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Apologies to my bloggy-buddies who got comments that should have been done yesterday way late. We had a nasty power failure yesterday due to some seriously abnormal winds … our power didn’t come back on until about 3:30 am. Yes, I was still up. I was trying to keep my poor fish from having too many problems with no water circulation. By the time I got all the tanks running again it was well past 4:00 and I didn’t get to bed until almost 6:00. Me thinks work is going to suck big-time today! 😦
Poor hubby got awakened at 2:30 after I’d called Edison because their website hadn’t been updated since 7:00 pm (thank the gods my phone can do the ‘net!) and they told me we were looking at having the power out until 11:00 pm Thursday! Need I say I was beside myself? Based on that info, we were going to head to Home Depot when they opened at 5 to get a small generator to keep the fridge going and run enough equipment to keep the poor fish alive. I think we’re still going to get a portable generator to have on hand for the future (we do live in earthquake country ya know) but at least we now have some time to do a little research first.
It will probably take me a couple of days to get caught up on the blogs (y’all were pretty chatty yesterday) but I’ll get there eventually!
Back in May, when we were at the Ren Faire, Darling Daughter and I saw some headpieces that we really liked. They were done with artificial leaves and flowers and lots of ribbon. Some had feathers too. But they were a bit pricey and I decided that I could probably create some on my own.
I decided I wanted to do one for each season and bought a ton of artificial leaves, flowers, ribbons, feathers, butterflies, birds, and other baubles. I was hoping to get all four done before posting, but it’s taking forever to even get to them! I had finished the fall piece a couple of months ago but couldn’t find the time to get the others done. A few weeks ago I strained the tendon across my right ankle and took a couple of days off work to let it heal a bit and actually had a little time to do my winter piece as well as copy both the fall and winter for Darling Daughter.
Anyway … I thought I’d post some pictures of what I’ve done so far. I’ll post the spring and summer pieces when I get them done.
This is the Fall headpiece I came up with. The ribbons in the back are partly for decoration, but one set allows the piece to be adjustable.
My crappy pics don’t do this justice … it’s really quite stunning in person. I love the black feathers against the fall colored leaves.
And here is the Winter headpiece. Darling Daughter specifically asked that I include poinsettias and pine cones so this one was bit of a collaborative effort.
You can’t really see them in these shots, but there are three tiny candy cane ornaments and four sets of small gold bells held on with ribbons around this piece.
I also decided to make some small wreaths since I had some of the smallish grapevine wreaths on hand. I’ve got that Eater Egg wreath I did a couple of years ago and I recently got a stand to hang it on. Since I decorate my dining room table at the beginning of each season, I thought little wreaths would be a nice addition to that.
Here’s the Fall Wreath:
And the Winter wreath:
This one is currently on my table amongst the candles, pine cones, and sets of Santa and Mrs. Claus. At least I’ve gotten that done. I also got my floral baskets done and the tree is mostly finished … still need to do my mantle. If I’m lucky, I’ll have time to do that later today. For now, it’s long past time to head to bed.
© Copyright dragonfae 2011
youngamericanwisdom.com said:
Hey, I heard about those winds on the news this morning. I hope they slow down a bit for you.
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dragonfae said:
Thanks Nancy. Things have calmed down in my area considerably … but the winds are supposed to continue through Friday. After seeing some of the horrendous damage that’s been done in other areas, and finding out that almost 300,000 homes are still without power, I’m definitely counting my blessings tonight. 😉
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tjfox said:
I didn’t think about why you’d lost power, just that you had. Pretty incredible that it was because of wind! I’m glad it is all back up and running or I would have had to call and check on you today if I hadn’t heard (or seen) from you for too long. 😉
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dragonfae said:
It was pretty insane. Even so, I didn’t realize just how bad it was until I saw the news late this morning. What’s really “interesting” is that hubby got (and actually listened to) one of those cosmic clue-by-fours last weekend and did some serious tree trimming on the 4 trees that are next to the house while he was putting up my Christmas lights. Really glad he did that when he did. 🙂
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John Erickson said:
No need for apologies – without power, I’d have nothing that couldn’t run off 12 volts (we use wi-fi to hit the Net).
Get yourself some cheap kerosene lanterns from Wal-Mart, plus a quart of ultra-pure lamp oil. They put out both light AND heat, great for the winter! 😀
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dragonfae said:
LOL … well, I had nearly every candle in the house lit (I use candle (unlit) as decorations) and we could have easily read had we wanted to. And they warm the house too … almost too much! 😉
I have some small lamps with oil as well but didn’t need them. Then there are the battery operated camping lanterns … I’ve got 5 of those suckers that go with us to Shasta. Every winter we have at least one power outage up there.
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AnnMarie Evetts said:
So, how did the fish make out? That was like the second thing I thought of this mornong when I saw you were without power out there.
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dragonfae said:
I didn’t get a head count until I fed them this evening but it looks like everyone is OK and none the worse for wear. I was mostly concerned about the discus tanks because they are so warm … warmer water means less oxygen. The discus would probably be OK with that but the smaller fish don’t fare too well with it.
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chlost said:
Amazing that mother nature can bring us to our knees in just a matter of hours. Glad that you were able to save the fish. Now go get some sleep!
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dragonfae said:
Yes ma’am! *salutes* 😆
Actually, I had to go to work today so I decided I’m taking tomorrow off to nap … the pup won’t let me sleep really late. For some reason she’s insistent upon being fed in the morning.
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ryoko861 said:
Ugh, don’t you hate power outages?! You’re a good fish owner! I’m sure they appreciate your efforts! The only time I like wind is when I’m sailing. Other than that it scares the shit out of me!
Yes, get a generator!
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dragonfae said:
Yeah, wind is good for sailing … pretty scary yesterday though. When I checked the weather stats for last night they were showing gusts at LAX (a few blocks north of me) of almost 50 mph! The winds were higher in other areas and tonight at least 3 cities have declared a state of emergency.
And yes, we’ve found a generator and I’ll be ordering it no later than tomorrow. As bad as things are nearby, I doubt I’d find one in any store within 100 miles if here.
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Kathryn McCullough said:
Having lived in Haiti for a year, I can relate to your struggle of being without power. I don’t think we ever had it for for than 8-12 hours a day. We had to have a generator and lots of diesel fuel. Go to Home Depot soon, my friend.
(By the way, I have added you to my blogroll.)
Kathy
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dragonfae said:
God bless you dear, I don’t think I could have dealt with that! Yep, I’ll be getting a generator here real soon … going to order one online at Home Depot tonight or tomorrow now that hubby and I have figured out which one is best suited for us (and our bank account!).
Thanks for the add to your blogroll! *smooches*
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savorthefolly said:
bleck. what a headache!
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dragonfae said:
No shit! But for all my whining we sure got off light. No damage, the power is back on, the fish are happy, no food spoiled, and I can get online. We’re counting our blessings tonight … some of the hardest hit areas may not have power for another 3 days. Yikes!
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afrankangle said:
Saw the big winds on yesterday’s news … wow … and not even from politicians! Dang I don’t see any stories about your winds from The Onion.
BTW – having a generator around is very useful! … and happy to hear your power didn’t stay out long. We’ve done 4-days without 3-4 times. No fun.
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dragonfae said:
And you’d think with all the loser political types here in California we’d be used to stuff blowing around, right? 😆
I’ve thought many times that we should have a generator “just in case” … we could potentially be without power for days if there were a large earthquake close enough to us. I think that since we’ve never had to deal with more than a few hours without power though (and I didn’t have 5 fish tanks back then) I never really considered it more than the random passing thought.
After this though, hubby and I are both agreed that we do need one to be completely self-sufficient in the event of a long term emergency situation. We’ve got a weeks worth of freeze dried food and water and tons of medical supplies in the earthquake kit and have kept all the camping gear even though we don’t camp anymore, so adding a generator (I think) will have us in a decent spot should a true need arise.
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aFrankAngle said:
We came up with a way to never have another power outage – we recently purchased a large generator to run most of the house and kicks on automatically when the power goes out.
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dragonfae said:
Wow … those things are expensive! If you’re in an area prone to long outages though, I can certainly see where it makes sense.
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Robin said:
I saw reports about the winds on the news. I’m so glad everything turned out okay. 🙂
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dragonfae said:
Thanks Robin. It worked out good for us at least. It’s been 6 days now and as of this morning there were still 10,000 homes without electricity. Granted, that’s better than the near 300,000 homes without power the next day, but geeze.
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Dana said:
Wow– glad to hear that you’re OK and that your household is with power again! Wind storms are very common in our area, too, and it’s never fun to be without power (or the internet… there, I said it!!) 🙂
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dragonfae said:
LOL Thanks Dana. I had access (we still have a hardline phone and modem) but nothing to recharge the laptop batteries so I was mostly without. I’m still way behind on the blogs. sigh
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