Greg Arrives! - And Wintery Scenes

 This post is an assembly of some busy weeks!

It has been lovely here, and my Gregory has finally arrived for good!

But before he arrived, I went exploring some more . . . 

First, York Park!  It's a 15-minute walk from our rental house.

It was a chilly, yet sunny afternoon.  The sun was kind of already going down.  This time of year, it starts to get dark around 3:30 pm!

There's a stream behind the park that reflects the trees.

The little forest was quiet except for some ducks and squirrels.

I love twisty roots!

The stream had beautiful ice shards in it that looked like filaments or a tiara!

I was completely shocked by the ice!  At first when I walked up to the stream, I thought the ice was garbage and wondered who threw it in there.  But it put itself there and it's beautiful artwork!

Look at the texture!

Guess it's time for the flannel sheets!

Don't worry; we have plenty of nice cozy fuzzy blankies!

And quite a few kitties to snuggle!

I also took a walk at Rosland Park again.

The oak trees are glorious.

The cattails were releasing their fuzzy seeds.

The pond was icing up on the surface.

I love my beanies!

Around the corner at the park is a nature trail that goes around the lake.

This little wooden bridge goes over a peaceful marsh.

The trail then leads through a forest.

In the middle of the woods, I found a little hut made out of sticks!  I hope no one actually lives there, at this time of year especially.

This lake was icing up, too.

If you lost your glove, it might be on a stick waiting for you!

I didn't blog here yet about Thanksgiving!

It was pretty relaxing.

I went to my parents' house to celebrate.  My brother and his family were scheduled to spend the day with his wife Jillian's extended family this year, so my parents and I had a nice quiet holiday.

The beautiful city of Minneapolis (it has a special place in my heart because I went to college in Minneapolis and met the love of my life there!)

We were happy to be together.

Wild-rice cranberry stuffed peppers

Shepherd's pie with cranberry sauce

Cashew cheese with crackers and fresh veggies

Happy vegan Thanksgiving!

I also made molasses cookies.  I don't really like pumpkin, so I don't bother making baked goods with pumpkin, even though it's festive.

The shepherd's pie was a newish recipe and 2/3 times I've tried it, it hasn't turned out.  That ONE TIME, though, was SO GOOD that I tried again and again.  I think I'm giving up now and going back to my old self-created recipe.

This batch of cashew cheese turned out perfectly right away without me having to tweak the spices or add additional lemon juice.  It was just right!  In fact, it was good enough that I need to make a new batch soon.

This was a recipe adapted from a wild-rice stuffed squash recipe (I'm not a fan of squash).  The filling was a bit . . . something.  I'm not sure.  I like my regular filling better (veggies and short-grain brown rice).  But it was fun to do something a bit more holiday-ish for a special day!  And definitely all of them got eaten.

The cats were glad when I finally got home again.

I was getting VERY excited for Greg to arrive.  I was sad that we didn't get to have Thanksgiving together, but his good friend Joe invited Greg over to celebrate with his family, so at least Greg wasn't alone!

The cats missed him, too.  Allistair howled and howled and they were extra demanding of my time and attention.  It's nice that I had extra time and attention to give!

The squirrels have been eating the pumpkins left over from Halloween, and the cats have been enjoying watching them!

This is my favorite view for reading, thinking, and working.  I can look out the big windows at the front of the house, I can see light from the windows in the kitchen, and I can enjoy the Christmas tree and Christmas wreath.  We don't have a lot of storage space and we are still a bit disorganized, so the kitchen table area is messy, but I try not to look TOO hard at anything.  

Oh!  I LOVE layering outfits, and one of my favorite things is a patterned blouse peeking out from under a textured sweater. Here are a couple of examples that I happened to create with the same blouse:

Look at Claude's little tongue poking out!

Here's our friendly squirrel happily eating our pumpkin!

Allistar is watching . . . 

But sometimes sleep is the best thing.

And sometimes snuggles with Momma is the best BEST option!

The clean laundry basket is good, too!

Stephen is comfiest when he's drooping.

Camel:

The night Greg left for Minnesota, my friend Nicole came over to hang out!  I haven't seen her for years, but she's always been special to me.  We were best friends in junior high and high school and we were in each other's weddings.  It was good to see her and catch up a bit!  I look forward to more gab fests in the near future!

And then FINALLY, Greg arrived in Minnesota with Clarabelle (my Nissan Kicks!)  It took him 3 days to drive here, and house selling paperwork needed to be signed during those days, but happily there are digital signature options now!

He brought a bunch of stuff with him and it messed things up for awhile.

But we were definitely HAPPY!  Even though Allistair doesn't look it.

Stephen was a bit wary at first.

I wanted to show Greg all the pretty places I've explored, so we went first to the creek at York Park.

We learned that these weird bump-outs are there to prevent cars from using the parking lanes as driving lanes.  Apparently drivers were crashing into parked cars because they were driving along in the parking lanes!

Look at these magnificent fungi!

And look at this magnificent fun-guy! Ha ha ha

He does love to make silly faces in photos.

The stream was beautiful, of course!

And even though the weather had warmed up a bit, there was still ice!

We saw a red-headed woodpecker!

Claude watching a fluffy squirrel friend:

Which reminds me, look whom Greg met on a walk to the optometrist!

Back at home, the couch is like a boat . . . we all pile on and enjoy the view.

Claude in a chair tent:

While eating sliced cucumbers left from Thanksgiving, I noticed that each one had an ice disc on top - how cool!  Guess my fridge was a bit too chilly. 

Stephen with his cute pink tongue poking out.

By the way, I'm starting to get a bit tense about living in less than organized surroundings.  I like a tidy organized house, and this rental house is not going to be that.  We're not planning to unbox things, we're not planning to fill up bookcases or shelves, we're pretty much living as minimally as possible because we'll be moving again soon.  But it is irritating and it will be LOTS OF FUN to get into our permahouse and finally open all our boxes and get things organized.  It will be like another Christmas!

Greg and I went out for another walk on Saturday.  Poor Greg has no body fat and hasn't had the time to get appropriate winter gear, so he was really really cold and unhappy about being outside.  We didn't stay long.  And don't worry; in the meantime Greg has gotten a new coat, new hat, new gloves, new scarf, new boots . . . he's pretty much set now!  Winter is definitely another line item in the budget!

Here we are in the woods:

Here we are in front of the marsh:

Here's the most wonderful picture of all - I timed my blink just right!

And here we are by the pier!

Back at home again, we were not the only chilly ones! 
Allistair hiding in a chair fort:

I have been happily getting Christmas gifts sorted out, and I bought some new gift bags this year in a cute black and white.  My normal ones from over the past couple of years are in blue and gold, but they are still in transit.  I don't like the waste of regular wrapping paper (though it can sure look pretty!) and I don't enjoy wrapping presents, either, so reusable fabric bags have brought me a lot of joy.

We went to an Advent kickoff service at church, and it was funny and enjoyable.  We met some new people and had a good time chatting and getting to know them.

Stephen hasn't been interested in the Christmas tree, but he has been keeping an eye on the squirrels!

As usual, there has been snuggling and reading.

It's not sunny here as often as it was sunny in Arizona, but when the sun does shine, the cats soak it up!

My niece Cora's 9th birthday was this past week, and we went over to celebrate with her.

I decided to try out my new cookie decorating press!

It definitely wasn't easy and the cookies looked like a 3-year-old wrote the letters.

But I'll keep trying!  Maybe someday I can make frosting roses and leaves like a pro.

My car Clarabelle got a service and she was amazed that the cars drive right into a huge garage where the service managers have their desks!  In Arizona, there's a big covered patio outside where the cars drive in, but the desks are all inside.

We had some pretty blue skies and chilly weather! 

Plus a sprinkling of snow.

In reasonable weather in Arizona, we'd often go for a walk after dinner.  The other evening after dinner, I forgot we were in Minnesota and asked Greg if he wanted to go for a walk.  He said, "Sure!" We bundled up and off we went!  We just waddled around the block and it was fun.

Though Greg's face says otherwise.

Even though I'm still new to the children's ministry at our new church, they still gave me a Christmas gift - a mask!  I needed more masks, too.  Somehow I lost some in the move and one broke, so I only have two that I've been rotating. This one is great and it's my favorite color - blue!

We got more snow - and I suspect there's even more on the way!

I know I'll probably get used to it, but snow is magical and I love it.

Snow reflects light into the house even when it's not sunny.

I am thrilled that we have these HUGE windows in the front of the house.  I spend all the time I can here by these windows.  Light is a bit deal for me.

The cats are here most of the time, too.

I also love this potato!

Clearly it loves me back.

So far, I have even enjoyed shoveling the snow.
I realize that I have the privilege of not being pressed for time most days because I don't need to go out of the house early in the morning.

Shovel with me!

Yesterday, the sun rose looking dim and strange.  It turns out that it was a foggy day!

I went out early because I had a cardiology appointment.

My Dad's heart valve defect is potentially heritable, so it was recommended that his children get tested to make sure we don't have it, too.  I really liked the cardiologist I found, and she was enthusiastic about my plant-based diet and movement patterns.  Also, my blood pressure has continued to go down - it was 110/74 - yay!  She told me that I'm doing everything possible to never need a cardiologist (assuming I don't have a defect), and that I'm on track to live forever!  It's nice to get positive feedback about my hard work.  

The stress echocardiogram was yesterday morning.
I got hooked up to 10 electrodes, had an echocardiogram (an ultrasound of the heart), walked on the treadmill (which got progressively steeper and faster!), and then had another echocardiogram scan.  It was very interesting.  I knew my heart rate tended high, but I was surprised to see it on the monitor.  My heart rate rarely went below 80 (normal is 60-80) and it was often above 100.  This is a bit concerning to me, so I look forward to finding out if there is any reason for that.

The techs didn't seem to see anything surprising, but they wouldn't be able to say anything if they did.  The cardiologist will follow up with me soon.

When I left the office, I was amazed at my surroundings because the fog had lifted and all the plants looked as if they had been dipped in sparkling sugar!

Rabbit footprints:

The snow pile in the parking lot had already started to accumulate!

And the cars are getting iciles!

Greg carefully brought some of my beloved totem pole cactus babies up here with him . . . I planted them and hope some of them survive!