Snowy and cold

I'm not sure hot glue is the best material for sealing gaps around a window frame, but I had a small below-zero breeze coming into my bedroom, and it was worth a try.  I expect that it will be easier to remove than caulk.

My most recent hot glue craft project was gluing white cardboard leaves onto a cardboard rectangle.  It turned out okay, but proved a little harder to hang up than the effort I wanted to put into it.

I've also been carving two little wooden goblets for toys, using a well-seasoned section of maple branch.  I've decided to not put a finish on them, or even to sand them.  I used a Swedish slojd (don't know how to do the umlauts; aka sloyd) knife from Rockler that I got for Christmas last year.  It is a bit large for most of the woodcarving that I do, but worked well in this case.  My husband has one too, and somehow managed to break the tip of the blade off.

Around town

Two Twin Cities Best Buy stores looted in organized robberies.  Two stores on almost opposite sides of the metro area, same day and time.  "Police are investigating if these similar crimes were connected in any way."

Biden is expected to visit on Tuesday.

It's as good as it gets here...

 ...in terms of getting the house organized and decluttered in between the busiest seasons.  I washed many of the windows before the weather turned cold, and have been able to conquer most of the messy areas.

I started an embroidery project for a Christmas gift.  I bought an embroidery hoop for it, but already had everything else.

I also have a couple of woodcarving projects in mind.  My husband brought home a woodburner, and we've been trying it out.  From looking at comic series art, I think the way to go with that is to do the shading first, and then add the fine lines and details.

The Twin Cities had some protests following the Rittenhouse verdict, but nothing near us.

We are well-supplied for Thanksgiving, and are thankful for what we have.  

The children have requested six different kinds of pie.

Deployments

Still working on settling our things into place around the house:  putting things on the walls, inserting the largest rug as an underlying layer to the three rugs in the living room, putting re-purposed hooks up in my closet/computer nook so my long skirts can hang on the back wall, covering a panel with fabric so I can place it in front of a window.

I also got some kale and more onions into the freezer.  And I made some kale chips that turned out well.

An apparent package thief made the mistake of dumping empty boxes in our yard while a child was looking out the window.  I don't know if the police will catch up with them, but the Holy Spirit will.

Yes, we have no black walnuts

The squirrels chewed through them all over the summer, and there are absolutely none left.

The kitchen is overflowing, though, with garden harvest:  tomatoes, peppers, and beans.  It was already super-tight on space before.

I built a sleeping loft for one of the children, and there are others in line for lofts of their own.  I ended up using hand tools a lot more than I had planned to, so I am still in recovery mode.  I was many years younger when I made the original loft, which is still in use.  Which reminds me that we bought extra bolts this time to replace the ones in that loft that have broken.

I've also been working on spiffying up our library room, which is my favorite room in the house.  The new rug ended up in there, and I made progress on cleaning the wood blinds that had years of dust on them.

We made an excursion out of town to see the northern lights, but at this latitude it was mostly a glow along the horizon.  Did have a nice view of the stars, and some constellations that I haven't seen for a long time.

Mostly forward progress

I made myself a ruana-style cloak from a tablecloth.  I like it, although I am not as gracefully proportioned as my children are and I look rather clunky in it.  I may add a bit more length to it with a fringe, and I am looking for something better than a clothespin to fasten it with.

I pulled some other items out of storage and found good places in the house for them, such as an old table top that is now leaning against a wall to protect the internet cable, and a little cabinet that fit nicely into the bathroom.

This summer I braided up a few of the corn husks that the children left lying around.  These braids dried and faded in the kitchen.  I then took them, played around a bit, and eventually braided the braids and tied them with a piece of wire to make a mini-wreath for the front door.

I also made a quick visit to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, which has tripled and re-arranged their retail space since the last time I was in there.  I found a flat-woven wool rug for $45, which turned out to still have the tag from the rug cleaners on it.  I've been thinking of getting a rug to unify our three rows of seating around the family computers, and if this rug doesn't work there, there are other places in the house that I can try it in.

The reason I was at the store was to find a new light fixture glass thingy for the ceiling fan in our library, to replace the one that broke just as I was finishing up washing it.

I had another mishap with glass, which involved a glass jar unbalancing the recycling bag and tipping it over.  The jar then rolled out, and down onto the step at the back door.  At that point it took a right turn, and proceeded majestically down the basement stairs, ending with a smash on the rug at the bottom.

Putting the rug (dry) through the dryer on Air Dry to get the little tiny shards out worked well, and got most of the wood shavings out of it as well.  I left the dryer lint from an earlier load in the dryer's lint filter to help capture these bits.

I also found that our reel mower not only needed several missing handle bolts replaced (children are suspected in the loss of two of them), but also needed to be re-aligned and oiled. And of course there was one adjustment screw out of the four that I can barely budge, but most of the adjusting needed to be done on the other side, so I managed.

Draped children

My children were getting cloak ideas from this video (which has a recap of the different styles discussed, in the last three minutes), and requested ruana-style cloaks.

The ruana cloak is a simply a long rectangle, slit up the front to the place where it will sit on the back of the neck.  Some people cut out a neck-sized circle at that point, see here for example.  I prefer the look of a straight edge coming down in front.

In use, the front of the ruana can just hang down, or one side can be thrown over the shoulder.  It looks much more elegant than it ought to.

I found enough large pieces of fabric to outfit all the children who wanted one.  It helped that a relative unloaded a bin of linens on us while we were on vacation.

So far this has been all no-sew, but the children all want hoods on their cloaks, and will also need the ends of the slits reinforced.