Holy Moly I'm Back!!!

Wow - i's really been a looooooong and eventful end of summer - fall - beginning of winter here.  So many happenings - so much to do - and I neglected my blog for way to long!  Since we last visited, we made a trip to Ohio for one of my distributors' open house, endured a hurricane and two weeks without power (but my house was NOT harmed!!!), had a birthday,  made a trip to Chicago to debut my fall fabric line at the Troy Fabriganza, painted and submitted the new fabric line for spring 2009, worked on my book for Martingale, attended International Quilt Market, stayed for and vended at International Quilt Festival, returned home overwhelmed with orders, had dear daughter home for Thanksgiving, and many many more little  and big happenings in between.  But this day, this glorious, wonderful, fairy tale white Christmas (almost) day - we awoke to this - - -

Which started to look like this

which turned into this

 

(my front yard) and this

   (my back yard).

SNOW - - Yipppeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!   OK - before you think I've totally lost it - gone off my rocker - taken a trip to the funny farm - or whatever - - - -  you have to realize that this is LOUISIANA ya'll!   Home of tank tops, shorts and flip flops at Christmas time. Windows open or the central air turned on WAY down low so that we can have a fire in the fireplace and at least FEEL like it's Christmas. Never,ever, never, not in any way, no how, no way have we EVER had snow at Christmas time!  Can I tell you how excited this made me???  So excited in fact - I ran outside with my camera, dressed in a tee shirt and sweatpants - totally uncaring about the temperature outside.  About 10 minutes later, fingers, arms and nose totally numb, I ventured inside for a sweatshirt with a hoodie!  Where was my coat, you might ask?  Well heavens to Betsy - I don't own one.  Why should I?  It never gets cold enough here to have one.  Heavy sweats or sweaters are enough for me!  Until today.  But I really didn't care - cause we have SNOW!!!!!!!

Wanna see more?

  See those 3 big trees in the from yard?  Bald Cypress - trees that grow in or near the swamps, have lots of moss, thrive in HOT weather.  See how pretty they look in the snow?   And this - - -

 Looking up into the lacy snowcovered branches of our river birch trees.  Ahhhhhh.  The wonder and beauty of it all!

 Of course, there was the downside of it too, if you could actually call it a downside!  Since the weather folks only predicted a "wintery mix" for today (translation - rain mixed with  little sleet - and  snow that you really wouldn't see and that would turn into rain before it hit the ground) - we (meaning Baton Rouge folks) weren't prepared for this.  You see - since we don't get snow - we don't know how to drive in the stuff.  All of our bridges and lots of streets iced over since we'd had rain for two days straight prior to the snow.  So - schools were closed, along with roads, bridges, and a ton of businesses.  Then came the power outages.  With the wind and the weight of the snow, a lot of branches in trees that were damaged by Hurricane Gustav in September came tumbling down onto power lines, knocking out power to about 25,000 folks.  We were lucky - kept power throughout it all - and by this evening most folks had their power restored!

As for me - once the picture session was over - I took a rare, RARE day off.  I ran back inside, jumped right back into my flannel jammies (my only other concession to cold weather - I LOVE flannel jammies and flannel sheets when it gets the slightest bit chilly!) - fixed myself a cup of cafe-au-lait and settled into my comfy quilt studio for a day of quilting.  For me.  Not for my new patterns.  For me.  Not for the quilt for the upcoming magazine.  For me.  Not for the quilts for my upcoming book.  For me.  Just me.  Just little old me.  And it felt GOOD!!

Till next time - toodles!

Comments

[pam]

How super! We've never had that kind of snow here, little bitty bits a couple of times, the kind that dissapears before it hits the ground but that's it. Looks like you had fun.

[val]

we got snow too in Slidell! YEAH!

BTW, you photos are great!

[Marsha Von Arx]

How do you get the new patterns???