Viciously cold

The majority of the US is in a record freeze.  It's supposed to get down to -25 F wind chill tonight.  Brr.  Nonetheless, as Frederick and I had scarcely been outside in a week (various ailments), we thought we should have a quick jaunt.

Back to Starlite

Granny HAD to have the skillet (and, for some reason, "biscuits and gravy")

A sampling of booty

Here is a picture of just some of our Xmas gifts (thank you if yours is pictured, apologies if not, but that probably means it's been spirited off to a corner of the house to be enjoyed there)

This picture was taken with my Birthday present, my very first Smartphone (one of those snazzy Samsung S7 edge thingies, of which Thomas is DEEPLY envious, feeling (probably rightly) that it is completely wasted on me) which I put off switching to until now (much to the chagrin of Jami, who bought it for me in July and who finally took it upon herself to activate).

Xmas Bounty!

Happy Birthday Granny!

 Granny specifically requested breakfast brunch at Starlite Diner, a Flint institution.  No sign of Senator Debbie Stabenow this time, though.

After that brief respite it was back to the kitchen for her!

Mmmm... brownies...

(Don't tell Thomas they're gluten-free...)

Dashing through the snow

Granny arrives, bringing the snow with her

 The snow came thick and fast this Wednesday, so much so that they closed the University.  Of course, it was also the day Granny was to arrive from Baltimore (she arrived there from Manchester last Wednesday).  She was stuck in Atlanta for six hours, but eventually...

 ....she made it!

 The next day the snow was very pretty.

The worst time of the year to be a...

A few days ago Frederick and I (his mother) went to For Mar together. We hadn't been there in probably a year or so. So Frederick felt the need to give me The Grand Tour--that means looping arounda and round so that you see every single inch of the place. Since F's pace is more than twice mine, I found it exhausting. On the way out, we saw a flock of these beasties at the side of the road:

The boy lives to sculpt

Every day Frederick brings home two or three new sculpey sculptures that he's made at Emily's house. The problem is that he then can't keep his hands off them. The phrase "loves them to death" was invented with Frederick's relationships with his favorite things in mind:

First snow

Just got all the wood stacked in time!  The chickens experience snow for the first time and are NOT happy about it.  They won't come out of their house.  But Jami finds a solution...

Stocking up with wood for the Winter

Our loyal reader(s) will know that every year, when Winter rolls around, the Problem of Wood must be solved.  The main problem is that whenever I find a guy who will supply us with wood one year, by the next year his phone number doesn't work and I have to assume he's realized that the Wood Business doesn't pay.  Well, for the past couple of years I've used the same guy and I bought some wood from him a month or so ago, but (a) it was overpriced, (b) it was a bit "punky" (his term) and (c) he's kind of racist and and kind of alcoholic, so it's never a particularly pleasurable experience stacking wood with him.  Well, we burned through $250 "worth" in a (very mild) month, so I decided to look elsewhere.  "Elsewhere" always means Craigslist, and this time I found a place that had pictures of beautiful-looking wood at a much more reasonable price.  Turns out it was based up in the "thumb" (the most wild and uninhabited part of Michigan - even more than the Upper Peninsula) and he would only sell in massive quantities (at least 10 cords - don't ask me how much a cord is, because I always just nod sagely when they start talking about them, a bit like when you take your car to the mechanics - when I usually get around 4 max).  I was worried that he wouldn't get up the drive with that much, so I sent a picture of it and he assured me he could do it.  And he could, but just barely.  He had a big pickup and a giant trailer that could tilt up to dump out its load.  We had to take down the washing line and he nearly took out the little roof over the side door, but it was managed.  The downside was that there was no way he (and his wife, who came along) were going to help stack it, so that has been my job over the past few (thankfully non-rainy) days.  I think we're set for the Winter now....

Here and Gone

Thomas arrived late Wednesday evening. I saw Marta waiting at the train station and wondered what she was doing there, when I saw Omid get off the train--he was coming home from college, too. A few seconds later Thomas got off the train--neither had any idea they had been on the train together for the past 3 hours. Oh, how we laughed. Thomas quickly settled into his routine of sleeping til noon, playing on his computer until night, and then coming down just before we were to head off to bed to either tell us the ways in which he is disappointed in us (Simon hasn't advanced in his career enough and I haven't made enough money off my mosaics ["When was the last time you worked on a mosaic? What's wrong with you?"]--that sort of thing) OR to tell us he had major problems at school that need to be handled that second. Just like old times!And then, just as suddenly, it was time for him to go. It was brutally cold that morning and standing on the platform left me chilled to the bone for the rest of the day. Thomas made it back, is set to finish up his semester in the next two weeks, and so we expect to see him blow back into our lives around December 20th or so.

Frederick's latest art interest

Frederick has always loved making things. If we had saved every single piece of art he has produced in his lifetime so far, we would need a monstrous barn to store it all. The latest interest is in 3-d sculptures. This is a dragon he made last week. It's made out of modeling clay, so we don't expect it to live long since, in our household at least, accidents happen. Often.

This was yesterday. It's a Christmas ornament (you can't start making Christmas decorations too early, says Frederick) made with sculpey, a polymer clay that can be baked hard. So, this one will probably outlive all of us.

This morning Frederick woke up really crabby (a growth spurt coupled with not getting enough to eat yesterday conjoined with a sudden migraine causing cold front that arrived yesterday afternoon is the most likely cause, since ordinarily Frederick is a sunny little so-and-so in the mornings). He crabbed about Simon not being home, about me opening up the curtains, about me handing him breakfast to eat in bed, everything--until I reminded him that he was going to be making more sculpey sculptures today. Wow--that was all he needed to hear. He grabbed his toast, sprang out of bed, ran downstairs and struggled into his clothes as fast as he could manage. Too bad we were not scheduled to leave the house for two hours. He is now sitting on the couch, doing time, waiting to get the hell out of here and get back to his sculpey sculpting.
Later: Here is today's creation.