Brrrrrr! It's cold!

I woke up this morning to find a significant change in temperature here. According to the weatherman it's -19 degrees C with a windchill of -25. For those of you who live in the US, that's -3 degrees F with a windchill of -13 F!! All I know is that it's cold! Every year it always shocks me the first time the temperature dips below zero. Eventually I get accustomed to it (maybe not!!) and just keep adding all the extra layers of clothes, scarves, etc. Which reminds me, I guess I better go looking for those sweaters I brought up from storage!

Last night was my staff Christmas party. It's been 5 yrs since I've been able to go. They always have it on a Friday night and for the last 5 yrs, Bob's choir has had a concert on the same date. This year however, the choir changed their concert from a Friday night to a Sunday afternoon so that freed things up for us to go. It was a nice evening, good meal and great music ( in my opinion, since Bob's a fan of classical!) but we didn't stay too late because the roads were icy and we both have a full weekend ahead of us. It had been windy all day which was causing some of the snow to drift from the fields across the road. Combine that with the temperatures dropping and the roads suddenly get like glass. It took us about an hour and a bit to get home where it usually takes about 40 min.

This morning I was looking forward to sleeping in a little but was wide awake by 7. I've got some Christmas shopping I want to get done this morning and then it's off to Ottawa with Bob for a choir rehearsal for Sunday's concert. I also hope to sneak in a visit with my youngest son while Bob heads off to play a Saturday night mass. If I'm not too tired tonight when we return I'd like to finish off the Baby Spots cube. I got started on it last week but didn't have quite enough material to wrap around the cube to finish it off. I picked up more material this week along with some ribbon so I'd really like to get to that if possible. Sunday will be a washout for stitching too since we have our church service in Ottawa in the morning followed by the concert in the afternoon and a reception immediately after it. Next weekend is just a repeat of this one only with a different choir! Being married to a church musician and singing with him means that the whole month of December is pretty much tied up this way. If we're not performing in a concert then we're attending one since the music community supports each other. I love it since there's nothing I love more than Christmas music!

I did get some more stitching done on my CdC though. I've chosen to stitch this one on Tuesday evenings. Recently they put me on the early shift at work which means I'm home now by 4:00pm. Since my DH stays overnight in Ottawa each Tuesday, I don't have to prepare a meal and can devote about 6 hrs of stitching on my CdC. Here's a pic of my progress so far. It won't be long before I'm finished my first page and on to the next!

I've been catching up on my blog reading and admiring all the lovely decorating that so many of you are doing to prepare your homes for the Christmas season. It's really beautiful and I don't know where you all find the time to do it! Usually I don't get started on my decorating until around the 15th which is my son Daniel's birthday. I always tried to have most things done by then. We don't put up our tree though until around the last week before Christmas since we always get a real one and it stays up until Epiphany just after New Year. Our outdoor Christmas lights go on this Sunday, the first Sunday in Advent. I managed to get them put out during that week in November that I was off work. The weather was fairly mild then and no snow.

The mailman brought me a couple of parcels I've been waiting for this week. Inside were some new charts which I've patiently been waiting for. Two of the charts are LHN - Snowflake and Acorn Hill. As well I received Mirabilia's Donner and Just Nan's Scream Girls. I'd love to start Snowflake in the very near future. I'm currently working on a Christmas ornament by Lynn's Prints of which I'll have a picture for my next post.

Thanks to all of you for sharing in the joy of our granddaughter's blessed news. Stitchers truly are a caring community! Have a super weekend!!
( I can't believe it but I'm only able to post this now at 11:00pm since my internet's been down all day!)