Two good things

#1 -- Tony made lots of progress today with digging out my car. He still has that 3-foot-deep driveway to shovel through, but he got the car cleared off and started it. It's been buried for more than two weeks! Here's how it looked "before":

It sure would be nice to keep one or both cars in the garage but we have a handicap ramp built in there so the oldsters can get into the house with walkers and wheelchairs ... the cars live outside.

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#2 -- Got a nice box in today's mail! These are from the Colonial Christmas line by Marcus Bros. They were on sale at Homestead Hearth last week and I couldn't resist. Nothing particular in mind for them -- they were just a good price and I liked them :)

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Tuesday

I'm finally making a bit of progress with the UFO bundle I unearthed a couple of weeks ago. (That pesky blizzard sort of interrupted me!) I'm up to 25 blocks, and they're assembled into a center. Now I'm considering whether to just make more of the same blocks, or do something different for a border. I don't often make quilts with this much white background space, so I'm still thinking about where to go from here.

My original inspiration for this project dates back to Lizzy's Quilt Blog in 2007. It will be a nice springtime quilt -- maybe this will be the year I get it done ...

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I was afraid this might happen. Elvis, who is not the brightest dog in the world, figured out last night that he could hop up on top of the snow drifts and stroll OVER the fence and out of the yard. (Jess is too ladylike and also too arthritis-y to even consider such shocking misbehavior.)

Of course the snow has been this high for nearly two weeks already, but he just now caught on to the wonderful new opportunity outside. Luckily he went for a visit to the neighbor's yard which is also fenced, which slowed him down enough so we got him before he disappeared. He's only allowed out under escort now. Maybe the snow will melt soon? Maybe we have to shovel the entire yard?

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A quiet Friday

Not much to report this evening ... it was a "busy with other things" day. I did work up this week's Friday Block Party challenge -- should have chosen contrastier fabrics, I'm afraid.

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Invictus was great! Morgan Freeman portrayed Nelson Mandela as a wise gentle leader. The movie depicted tiny steps toward healing the injured society in South Africa in a positive hopeful manner. I came out of the show feeling uplifted and inspired.

Besides the "message" of the movie, the thing that struck me the most was how brutal rugby is! I'm not familiar with the sport at all and wow -- I had no idea it was that rough. I guess I thought it was more like soccer. Anne, how do you get through watching Sarah play??!!

Anyway, do see Invictus if you have a chance -- I highly recommend it!

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Radha, thanks for visiting Spiral! I'd love to see your pictures of our snow, but you're no-reply and I can't get to the link you left. Please email me.

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Clearing snow

I think this is sooooo neat, just had to share it! This photo from our local KBHR news site is a crew clearing the snow off the roof of the elementary school. It's extremely heavy, and flat roofs cave in under the weight. This crew is a group of inmates brought up by the California Dept of Correction last week to assist around town. They cleared the roofs at my Dad's mobile home park right away last Sunday as soon as the storm ended (a couple of cave-ins over there unfortunately.) They've had these guys working hard all week, all around town. I think this is such a wonderful use of manpower that would otherwise be sitting on bunks waiting for mealtime! They've brought them up on other occasions, too, for brush clearance and work like that. Anyway, great photo and good helpers :)

Our local public works crews have also been doing outstanding work getting things back to normal around town. This (not very good) pic I took during the storm shows the kind of huge equipment they use to clear the roads -- the snow berms are piled up twelve feet high along the roadsides. These guys were working around the clock for about four days during the worst of the storm. They're out here every day making the roads safe for us. And the power company announced that yesterday they had finally restored power everywhere in the valley! So many trees came down, taking wires down too -- those guys had a HUGE job.

Three cheers for all our working guys!!!!

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Here's a link to a short article at the KBHR site about how much snow we got. Apparently this was the most since 1969. We're feeling like we were part of history here :)

KBHR snow report

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A quick Valentine project

The roads are mostly cleared, trucks can once again come up the mountain, and that means our mail service has resumed!!

I was delighted to get a squishie containing a set of heart swap blocks in our first batch of mail, and I zoomed them right up with alternating blocks. ( ...to be quilted soon.) I'm going to use this as a table topper in the dining room. I'd planned to add another border, but I think the size is good, and the white border shows it up nicely against the red tablecloth.

The quilt hanging on the amoire is from another (long-ago) swap. The mix of pinks and reds in both quilts really works nicely together. And whoops -- there's the dogs' toy basket behind the chair :)

We're going to the movies tonight to see Invictus -- I'm looking forward to it!!!

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