Signs of Spring #1.....

SunRise- 6:50 am   SunSet- 5:51pm

Today's High- 40F/ 6C   Low- 31F/ 0C
100% chance of rain/ snow

1. The disappearing snow man

2. Furry buds in the Magnolia Tree



1. Ice sheet in the yard

2. The grass trying hard to stay alive under the ice

So, today is the first official posting of the "Signs of Spring" fling and I have very little to show for myself.

Last week we got hit by some mighty snow which has now finally gone away again. Yesterday it just rained all day and with my sore throat etc. I just didn't have the energy to go out and spy on the plants in the yard. The above pictures was all I could come up with, nature wise.

But, I did buy some very fun Spring shoes though so I thought that would count for a Sign of Spring also right?

1. $7

2. $10

(Yay! for the Spring Sale!)

PS I've decided to just use a different logo every week for the Signs of Spring. I like them all and I've made them already anyway so why not?



Q Update....

Wow, that was a long haul behind the sewing machine! The only things missing are the top and bottom borders, but they will have to until tomorrow: my back is sore!



Whistler, BC, Canada...

"Oh Canada..."

First without, then with full face mask: it was extremely cold!



The Views!



Wow, it looks like the guys had a Great time!

They were incredibly tired though by the time they came home. All they did there was ski and sleep so three days of that was more than plenty.  I made them a nice pan of Mac & Cheese and off to bed they went...

Mac & Cheese, hot from the oven...

Me too since I felt rather tired myself. At 2 in the morning I woke up with a sore throat and now I have a runny nose as well...  :-(

Signs of Spring Header...

I thought it would be fun to design a special header for the Signs of Spring fling (as I call it).

Here you can see the sequences of design I went through...
I think I like the ones best since they resemble a pair of binoculars which I thought would be fitting, but which color combo??? The orange one fits best with my current blog color scheme I guess.
What do you think?



Q is for Quilt...

I just got word that husband and son are half an hour out (yay!) so I will keep this short.

I just wanted to show the progress made on the quilt so far. I realised (just in time) I had to add a row to the top and half a row to the middle. Also there will be a border of rectangles all the way around but I haven't gotten that far yet. Almost done with the top and then the sandwiching will begin, always a struggle, especially in this size.

Anyway, it has been snowing here all day but so light that you could barely see it. They are forecasting warmer temperatures (and lots of rain again) so hopefully this messy snow will disappear soon and I can make some official pictures for our first 'Signs of Spring' fling that will start on Monday with Viveka from Humlebacken. I'm the one representing the US and my sister The Netherlands (PikeStreet). The rest are people from all the different counties/ provinces in Sweden and Norway: Should be fun!

Quilt Progress....

Up close and from a little further away...

This is only half of the quilt. Five more rows of eight will be added. Starting to look good though! (I mean GREAT of course)



Morning Coffee...

Every morning, for the past 20 some years, my husband has made my morning cup of coffee!
(yes, I felt that was a fact worth mentioning in bold AND italics...)

Making a good cup of coffee is something of an art form apparently and it always makes me very nervous when he is away and I have to make my own cuppa joe. But, in the end, my cuppa tastes just as good (or close at least) as his cuppa! Ha!

Here are the machines involved: a Rancilio coffee making device and a Rancilio coffee grinder. Yes, fresh ground beans every morning.

Here it goes:

And here is the result:

Yummie for my tummy! And a great way to start your day, to keep in the rhyming theme...

I hope you guys have a great day and an even greater weekend!

Snow Day Part Quatre... (and the last, I promise!)

M. made this snowman this afternoon which looked pretty darn cute I thought!

Most of the snow has melted already so that was a real shame. The roads are clear in our area, but not in most others. It is supposed to get down to 16F so we're gonna hunker down with some hot drinks and chips etc. and oh yeah, some dinner too I suppose. Talk to ya later!

Snow Day Part Trois...

Or should that say: Vintage Cute-ness???

I'm spending waaaaay too much time at the computer but it is so much fun finding all these little treasures online....



Snow Day Part Deux...

So, we had 4 inches coming down, which is around 10cm: not bad at all!  Quite a bit of ice underneath all the snow so that is not good for driving. Good thing I postponed M.'s orthodontist appointment for this morning to next week!

The local schools only got a 2 hour delay so that is a bummer for M. At least all the kids should be home again by 3pm so then they can all go playing together outside...

Here are some pics I took of the back and the front of the house...

I'm sure more pictures will be made a bit later on in the day. For now it is time for breakfast (yoghurt/ banana smoothie with ground flaxseed) and some quilt fiddling.

PS G. and C. have arrived safely in Whistler yesterday where they apparently had 2 feet of new snow and very cold temperatures: the men are happy!

Snow Day!!!

This was the view from our bedroom window this morning...

 And this is what we saw in the front...

And this was on our patio....

 It looks like it will be a glorious day!



Fabric...

Yay! I finally have all the grey (and black/ white) fabrics together for my quilt, eight yards all together.

I spent the whole afternoon cutting out 8,5 x 8,5 squares and 8,5 x 4,5 rectangles. (in inches) Now comes the fun job of arranging everything and then the boring job of sewing and fiddling etc.

Nothing much else to do here since the weather just can't figure out what it wants to do. One moment we have ginormous snowflakes coming down and the next moment the sun peaks out. The neighborhood kids are hoping for a snowday tomorrow which would be great for M. since she is home alone... (with me, but that doesn't count in her eyes)
According to the forecast that could still happen. It would be fun to have one more real snow event, since we really haven't had much snow this year and they so promised us!

Winter Mode...

Can you believe it: there are only 2 days in between these pictures!!!

The kids are very excited though and while waiting for some accumulation to occur, they are playing games, together! (in their pj's...)

What's This???

We're under a 'Winter Storm Watch' for the next three days, I'd better eat another semla... (and turn on my 'happy light')

Swedish Semlor in Seattle...

Get ready, once again lots of photos ahead! (I took 57 and it was very hard to make a selection...)

Today we first picked up our yearly order of a dozen Swedish Semlor in Seattle: Yay! These are small buns with kardemom and cinnamon flavor in the dough and on the inside there is marzipan and tons of whipped cream: YUMMIE!!!! The minimum order is for twelve or more: too bad! ;-)

After eating our first semla of the year in the car (we couldn't wait any longer) we drove over to the Seattle Aquarium, which is downtown at the waterfront. We had never been before since the ticket prices were so high, but G. had managed to find a Groupon (a kind of coupon) for 50% of the price! That was a great deal of course.

Unfortunately there were millions of screaming kids running around because of the national holiday today (Presidents' Day) so that was not so good, but what was good was that we all had extra height to look over the said kids' heads!

My highlight of the exibit was the giant octopus that we were able to see up close. Lots of other brightly colored creatures abound and the different sea-lions and seals were cool as well.

On our way back home we drove by the Seattle Space Needle which I always find quite impressive. It was built in 1962 for the World Fair. The Eiffel Tower of the Northwest!

Well, that was about it for a couple of days I think. Not much else on the agenda after these two busy days. G. and C. will be leaving for skiing in Whistler on Wednesday and M. and I will stay behind. (boohoo) Some jeans and shoe shopping is on the menu and some kind of girly movie that M. would like us to watch together.

Ha det bra!

Salvaging in Seattle...

Towards Pioneer Square

Near Safeco Field

Seattle Skyline

A cool motel that we passed on our way...



Starbucks headquarters, Safeco Field  (Mariners' Baseball)



Today G. and I drove all the way to Seattle to explore a couple of salvage companies. We didn't buy anything but is was great to have a look around. The skies were blue but it was still pretty cold so a good day to spend inside the car. (all the above pictures were taken in the car by me while G. was driving)

Here is some of the stuff we saw in the warehouses...

Cool clawfoot tub and lots of handles...

Tubs, sinks, toilets...

A sci-fi shower!

There wasn't much furniture though and I think I would have liked that better, but at least now we know....

First Real Day in the Garden...

C. loves to jump around in the yard waste bin!

M. was all dressed up (in my clothes!)

for a concert and dinner tonight with our neighbors.

Yay, our first real work day in the yard!

First we added a weed barrier in the vegetable garden all around the planter boxes. Then we drove down to a place where they load up your pick-up truck with rocks. (we felt like a low-rider leaving that place with all that heavy weight in the back) Back at home we had C. and G. shovelling while I was raking all the rocks. The cubic yard wasn't quite enough but pretty close. We'll finish that another day...

I also edged quite a large part of one of our flower beds so that it looks nice and kept again. We ended our day with mowing the lawn, the first time in 2011!!!

Needless to say (but I will do it anyway):
it was a GREAT DAY!!!

Part of our mown backyard.
Pictures were taken from our bedroom window.





Le Creuset...

Look what I found today for half price at PCC (= an organic grocery store chain): this awesome Le Creuset pot!!! It is only for putting utensils in so no cooking but it looks so nice on the counter...

Our lesson at Little Bit was canceled today but we (my lovely volunteer featured in the photos below) and I helped out by stuffing envelopes for the upcoming auction. That was of course not nearly as exciting as things could have been, but we still had a fun time catching up.
We made some pictures of the horse she is sponsering this year and Stetson (the horse) seemed to enjoy his photo session...  Just look at all that super model hair! :-)