It is snowing here in the West. I love snow and cold. I was reading Farmers Almanac site and today Feb. 14th is the day crocuses generally will make their first appearance of the season. i will be on the look out for mine since eI planted about 30 bulbs last fall. Besides snow I do enjoy seeing the first signs of Spring. I actually love all the seasons just dislike the heat of summer.
things Love about Winter:

wrapping up in warm quilts that I made
drinking hot coffee
sewing in the sewing room
hand quilting quilts
knitting sweaters
watching snow fall
looking out at a white world
making stew
crawling into a clean bed with a big pillow top
fire place on

Maddie and Squirrels

Hi, how time flies!! It is already Feb.11th. Not alot going on, I continue to try to have several no spend days a week. I manage at least 4-5 no spend days. One day last week I spent 5 dollars on Maddie, a toy that lasted less than 5minutes.

a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjizYX9Ic-yI8CyFWDLc7fjEXW2nDv3CTXRYNvf0Z6Zz2Q7137GyJ23_QSwjvSB5Bx7828qTXEOvxxWFARMV8yH8AyX1apyMllhk8wmf3ZFIlgSBhIDDKPAuiWuJQlnYxpmjNwyiXgnDJf1/s1600-h/100_0013.jpg">
Last week-end I was in the front yard and noticed a squirrel in the tree . That dang thing did not move the entire time I watched him, so either he was frozen to death( he is gone now, so I doubt that) or he was nervous that he was so exposed without the leaves on the tree that he was just not going to move till the sun went down

It's February

It is February and I just wanted to update on my no spend days.....19/31. Not to bad, we were able to put a couple extra hundred in the savings account. So I guess having no spend days really does help. The areas we did the best in were, only Friday's for eating out, making meals from scratch and planning meals which meant planning shopping trips. That means using a shopping list and sticking to it, no impulse buying.

I finished a pair a socks that I started last year then missed placed and just recently found again. The wool is very soft and I love the color. Over all am pleased with how they turned out. Have done little sewing and need to finish my double diamond quilt and start the quilt for DD Chinese host family. Hope to be visiting her this year some time.

Still "POO" free.

I am still "poo" free and liking it. My hair feels thicker and much more manageable. However I am not sure I will ever get use to the heavy, not clean almost oily feeling after I rinse out all the baking soda and apple vinegar mixture. But when I blow dry my hair it is like magic, beautiful, clean,manageable gray hair, did I mention thick gray hair?

Mr.P and I are almost done with the first bathroom and it is looking beautiful, pictures to be put up on the blog later. Then we only have one bathroom to finish after that.

have been consistent with my work outs, just wish I could see some better results. I know I have a very stressful job and that does not help my cortisone levels which then makes it hard to loose belly fat. I will keep at and hopefully by summer I will look better.

Have gotten two more quilts back from Patricia.

Getting Things Done

Today is going to be a full day, bake a cake for tonight's quilt group, clean up the house, grind some wheat for bread, the furnace man is coming to check and change our filters, and of course hopefully get some sewing and knitting in.

I love meeting with my quilt group. Some evening's we are very informative with our knowledge and some evenings it is just pure silliness. I enjoy both!!! We are all so different too, their are the "overachievers" who seem to have something completed every meeting , the "I want to do it all" and have anew project every meeting, (but where is the finished projects), the quilters who come to meeting and never sew, never bring anything and then their are the "steady eddies" who start a project and the group watches as they go through each step till it is a completed project. This quilter is not ADD, and we all secretly admire her steadfastness, knowing we could never be that single minded. Oh well the good Lord gave us all different gifts, may we use them well.

My no "poo" experiment is going well. I have not used shampoo for 8 days now and the baking soda/apple cider seems to be doing a good job. My hair feels heavier and looks darker. My hair with shampoo was a white color now it seems an off white color. The part I really like is my off white hair is very manageable now, maybe a little natural oil is like using all those hair styling sprays.

Things To Do

This has been a busy week with work and testing recipes for the house. i made laundry soap and love it, love it. Our socks, tee shirts and sheets are soo white and smell so good. I am never going back to the store bought stuff. The recipe is from Rhonda Jean at http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com. I also tried baking soda and apple cider for my hair and loved it. I did this because of an article in the UK about how their water has way to much chemicals in it from hair products, mainly soaps and conditioners. It is only a matter of time before it is a problem for us here in the States. Heck it could be a problem now we just have not been told yet.
The other thing I'm doing in my life is taking care of me. I am closely watching what I eat and looking up the nutrition values. Cooking meals at home from scratch, made 2 more loaves whole wheat bread. Then the biggie is I have been going to the gym and riding the ellpticlle for 30 min/day. At first it was very hard, but now I am beginning to enjoy it. I tell Mr.P that I am going out to get my" jello legs". My blood pressure has dropped very nicely from 150/102 to 120's/70's. Hopefully soon I can start reducing the BP meds.
Mr.P and I started the bathrooms yesterday. We scrapped out the old grout between the tiles, very dusty work. Today we will wear masks. Hopefully we can re-grout this afternoon.
The irish sweater I am knitting is coming along but very slowly and have only worked on the mystery quilt one hour this week.
Will try to post pictures later.

LIFE

Last evening my sister called to inform me that a friend from high-school years had died from cancer. I had not seen Mark for probably 30 years when he showed up in my town to drop his daughter off to school. Mr.P, myself and Mark met for dinner and had a wonderful time catching up with each others life's. I was shocked when he told me he had skin cancer and that it had metastasis to his brain. He looked so good and full of life, but that was Mark, forever the smiling optimist.