Time keeps on slippin'....

As you can see from the previous blog date, I have pretty much retired this blog. I went back to work 4 months ago, and what I call part time and they call part time, differs a bit. So I am pretty much working a 5 day a week gig without the benefits of a full time position. And it is eating a lot of my time.

Between keeping up with my books for review, just plain reading for fun, work and WoW, I haven't even looked at a set of knitting needles for months.

I try to post a lot more regularly to my book blog, but even that is somewhat sporadic and only book reviews.

So I leave you here with a picture of my last completed knitting project, a joint effort with my teen daughter. We knit it for one of her teacher's new little kiddo. (Teacher says child liked it and the monster we knit, too, haha.)

Beans the Cat

I will probably be around, occasionally. Maybe more so as winter hits and I start knitting a bit, haha.

Just realized

I never posted the finished monster!  Ta da!

The adorable monster

Really?

So as soon as I called for Phil's retirement, winter came roaring back.  Well, not really.  It's more like, "Oh yeah, it's Spring in the Rockies in which we always have a little snow."  But it did get chilly.

And now March has roared in like the lion it is, with crazy, crazy wind.  The DH was driving to Wyoming yesterday and saw at least 3 semi-trucks blown over. But at least it was warm and windy today, and hey, it was National Pancake Day, with free pancakes at IHOP, so it was all good.

In response to the wind, I am reading a new cozy mystery called Blown Away, by Clover Tate.  At least until tomorrow when I will hopefully, finally, get my hands on Anne Bishop's last Others book, Etched in Bone.  I need it to show up early, because I just gotta read it RIGHT NOW!!  I just re-read all the previous books, so I am READY.

The Teen starts Spring Break Friday, so we are going to start knitting Beans.  The Teen has decided that it must be knit in fluorescent yarn, so the small child it is meant for is in for a treat, haha. Small child is a very small child indeed, as he is the brand new baby brother to the previous small child that the monster was knit for.  I am thinking Beans will sit on a shelf for a few years, or perhaps be adopted by not so Big Sister.

I think it's time to retire Punxsutawney Phil

Or at least stop letting him predict winter's end for the entire country.  His "Six more weeks of winter," was a lie, at least here in Colorado.  Here, winter was very short.  A lot of January was quite mild, and the only winter weather we have seen in February was a nasty (and thankfully rare,) ice storm on, haha, Groundhog Day.  The last several weeks have been absolutely beautiful, if windy.  And the wind is quite typical for this time of year.

What isn't typical is all the brush fires around the state right now.  If we're this dry now, I am afraid of July and August.  We are very much still in a drought, despite the mountains getting exceptional snow falls this year.  It might rain today and Thursday.

In other news, I read an article last year that said jalapenos were difficult to overwinter.  So I didn't.  This fall, it was still producing late in the season, so I brought it inside. 

This is what it looks like now.  It has at least 4 peppers on it, plus additional blooms.  I believe it thinks that the writer of the article I read really doesn't know what they're talking about, haha.

I am going to need a larger freezer bag for peppers at this rate.  Which is good and maybe I will actually start using them again.  Last winter I put them in just about everything. 

But with my oral surgery this fall, I am really just now getting back to eating "normally," so things cooked low and slow in the crockpot and heavy on the sauce have been pretty much the usual.

We grilled Cowboy burgers the other night (diced jalapeno, onion, bacon and shredded cheese mixed in to the ground beef, with a bit of cayenne in there to up the heat!) and I did just fine, so I am good to go for pretty much anything now, I think ;) 

Next up, Honey Jalapeno Grilled Pork Chops!

The teen daughter decided that she needed to knit a toy for her favorite teacher's daughter.  We settled on a cute little monster from Rebecca Danger's repertoire, the Round Christmas Monster. We tagged-teamed it, since a few of the stitches were confusing (KFB had her eyes crossing, haha).  It was a nice Mother/daughter project and we had a good time with it.

It actually has both arms now and is just awaiting eyes. Which maybe we will put on it soon...  And I am thinking of adding ears.  The pattern calls for ears, but I don't use magic loop and the ears as written were a big, fat, pain in the arse.  Next she wants to knit Beans, the Cat for the little girl's brand new baby brother.  I see this as being a joint project as well.

Catching up

Winter is truly here now, we got over 8 inches of snow yesterday and it's cold and bright today.  My Acadia hat is getting much use this winter.  The double band keeps my ears lovely and warm.  We needed the snow, as it's been a quite dry, mild winter for the most part.  We seem to get several days of bitter cold, then blam!  Right back up into the 40s. 

Last Friday we hit 55°F and had a lovely Pokemon Go run in the park.  Now we are pretty much snowed in, since Hubby took the truck to work this morning and I just can't make myself go anywhere in the car, even though it's all wheel drive, and the main roads are probably ok again.

I am quite thankful 2016 is over, the last several months SUCKED.  Unfortunately, I am not feeling overly optimistic that the next 4 years are going to be any better. 

My goal for 2017 is to find a part time job that I enjoy, rather than something I endure.  Although, that may happen, as I have dental work out of the ying to pay for. 

After a good start with the new expac for WoW, Legion, I am now bored again.  We went from having many guildies on at a time, to maybe having two or three now, so I think a lot of people are on the same page.  We can't get enough people to raid, and LFR rewards just aren't enough to spend time doing that.  As usual, the casual gamer is pretty well ignored in favor of the hard core raider.

Even World Quests, which were once a great way to get geared up, have lost their charm, as they rarely give anything good even for my alts now and Emissary loot boxes seem to be stuck on 835 gear, and absolutely worthless.  Hoping that the next patch opens new content and the final steps for flying.  Until then, I go in briefly each day to do my daily pet battle and on Tuesday to kill the weekly World Boss.  I did get a legendary item drop on an alt this week, so that was great :)