Other Random Things

    Hi everyone. Happy Friday. I'm having a fairly quiet week,  but we've had some warmer temperatures (well winter warm,) so that has been a great break after all the cold we had so far this winter and that has now returned as of today. 

    Today I am joining Nicole for her Friday Face Off and I'm also joining Gillena for her Friday Face Off. Today I have some random photos to share, nothing too exciting since my week hasn't been wildly exciting either.

   Here's my face for Face Off. It's not the clearest photo. But you can see part of a hat I knitted, at least the part not covered by my hood.

   I've been back knitting my Icelandic sweater I started 2 winters ago. The first winter I managed to get through the 2 sleeves since I didn't start the sweater until February, and then by this fall I managed to get the plain part of the body done. Now I'm working on the  yoke, which I was hoping to finish by the new year, but since that hasn't happened, I hope to get it done soon. Icelandic yarn is pretty heavy so if I don't get it done soon, it will be sitting through the hot weather until next winter. 

   I counted wrong when reading the pattern to start to yoke, and by the time I realized it I would have had to rip out several rows. Nope, I didn't want to do that so I've been creating my own design as I go. But I have been following the pattern to know when to decrease stitches. I love creating my own pattern though and knitting with the multiple colors too.

   Since we had some warmer days this week, I took the dogs down to the beach one afternoon when it was low tide. I didn't get to walk as long as I wanted to because my husband wanted me to drop him off at his office so he could get his work laptop and bring it home, but I did manage to get a nice hour of fresh air. The beach was great that day because even though there was no sun, there was also no wind. 

    Miss Maddie enjoyed the walk but not as much as Mr. Pete did. Maddie (being blind) needs to stay on a leash, but Pete is great off leash and doesn't bother other people. Since the beach wasn't  crowded, he got to do a bit of running.

   That's all for me. Have a great rest of your Friday and start to your weekend.

T Stands for Voting and Food

 Hi everyone.  It is time for T once again over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog. I hope everyone has had a lovely week.

Bear with me for a minute (or 2) as I talk briefly about primary voting in my state. I know this might not be interesting to some of you, and my point is not to get into political views, but to tell you about my state's primary, and what's going on  with it this year. If you don't want to read about the primary voting, you can jump down below the asterisks (*).

Besides T day, tomorrow is also Primary Day in New Hampshire. For those of you unfamiliar with how the US chooses a president (and also for some other government positions), the primary is a lead up to the presidential election in November. It is not a national day of voting, but different states can run their primaries on different days, all within a matter of a few months. Candidates need to register to be on the ballot, and then voters get to vote for who they like in the party of their choice. 

Different states have different voting set ups. Here in New Hampshire you can be registered to vote one of 3 ways. You can be a registered democrat, a registered republican, or a registered independent. If you are a registered democrat or republican, you must vote within the party  you are registered in during our state's primary. If you are registered as an independent, you can chose which party to vote in, and then if want to remain a registered independent, you must change your affiliation (and you can change it before you leave your place of voting) back to independent. 

This year's primary in my state of New Hampshire is one of the strangest ones I can remember. 

The current president (Joe Biden), doesn't want NH to have the first primary in the country. He moved that Democratic primary to South Carolina. But New Hampshire has to be first according to our state law, and I think almost everyone in this state is proud of that and is not willing to have our primary moved. Because of that, Biden will not be on the ballot, but senior level state  democrats are asking for a write in campaign.  The national democratic party wrote a scathing letter to the state attorney general that the democratic primary cannot be held on January 23. Well, legally here it has to be, and it will be. However, none of the democratic votes will actually count towards the delegates at the convention when the final democratic presidential party candidate is chosen (unless something changes by the convention.)

On the Republican side the candidates are going all out. Some of you in the US might also be inundated with political messages . We've had what seems like hours a day of TV ads for over a year. I get almost daily texts to come and meet a candidate. Saturday I also had 10 political phone calls (none of which I answered). Every day I get at least 5 flyers in the mail. This has been going on for months, and I think I could wall paper a room in the house with all the flyers I have received. Lately most of the flyers have been from Nikki Haley, but  before many of the other candidates dropped out of the race, we received a wide variety from various candidates. 

The voting results will be interesting. The stats I found about NH voters are that just over 30% of the states registered voters are democrats, just under 30% are registered republicans, and just about 40% of voters are registered independents.

For some independent voters there will be a bigger question at hand. Perhaps if a person leans republican then they  will vote for one the republican candidates. If someone leans democratic, they might write in Joe Biden, even though those votes don't presently count. Or they could vote republican.    Many people I have spoken to in the last few months will   vote republican to try to keep Trump from winning. And I should mention there are some  democratic candidates that aren't going along with the national democratic office and are running on the democratic ticket. Some people might even vote for one of them.

 I for one am curious to see what the results come out to be.  I know how I am voting, but it's a secret ballot so I'm not saying. 😏 (Plus it's T day, and I think our weekly international catch ups are not a place to discuss my political views.)

*****

In other things, last week was another fairly quiet week for me. It was cold, and I spent a lot of time keeping the woodstove going. I also seemed to do a lot in the kitchen, a nice warm place to be on a cold day.

I used some browning bananas and made a banana, chocolate chip and walnut coffee cake (made in a bundt pan).

I made a 16 bean and veggie soup.

And on Saturday, my sister-in-law had a small family brunch to celebrate my mother-in-law's 90th birthday (which was a couple of weeks ago). I made a pumpkin quiche to bring.  

I always make pumpkin quiche appetizers for Thanksgiving, and my sister-in-law requested pumpkin quiche for the party. This time I decided to make a big one.

Here's my T day drink for this week, along with my lunch, which I did not make.

 

After my allergy shots last Wednesday, I picked up my husband at work, and he took me out for lunch. I had a Diet Coke and one of the best tuna melt sandwiches I've ever had. Last time I showed a photo of a tuna melt from the Round About Diner, some of you asked what the fried "thing" was on top of the  sandwich. It is a friend pickle. And very yummy. I was jealous the husband got 2 put on his sandwich. 😏

I've also been knitting my latest sweater.  Here's the  sleeve I have just about finished.

That's all for me.

FYI- I am going to be out of town for a few days early next week, so I will be missing T. Not only have a great T day this week, but for those of you who I only see for T, have a great couple of weeks ahead.  For everyone else I will be around all of this week and much of next week also. just not here for T day.

Enjoy!

T stands for This and That

  Hi everyone. It is time for another week of T over at  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog .  I hope everyone has had a nice week since we last met.

Last week was pretty quiet for me since I was dealing with covid. As some of you might have read, the worst of it was just how tired I was, along with too many red itchy hive welts on my skin (which luckily have gone away). The good news is I'm feeling like myself again. 😀 My husband also had covid (I think I caught it from him before he even knew he had it). That meant he worked from home for the last 2 weeks. He's also back on his feet and back to the office this week. ( 😀 again)  I feel like the first half of January just kind of slipped by in a blur, and here it is already the 15/16th of the month. 

One thing I did manage to do last week (and which should have only taken a day or 2 but took me 5+) was  a bit of art space cleaning.  I wish I had taken a photo of my before desk, which I couldn't use to make any art on as it was sooooo messy and had a mountain of things on it.

Here's my drink which is my ticket to T this week, along with my desktop. I don't know how long since it has been this clean, and it will probably not be this clean again in 2024.😏  I've since been making some art, and it is already not this clean again.  But it is definitely still cleaner than before I picked it up.

The little mini-tool chest on my desk was something my husband gave me for Christmas. The funniest part of that story was that my son-in-law, when he saw it, really wanted one for his pens, pencils etc. for his work desk. Who'd have thought? If we had known he would like one, we would have gotten him one for Christmas also. Of course, by the time Christmas came these little chests (which were something from Lowe's- a big box store  hardware chain) were sold out everywhere. After the holiday we were all on the hunt for them at various  stores, and finally  my son-in-law found one in Nashua (NH). He was told the only reason they had them is that somehow the pallet had never been put out on the shopping floor. Who'd have guessed these little boxes would have been so popular?

Anyhow, now everyone in the  whole family has one. My daughter and my husband decided they needed one also, so when my son-in-law got his, he was smart and picked them up for the others too. 👍

I mentioned last week that I ordered some new yarn to knit another sweater. It arrived this past Friday,  and here it is in all its glory.

You'll be seeing my latest progression at some point. 

Speaking of sweaters, I finally got my other one blocked, so it is now ready to wear. This past weekend I had my husband take some photos of me in it. I'll never make a good model, but I think this photo shows the sweater. 

My husband is not really a photographer either, and he's a foot taller than me, so how I thought he'd take the photo isn't what he did. But no problem, you can still see my sweater. 

I made the sweater on the bigger side, since if I want to wear it outside I might have some layers underneath it.  To do that I used the larger size on the pattern, and I didn't knit it quite to the length the pattern called for because I didn't want it hanging to my knees. I also played around with yoke design, using the basic design but changing up colors and also adding things to the pattern.

That's it for me this week. I hope everyone has a great T day and week ahead.

T Stands for the Holiday Season

Hi everyone. It's time for our first T day of December. I know it's been December for a few days already, but I'm still surprised it is once again the holiday season. It doesn't seem all that long ago that I picked up and put away the holiday decorations. Now I've taken them all out again. 😏

Last week I had a few things going on, and one of them was decorating my house for Christmas.

I bought one of these little retro trees last Christmas because it made me think of my grandmother. She used to have one of these trees. The 2 little Snoopy pieces on either side of it were from my daughter. When she first moved out we would get her a piece or two for Christmas each year. I guess we couldn't remember all the ones we bought because we happened to get her these 2 twice.  😜

Over Thanksgiving weekend my husband and I went to the Christmas tree farm in my town and cut down our tree.

One thing I like about going to the Christmas tree farm is that it is up on the Ridge, a part of my town that sits  higher in elevation than most of the rest of the area At the ridge top there is a beautiful mountain view. It doesn't photograph very well because to get the whole view it looks too tiny and to get a partial view it doesn't look very outstanding. Here's one of those partial views. It's what you see as you head  down the road.

The white peak in almost the center of the photo is Mount Washington, the highest peak in the northeastern United States. It is 6288.2 feet/ 1916.6 meters tall. Not tall as far as many mountains go but it still has some of the worst weather conditions in the United States. It holds the record for the highest wind speed not associated with a tornado/cyclone or hurricane. In 1934 a wind speed of 231 miles/hour/ 372 km/hour was recorded. The top of the mountain, as you can tell from the snow on it, is much colder than  other mountain tops in the area.

Speaking of snow, this morning (Monday 12/4) I woke up to some more snow. This is the view out of my bedroom window looking down onto the road.

We didn't get a lot of snow, and it will probably disappear if it stays at  our current temperature. I needed to shovel this time however.😒 It does make it really feel like Christmas. 🎄

Last week while out running errands  I also made a stop at a small market in my town. This is a specialty market, more of a meat, prepared meal, bakery and beer/wine market. They're actually associated with the one restaurant in my town. They had a couple of interesting beers displayed on the top of the meat coolers, and since it's T day, let me share them.

This St. Bernadus beer is next to a normal sized beer bottle. If I had a lot of money to kill, I think I would throw a party and  try it, but at $250, I just took a photo.

My budget would prefer to try this beer as it's holiday appropriate in a silly way. 

Instead of buying beer,  I made myself a big mug of tea when I got home. My mug isn't empty, but I had drank half of it before I decided to set up a photo with it under my tree. This is my ticket to T this week over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.

You might remember I bought a holiday tea sampler from Bigelow Tea Company awhile back. I still have a couple of flavors left to try, but  I really like is this one. It's a warm, wintry spice mix as you can probably guess from the name. (This is a photo I took off the internet, not my sampler box.)

I've also still been knitting up a storm. I haven't shown you my sweater for a couple of weeks, so here's where I'm at.

I've just gotten to the point where I've added the sleeves to my body and have started the yoke. It's knitted in the round (so no pearling), and I've just started the colored part that will form the upper sweater. 

Now that I'm into the final phase,  I'm really excited to finish my sweater. I'd love to say I've finished it by Jan, 1, and hopefully I will. The yoke requires quite a few rows of patterned knitting.  Let's see what happens as this month gets rolling along.

That's all for me this week for T. Right now my calendar for this week is empty until Saturday. No appointments nor scheduled fun time with friends. What's the chance it will stay that way? Hopefully 100%. I'm so excited to not have to be anywhere, but I do have a long to do list of things around the house to fill my time. 😏

Have a great T day and week ahead.