Last Exchange Has Arrived!

 Exchange from Shannon

About a week ago my last exchange arrived in the post, it took awhile to get here.  As all good Canadians know the minute any mail hits our border it comes off of the plane/truck and immediately goes onto dog sled.  At that time we didn't have much snow, and that really slows the poor dogs down!  The dogs did us proud, and Shannon's exchange arrived before Christmas!  She sent me this adorable gingerbread man ornament and fabulous goodies!

Zeus is playing with the candy cane on the bed

 Zeus managed to abscond with the plastic candy cane tree ornament.  I have since removed the string, she seems to like to play with it!  Who am I not to indulge my... I mean Todd's cat (I've been joking that she's his Christmas gift this year since she clearly adores her!).

This is what the roads looked like at the intersection in my Little Village

(that's one of two churches in my Little Village)

Oh my goodness!  What a couple of days its been!!!  In the last two weeks of school leading up to the Christmas break we've had three yes THREE snow days!  Sadly snow days don't mean that I get to stay home too.  As school board employees we are supposed to do our best to make it into our school, if not report to the nearest school.  For me, that's the school I work at.  The first two snow days I made it into the school with little trouble.  This Friday, was not the case we had a lot of snow... and I mean A LOT!  I'm not afraid to drive in the snow, or bad weather... to a point.  Well for the first time in many, many, many years the road conditions forced me to turn around!  The highway I travel was not only snow covered (I can deal with that) but beneath that was pitted ice, it was worse than driving on a poorly maintained dirt road!  In my wee car it was a little scary.  To even drive down to the next exit, turn around and come back home took me over 30 minutes!  My drive from my house to work is normally about 20!!  I'm ashamed to say I missed the last day at work before the holidays... I make it in most snow days when other people don't.

Our long driveway after we cleared it for the 4th time today!

The snow started during the night on Thursday, went all day Friday and into the night.  Todd was a sweetie and got up super early to clear the driveway for me so I could try to go to work on Friday.  To keep up the accumulation of snow, we shoveled THREE times that day!  Once was Todd on his own, the second time I helped, and the third time I did it on my own (took over 2 hours).    After that we gave up, decided we didn't need to get out and decided to clear it out for the fourth time today.  Of course we woke up to light snow... again.  Todd was not impressed he was outside for HOURS and I even went out and helped him for about 80 minutes.  I think we're going to have to do a little more shoveling tomorrow, Christmas Eve so that the family can come over.  All said and done, we received about 44 cm of snow!  That's longer that your kid's school ruler (standard 30 cm)!  Not only did we have to deal with snow, but our power flickered several times on Friday morning and went out for a few hours while I was shoveling the drive.

The Accolade pages 1-4

I did make good use of the day, despite spending a couple of hours shoveling wet, heavy snow I did manage to stitch as well.  I finished up page FOUR on The Accolade (not a HEAD by the way)!  So that's 4/12 pages done and I've made a wee start on page 5 yesterday.

Snowflake 1 Freebie

c2011 Kell Smurthwaite

Stitched on 28ct Antique White Jubilee

Stitched with Carrie's Creations Blue Dreams

I've decided to slow down on The Accolade for a little while and work on a few "other things".  What those other things are, I don't know.  I will still continue to do a 10x10 block on The Accolade each day if I can, but I won't be working on it for hours at a time like I have for the last month and a half.  Yesterday this freebie took my fancy.  I did the finishing on it today, I whip stitched it together adding beads every other stitch.

So I am now off of work for TWO WEEKS!  I intend to spend a lot of it, on my behind stitching!  There will be a few visits with friends, lunches out, and maybe a movie or two.  Right now I just want to stitch!