Winter Storm Watch

My brother Peter and his wife gave me a North Carolina cookbook several years ago. It contained a recipe for oatmeal cake which was titled "Hurricane Watch Cake". I am thinking that I might need to bake it this evening for our storm watch. The recipe is probably a Betty Crocker original, since it is the same oatmeal cake that Mom made for us when we were young. Good, no matter the origin.

It has been quite the fall in a number of ways. I had put off doing shrub pruning in the Mary Garden at St. John Cantius. Not the first time that I have waited until mid or late November, but with the predicted snow storm, I knew that I had to get cracking last Friday. I was able to prune one potentilla and most of one spirea in just an hour, but I still had several to go. Yesterday I did the remaining three potentilla and a massive trimming of the old fashioned roses surrounding the statue. I knew the biggest challenge would be getting the cuttings home. I cut and bent everything to get it into bags. By putting one bag into the car instead of the trunk, and by bundling and bending the last set of branches, I managed to cram it all in. I finished clean-up just as it was getting to ark to work. The rest of the spirea can wait until spring.

In the midst of pruning, I found a plastic Easter egg. It just so happens that I was responsible for that egg's being there. About 15 years ago, we had a homeschool Easter party at St. John Cantius. I had stuffed the eggs, and asked the youth group to hide them for the younger kids. Finding the egg gave me a much needed laugh. I have to admit that anyone seeing me kneeling on the ground in the middle of the flower bed laughing to myself probably thought I was loony, but that laugh was a blessing at a time of great stress.

I finished two Laura Childs tea shop mysteries, and enjoyed them both. Clean, and easy to read. I copied quite a few recipes out of them. I have already tested two. They are both keepers. Prior to that I had read a Miss Seeton by Heron Carvic, which I did not like at all. The dialog style drove me nuts. It was much too busy.

I am making some inroads into my UFO's. I finished a sun dress for Maja, which she has insisted on wearing a few times already. I am over half way done with my wool turkey candle mat, which I had purchased at a quilt show three or four years ago. It was supposed to have been a gift, but I decided the the person for whom it was intended did not really need it, and may not appreciate it. The lycra knit in the beautiful fall pallet which I had had pegged for myself was not large enough for the desired dresses. One piece is now cut out for a dress for Maja. The other will also be used for her. I do a few rows on my shawl here and there, but still have more than half of the last skein of yarn left.

I have started playing my clarinet again. It will take some time to remember all of the notes that I have lost, but I want to be ready for when the grandchildren join band so that we can play together. Tom Strang, our former band instructor, has invited me to play with the current homeschool band. I think I will do that.