Right now I should be drinking wine, eating delicious homemade pumpkin ravioli, and enjoying a lot of warmth and laughter with some of my best friends.

Instead, I am sitting in my pajamas drinking coffee and looking forward to next week, when our annual holiday book club meeting will take place due to today’s ice storm.

We are well and truly iced in here.  And by “here” I mean our property, not necessarily the house, because we have to go outside and care for the flock, ice or no.

It’s miserable out there.  The gates were iced over and stuck shut.  The slope down to the pasture was all iced over.  The outer pen where Lucy and Orzo currently live is all slushed mud and poo. The pig pen is nearly solid ice.  So is the back deck, though Cini has been hanging out there anyway.

So yeah, feeding was tons of fun, with all that cold, wet wool pressed up against my legs, and jerk-face Jerry trying to knock the bucket out of my hands.

The good news is that the tank de-icer is working beautifully! The water tanks are nice and full and liquid.

In between feedings we all huddled around the fireplace for a bit and I got some actual sewing done.

New pajama pants for me in a lovely flannel I bought last year. I also reconfigured the serger so I could put a rolled edge on some holiday fabric squares to make napkins.

There’s a zillion other things I’d really like to get done.  Like my Shepherd sweater, or some new Christmas pillows for the couch.

I also wouldn’t mind getting started on some cookie baking.  Or knitting some socks with some of the yarn I’ve been dyeing.

These are the holiday colorways I came up with. It’s been fun messing around with color and learning how the chemicals work, but alas, the whole caboodle of supplies has been boxed up and is on its way to Lauria so she can finish up the JMF Sock Club yarn.  However, I’ll be playing with it some more in the near future and helping Susan and Lauria with it next year once I’m a little more confident.

BUT rather than all of those super fun and creative things, I am going to make dinner for everyone.

No rest for the weary, as they say.