What to do on a rainy day?

Christmas break is half over, boo. Yesterday I took Mom to see Little Faukers. It's the first time she's been strong enough to sit that long in years. We enjoyed a bag of popcorn and soda. She enjoyed it but it wiped her out. No energy for lunch so we went straight home.

Yesterday's sunset was another stunner.

Today the Arctic rainstorm hit us around 8am. It was a nice day to light a fire and stay inside. We are expecting an inch of rain and gusts of wind up to 40 mph. Frost is expected the next couple of days.

I've wanted to rearrange my kitchen cabinets since moving in and took today's rainy weather to accomplish this. I packed away 3 boxes of what I call 'excess glassware', mostly coffee cups. I guess I should just donate them. I also packed away excess baking dishes. I can't believe I have 10 baking dishes from loaf pan size (3) up to 13" x 9". Anyone need baking dishes? More stuff to donate!

After reworking the cabinets I got ambitious and tackled removing the paint from another one of the transom windows in the kitchen. It was not a fun job as the razor contraption kept collapsing on me every time I tried to scrape. Made a 45 min job into 2+ hours but one more window is now clean of paint, 3 to go. I can understand why the previous owners painted them, they do face west and when the sun sets it is very bright and very hot in summer. But still, put up drapes! Geeze!

Transom window half scraped.

Transom window now clean of paint!

What a mess I made!

With the rainstorm still in full force, there was no visible sunset tonight...boo. So here's one from earlier this week.

Tomorrow Darlene and I are going to lunch and a movie. Friday and Saturday I hope to get in the garden and finish planting my flowers and fruit trees. Yep New Year's Eve I'm doing the same as usual, staying home and staying safe from all the crazy drunks on the road...



I love the rain!

New records set for rain fall in the county. Ramona had nearly 8" of rain so far.

7 day precipitation records broken or tied for the period December 16
    through December 22...

Location new record(ins.) Old record period of record

Alpine 6.27 3.21 in 1978 since 1951
Campo 5.83 4.32 in 2008 since 1948
Escondido 8.30 7.21 in 1921 since 1900
Palomar Mountain 18.23 9.95 in 1938 since 1940
Ramona 7.99 5.98 in 1945 since 1974Palm Springs 3.47 1.67 in 2008 since 1922
Big Bear Lake 14.29 5.07 in 1978 since 1960

I love the rain!

It's a week before Christmas and all thru the house...

I stopped at Home Depot Thursday night to get a tree. I wanted a big one for my first Christmas in my new home. I found a stunning tree in the 7'-8' bin so I grabbed it...or at least I tried. That sucker was HEAVY! I went to the front to get one of the employees to help me. We muscled it up front to have the trunk trimmed and to pay for it. They loaded it in the car and away I went...now how am I going to get that monster out of the car much less in the house??? Well I struggled for sure. I managed to get it leaning against one of the front columns and into a pan of water. I figured I'd get it in the house on Friday.

Friday came and I couldn't find my tree stand so off to Kmart I went for that and LED lights. Got 4 boxes of 75 lights. The tree stayed outside another night...

Saturday morning I decided to give it the old yankee try and muscle the tree into the house. I first put the stand on...having to shave down some of the branch nubs with a saw first.Then screwed in the 8 tree stand screws as far as I could get them. I did manage to drag it into the house, shedding needles all the way, but could I stand it up? Not a chance. I tried every McGiver trick in the book short of block and tackle...and I did think about that. But I chose to beg the help of my neighbor with a tray of holiday cookies instead. Jeff came over and we hefted that monser upright. Yep even Jeff commented "my, what a LARGE tree you have!". Oh well, next year I will be more sane in my choice. But it sure is pretty!!! I had to go back for more lights. The 4 strings I bought barely covered the top third of the tree...Bought 2 more boxes of LEDs and added a 100-string set I had on hand. It has ~500 lights on it now but it needs more. I will snag a few strings from Mom tomorrow since she's not putting up a tree.

Happy Holidays!

Sue

Geminids Meteor Shower Dec 14

This meteor shower was touted as the best show of the year and they were not exagerating! I stepped outside around 11 pm Monday night and was privy to several meteors within a few minutes. I wasn't going to stay up, happy to have seen a few but the show kept going and so did my interest.

Around midnight there were a few larger fireballs cascading through the sky that were amazing to see. It was getting cold, on its way down to 33 degrees so I went inside. Not wanting to miss the show after seeing those fireballs I pushed my couch up into the corner window, laid on the couch with my kitty on my lap and watched the show from inside. Yes my vision was limited but I still saw quite a few meteors from the comfort of the house. Finally crashed around 2am.

Next celestial show is on Dec 20th with a total lunar eclipse around 12:30 am. Yep, I'll be up!

Weekend doings

Friday, Dec 10, 2010:

I went to Tina and Andy's home to pick up a chair-and-a-half with ottoman they wanted to give me for my home. It's from IKEA and the slip cover is a great foresty green which will fit with my 'green' theme home. We also planned to go to Oceanside to see the Visions exhibit.

We first went to TJs to pick up an excellent Syrah from Austrailia, Henry Drive. It's a reserve lable normally selling for $30-50.00. TJs has it for $9.99. We each bought a case. From there we headed to Oceanside to see the new Visions Quilt Show..oh, Velda! What a stunning quilt of Zinnias you created! I want it but at over $100K, due to the economy, I need to pass. :-(

When we got home we loaded the chair and ottoman into the car and sat down to watch season 2 of Dexter. Needless to say, I spent the night, enjoying some of the Henry Drive purchased earlier, YUM!

Saturday, Dec 11, 2010:

Got home from Tina and Andy's around 11am and unloaded the chair. I thought I was going to need help but it was manageable. It's bigger than I thought or my home isn't as big as I thought! I'll find a good place for it as it's color is perfect and the chair is quite comfy. Maybe in front of the fireplace!

As sunsets go, this one on Dec 11 was exceptional in that it started at dusk by turning the surrounding mountains a beautiful lavender, purple mountains magesty! The clouds to the east were a beautiful glowing pink, the whole sky just glowed with that 'Tuscan light". After the sun set, the underlit clouds glowed all the hot colors in the spectrum...red, orange, pink, gold, yellow...stunning!

After the sunset was no more, the evening show was not over! A beautiful cresent moon set yellow then orange in the evening sky, truly an inspiring site. My camera didn't capture it well but it was a site to watch and enjoy.

Sunday, Dec 12, 2010:

It's not even noon on Dec 12th and it's already 83 degrees outside! I'm off to water my trees then put down more roundup to keep the weeds at bay. Soil is already too hard to dig so I'll have to wait until after the next rain to plant my many perennials. Rain is in the near forecast but...?

This afternoon, I'm going over to Mom's and help her set up her home for Christmas. I'll get a tree for my place next weekend...ran out of time this weekend. Boo...

Soft-serve chocolate dipped ice cream cone

OMG! I haven't had one of these in YEARS. I bought one with lunch today at El Pollo Loco. Of course I ate it first so it wouldn't melt! I forgot how deliciously creamy and decadent this taste treat is.