Friday bullets - December 18, 2020

We made it!! We are now officially on Christmas break. I'm pretty sure that I need it more than the children.

• In honor of our last day of school, we had a bigger art project. We haven't had one of these in a while, so I think everyone was happy to have something different. We were making winter landscapes on pizza circles. Well, we used cake circles because that's what I could get. It turns out that pizza circles are flat cardboard while cake circles are glossy cardboard. Watercolors do not adhere to glossy anything so we had to punt a bit. We used Cassie Stevens' video and instructions. (If you are not aware of her, you should scroll through her web page. I have used a lot of her ideas.) Everyone worked hard and turned out some really interesting art. Here's what they made (in age order).

TM, who decided to join us

H.

H.

H. (She liked this project)

R. (She liked the paint)

K.

Y.

Y. (who definitely took the minimalist approach)

L.

L.

G.

• I am now about 99.9% done with Christmas shopping. This is pretty good considering this time last week I was about 20% done. I even managed to do most of it without resorting to Amazon.
• I may be handing out more than a couple of IOU's at Christmas.
• Java has a new blanket. The one P. and I had ordered her last summer because the one we used last year just didn't fit right, also didn't fit quite right. On a whim, I decided to look through the totally random assortment of horse blankets that I had stored a couple of years ago. I should have done this last year because I found a lovely blanket in very good shape that fits Java perfectly.
• Yes, we have officially entered the season of horse blankets. It is also the season of doing and undoing buckles with ice cold fingers or clumsy gloves. I can't decide which option I like least.
• TM decided we needed more lights up. He put up some around the chicken coop and added some along a garland that was already up in the house.

• Nefertiti had a vet visit this past week. I am happy to say the very overweight cat we brought home nearly five years ago is now at an extremely healthy weight. She was 14.5 pounds then and now weighs a bit over 9 pounds now. I also realized that she is nine years old now! We're guessing that Kenzie is probably about the same age. 
• I got to spend time with two of my very best friends and that felt wonderful. 
• It is also the season for the water hydrant in the barn to freeze. (We will be trying to put heat tape around it this weekend.) This means I have to lug buckets of water from the house to the barn. I can carry two full buckets with no problem; I don't even need to stop and rest. But one bucket? I end up covered in water and have to stop a couple of times. I think it's because I'm so unbalanced when I am just carrying one.
• I finally finished canning the last of the turkey broth this week. In total, I ended up with 15 1/2 quarts of broth. That should last us for a bit.
• My kitchen tip of the day is that roasters are for more than turkey. We haven't had an oven for over a week now, and the last of the meals I planned last week required one. We put the Brussels sprouts in the roaster and cooked them in there. They turned out just like when we did them in the oven. I cannot take credit for this idea as it was J.'s brainstorm.
• The parts for the oven are here and J. is going to try to replace them this weekend.
• I never showed you the photo we used for our Christmas card picture.

TM was fooling around trying to figure out how to photoshop P. into the picture and made this one as a joke. It made me laugh so much I decided to use it. I think I find it so funny because the lighting matches so well that at first you don't really register that there is a horse in the house. It is a picture that requires several double-takes. And since I figured everyone could use a good laugh about now, well, there you are. We certainly don't worry much about looking perfect around here.

• I really, really, really want to go eat in a restaurant with just J. or with J. and some of our friends.
• I also really, really, really want to be able to invite people over for dinner again.
• P. is coming home on the 23rd and I can't wait to see her!
• Have you seen Opera Blobs? If you haven't, you really need to click the link and play with it. It's pretty amusing. I've decided that this is the opera version of ipsum lorem (the nonsense text which vaguely looks like real words but aren't that are used for filler... and as a book world language in Thursday Next). The blobs sing sounds that could possibly vaguely be words, but aren't. Anyway, it's fun.

And with that I'll say good night. I love Christmas, but am looking forward to that blissful week between Christmas and New Year's when nothing has to be done.