A New Direction

We have been searching far and wide......as far south as Kenosha (closer to Indiana), up the coast to Sheboygan (love Kohler-Andrae State Park), northwest to Baraboo (breathtakingly beautiful), but one area keeps holding the promise of good paying jobs....Appleton. We have been to Appleton 3 times, counting today. We wanted to drive by two of the companies hubby has applied to for work. He has a phone interview Monday with one. The other he just applied to this morning, for work very similar to what he was doing at Helgesen. 

Appleton is on the north end of Lake Winnebago and the Fox River runs through town. Appleton has every available shopping one might need, and parks everywhere, and excellent healthcare. Between Appleton and the lake is a cute community that we have gravitated to each time we have visited, Neenah, Wisconsin. We wanted to move there before, but a steady job here in Hartford prevented that. Now......??

I will certainly update here if something is promising. I am actually looking forward to packing. So many adventures up there, and Door County is about an hour northeast. SO much more nature to explore that we haven't explored yet. More north...more cold? Cold is cold. Throw on warmer clothes. It's more north, more of a chance to see the northern lights. And there are apartments for rent, reasonable.

Here are some pictures of Doty park. It's beautiful in the snow or frost (none of which we had today, only bitter cold)

I have Hope again

Long Loom Struggles

 I can't tell you how many times I started over again trying to figure out how to turn around and go the other direction! I joined a Facebook group for help. Turns out I'm not the only one struggling with this. Before I continue, let me explain. Many people suggested videos on YouTube but each one I watched showed a completely different way to wrap, or cast on, I think it's called. I mean, really different, and fast.....everyone goes too fast. Finally some one posted a link to a video with step by step instructions. I'm going to link it below so I can actually find it again. First, here is a picture of where I got stuck.

My finger is pointing to the peg that has only one wrap.

Here is the cast-on. I'm not using the full loom.

This is the yarn. I learned that medium weight should be doubled, and I could have used the chunkier kind instead.

Here is the video:

In other news, we didn't take a walk. We might today. It's colder and snowing slightly but we know the Chickadees at Harrington Beach are hungry. The last time we walked there we were met by a chattering flock of about a dozen, but we had forgotten seed. Thankfully other people feed them as well.

And lastly, we had gone shopping and I saw a mortar and pestle like the one my mom had. Well, hers was wood and this one is bamboo, but almost the same. It gave me warm and fuzzy feels and was only $7.99, so it came home with me.

Have a great day!

5 PM EDIT.....it was COLD. We were bundled up so much that if one of us fell we would have bounced. We only took a short walk and left a pile of seeds on two picnic tables. No wildlife was around, probably all hiding in the holes in the trees. The wind was icy. We decided to head home.

Wish It Was a Happier New Year

 Don't get me wrong, I was so happy to visit my daughter in Indiana and she and her family were happy to see us. We exchanged gifts. We were gifted some laser-cut ornaments my son-in-law designed and cut at work on the plasma laser. We also stopped by the cemetery to lay flowers on my former hubby's grave and my younger daughter's grave. We drove down on Saturday morning and returned Monday morning, December 30th. Hubby worked Monday night and now is off for a few days until January 6th. We took a walk yesterday and plan to walk again today and every day that we can, bundled up.

Yesterday we stopped by Hobby Lobby and bought some yarn and a loom pick tool for the long loom I was gifted. I bought an artificial fern for my desk. I don't normally like plastic plants, but it looks real and I can't grow ferns.

My desk fern

Last night hubby and I talked, a much needed talk. I know he is grieving the loss of his beloved father. When he is sad, I feel it. too, like our energy reflects on each other. He is also still looking for a job. I was confused, I thought everything was ok. Apparently not. He didn't tell me they back-pedaled on the "good news" they previously gave him. 

I wish I could say I was confident in our future. I feel unsettled with the thought of leaving this apartment. rent is too darn high everywhere. I have plants. They need windows. I have been blessed with three windows here in this apartment. Three windows are rare as hen's teeth in apartments. I have been paring down my collection and going through boxes of stuff, sort of "pre-packing". I'm not sure how confident I am in hubby finding a good job. He is concerned as well. There are some well paying jobs over an hour away. Typically companies don't hire people that far away. We would need to move. 

Thankfully today is sunny. We are going for a walk later. I'm leaving today's blog at that, will write more later.