Severe weather alert

When the local news stations say this, I'm skeptical. But when the national weather service says it, I pay attention. The wind is howling, the clouds are blowing east, with bright patches of blue sky quickly covered with dark grey clouds tinged with pink from the sunrise. Beautiful here in the valley, but it's snowing at my house, according to weather.com.

All morning long on Wednesday, we watched the weather stream past the windows, changing all the time. At lunchtime, it was 40 degrees and windy. By 12:05, the wind died down and instantly the clouds settled in. Amy says it's snowing hard in Tacoma, with silver-dollar flakes. Maybe Kent is the eye of the storm, and everything is turning white around us… we'll see when we leave work today and try to get home!

On Thursday, I woke to snow. So I decided to work from home today. When I sent e-mail to my boss, he replied that he was currently sitting behind a spun-out truck, and that I should definitely work from home. It was really cold today; barely above 25 by noon, and only made it to freezing during the day. I didn't venture out all day, didn't even walk down to the mailbox.

All the outlying school districts are closed; many of them are on winter break so it’s not a big deal. I was hoping Flow would close down today, but no luck. It’s beautiful outside, the trees are covered and it looks like Christmas all over again! Forecast is for more snow today, icy cold overnight and clear tomorrow. Rain returns Saturday. Looks like the cabin got a lot of snow; still snowing there.

We’ve got 3-4 inches of snow, and it’s cold so the snow is staying around. It’s supposed to drop to 18 degrees overnight; that’s at the airport, so it will be colder here in the foothills. No new snow today, but there’s been a snow cloud hovering over North Mason county most of the morning. Hope our chimney doesn’t leak like it did last winter.

10 kisses

Dave left for Irvine, CA this morning. It's the first trip of many this year; he'll be part of the flight test team for an aircraft project. He actually sounded pretty happy about doing something different than his normal job; he's especially looking forward to getting his hands dirty, turning wrenches and handling the assemblies.

So while he's turning wrenches, I'll be looking for ways to keep my days full, so I won't miss him so much. I'll be posting an ongoing list of lessons learned, I'm sure. Last weekend, I learned how to charge a car battery; the MX-5 was dead as a doornail.

My litmus test of how excited he is about this trip? I got ten goodbye kisses!

Old car, renewed

Dave's uncle called tonight to chat about his latest project: a complete, from the tires up restoration of a classic 1955 Chevy BelAir. And not just any car--this is the car he bought when he got out of the army in the early 1960's, the car he gave to Dave when he was in high school. It was his first car, and he spent countless hours under the hood and under the chassis, making it run perfectly. When we got together, it was the car he drove in the winter; the rest of the year he drove a 1967 MGB roadster.

When we got married and moved to Tri-Cities, the car came with us. It lived in the garage, and we took it out occasionally. But it wasn't "us" by that time, so when we visited Uncle Tom one fall, we hauled the car to Colorado and gave it back to him.

The car sat in the yard for a few decades, then Tom decided to pour some bucks into it, and restore it back to its original beauty. For the past year, he's torn it down to bare metal, and everything--from sheet metal to upholstery to glass--has been renewed or replaced.

This summer, Dave will fly to Colorado, and he and his uncle will drive it back to the Northwest... the ultimate road trip. I'm going to search out a classic car show for him to take it to... what better way to celebrate all the effort than by showing it off to people who understand what it takes to bring a classic car back to life.

Another funky fabric

Brenda sent a link to the fabrics that will be used in this year's Quilt Shop Hop. Sigh…  another funky fabric. The main fabric is a dark blue, small floral that's OK. But I'm not fond of the border fabric's cartoon-like design. I like the coordinating fabrics, though… might add a few of these to my stash.

Do you think the fabric designers ever thinks about how people might use the quilt? Or (heaven forbid) ask the loyal Shop Hop followers what their preferences are? My take is that after putting in hundreds of hours to make the quilt, I want something I can use on a bed, or hang on my wall. Would you put this quilt on your bed, full of “I’m going to the shop hop!” cartoons? Not me…

2005 Fabric

Fabrics in past years have been all over the map. My favorites (still) are from 2004 and 2005, beautiful florals in completely different color schemes. My least favorite have been the novelty fabrics, with the worst yet from this year. I appreciate the need for variety, so each year's finished quilt is different from the others. But I'll be skipping the event this year.