Another pretty flower!

I came home from work today (yes, I'm feeling MUCH better thank you,) and found this beauty open and displaying for me. I got it a while back from Carter and Holmes Orchids. Very pretty plant with a very light fragrance today, but maybe it will smell a little stronger first thing in the morning. Mine is young so it only has one little flower open with another bud on the way. Eventually it will look like the one in the link above.

I'll have to take a picture of the living room coffee table soon, just to show all the fantastic flowers I have on display in there! I love orchids!

Sick Days

It is true. Even vegans get a cold once in a while. Eating healthy food doesn't keep those cold viruses away. Luckily for me, it is only about once a year. And I have plenty of PTO (Personal Time Off) saved up.

My cold struck yesterday morning early. I had a sore throat, and my voice was going. A hacking, dry cough accompanied the sore throat. So I filled my pocket with cough drops, and went off to work. I spent 2 hours at work, with everyone asking me why I sounded so bad. After that, and realizing that my sore throat was getting worse, I told my boss, I was leaving. I came home, drank some herbal tea, and slept. I laid around the house all day yesterday, even when I wasn't sleeping. I got some reading done, but that was about it.

I got to bed early, and slept fitfully. I still had the sore throat this morning, so, I called out sick AGAIN! So I'm laying around, drinking huge amounts of fluids, spraying my throat with Chloraseptic spray, and sucking on cough drops. I hope I'll be well enough to go back to work tomorrow.

If not, well, it will be a long weekend. But I would much rather use my time off to get something done, not being sick. But, I consider myself lucky that I generally don't get sick often.

Tip for the day: Wash hands often!

One of the new orchids bloomed!

A beautiful miniature white orchid, purchased at the orchid show at the National Arboretum in October, Phalenopsis equestris alba. Here is a link to the picture.

Holiday from work

Not much going on this weekend for me. I've been more like an observer of the stuff going on around me. I've managed to do a little cooking, and some more cooking. I used the new silicon muffin pans that we got from JoAnn's on Saturday. With them, I don't need any oil to get things out of the pans - the silicone is non-stick. They worked very well, well worth the $20 for the 4 pans. We has 4- 50% off coupons and sent each twin through with a pan and a coupon. So we got them for 1/2 off. Quite a deal!

I had a lazy day yesterday, but Mary got the curtains finished for our bedroom by the time we were ready to go to sleep, and wow, we slept late today. Those curtains make the room very dark, but just light enough to see by. Oh, and the curtains look really good too. Check them out!

Samuel had a bunch of his guy friends come over for some play time today. You might think that a 14 year-old would have outgrown playgroups, but they had a good time, just hanging out. They went up to the park in the 30 degree weather and played some sort of running-tag games.

Miriam, has been amusing herself around the house, reading, studying for exams, and generally relaxing.

I have yet to get to the sorting of the seeds and getting my seed order ready for spring planting.
Next weekend.

Snow, Snow, Snow, Rain

I feel like such a kid, watching the fluffy white flakes coming down. I love the stuff. I get so giddy when the first snows come. I love the way the world looks covered in the white blankets of winter. Fantastic, how the sun glints off the billions of diamonds and dazzles the senses. That crisp smell of dry air, and the awesome silence of the snow absorbing sounds, deadening loud noises and swallowing the soft sounds.
The snows came to our area today. Not too much, but enough to make everyone grumble and gripe about driving and such. Not me. I was trying to contain utter joy at seeing the white stuff. I felt like the only positive person in a sea of pessimism. So what if the snow is cold! So what if it makes it a bit more of a challenge to get home? So what if I have to clean off my car, run the defroster and drive slowly? I get to see the wonder of snow!

The rain started much later, around dark. I think it will melt some of the snow, but if it freezes tonight, will make chipping my car out a challenge tomorrow morning. But I'll be enjoying that too!

I will not tell a lie...

I did not chop down the cherry tree. But I did salvage the wood from the one that fell down across the street! It fell down in my neighbor's driveway, narrowly missing the corner of her house. She had a fella come by and cut it into firewood lengths, and stack the big logs up in her yard. She was kind enough to allow me to take the wood off her hands. So I spent the afternoon splitting, then wheelbarrowing the wood to my woodpile. It will be lovely to burn next winter, after it has seasoned well.

I'm still using the cherry wood from the tree that went down a year and a half ago. I've used up most of that, and will be working on the poplar that we salvaged from the ice storm last winter.

This keeps me from spending $200 or so for a cord of wood, most of which I won't use until next year. If more trees go down around here, my wood pile will get bigger.