Winter Storm Watch

 While I watch for the storm to come later this evening, I'm enjoying the less threatening snowfall throughout the day. Since I'm tucked into my cozily warm cottage and we have plenty of firewood, groceries, and even water stocked up, I feel quite privileged to follow my husband's injunction this morning to be more relaxed and enjoy the day.

Of course, I still have my housekeeping to do. (The kitchen needs some extra attention after having our daughter and son-in-law over for supper last night and spending the evening in a well-fought battle of Trivial Pursuit.) But most of the day is dedicated to catching up on blog-reading, cross-stitching, and hopefully sewing.

I've done more research into growing barley sprouts/fodder for the rabbits and am being more faithful at watering them twice a day instead of just once, so I think they're going to do better. We'll see. I also plan to feed them a few days earlier than before for maximum nutrition. If I can get the whole process to be more streamlined and efficient, I'll be able to grow some for the quails, too, when we get them.

Meanwhile, the bunnies are getting more adventurous and coming out of the nestbox.

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I completely finished this small (2"x3") cross-stitch from Sweet Annet's Etsy shop yesterday and got it mailed off to my daughter for her birthday. I think it's super cute and hope she enjoys it.

So last night I started the next one for the daughter whose birthday is at the end of the month. I hope to play with that a little this afternoon while I watch some Sister Boniface Mysteries.

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I've been investigating doing more indoor gardening beyond my salad shoots...

...and regrowing store-bought green onions...

...so Matt the Cat (aka Mr. Licky-licky, or Stupe-stupy) though he needed to help with the Youtube research on grow-lights. He was, of course, extremely helpful. I have some shelving set up in our woodstove room where it's nice and warm usually, but need more lighting. My Lovey will probably help me set up a more economical lighting system, cuz he's smart that way, than what we might buy.

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Look at what my sister-in-law posted a picture of on Facebook:

As you read, you fill in some color for each book. There isn't enough space on this one to stitch in the title of the book, but one could redesign a much larger project and do so. 😉 So, now I have "I-really-want-to-do-this-even-though-I-already-have-too-many-projects-and-plans" anxiety. 😊 (That needs to be shortened to "IRWTDTETIAHTMPAP anxiety" though it's not much shorter.) Ah, so many projects, so little time.

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I did make some progress on my Sew Scrappy Spools quilt last week:

And I did get my January wall-hanging hung, only a few days after the first:

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So, the crafting goals for this week are:

* Cross-stitch next birthday mini

* More progress on Sew Scrappy Spools (I have a sewing day planned with a friend, so I ought to be             able to make good progress then.)

* Add a strip of fabric to backing for first Christmas wallhanging gift so I can pin-baste it.

* Begin hand-quilting said Christmas gift

I also want to do better at meal planning so I can try out some new recipes instead of just defaulting to the same-old, same-old.

Can you see the snow coming down?