Hide and Seek

Do you ever "hide" things from yourself? I do it all the time. Not intentionally. And I don't enjoy the seeking. Yesterday, I hid at least 2 things from myself. I didn't lose them. To me, that implies that they are irretrievable, like dropping your berth key into the Caribbean when on a cruise, or washing a receipt in your jeans pocket, or say, whatever happens to pens and pencils around here. No, I know that I merely misplace items. You see, I'm always tucking things somewhere for safe-keeping. I could give you a list of things that are very safe, some of them have been for years. This is enabled and exacerbated by being a pack-rat and clutter-bunny. I am agonizingly aware that if everything had a place and was in it, then one thing out of place (mis-placed) would be glaringly obvious. Sigh. So, yesterday, I hurry-scurried to get my camera out of its case to get a picture of the cardinal at the feeder, and I haven't seen the case since. I was at work and my desk is relatively neat and un-cluttered, and there is only a limited area that I move about in, so go figure. I bet I spent 10 minutes, retracing my steps and searching, searching, to no avail. But I'm sure it'll turn up.............won't it?
The more exasperating loss.....er.....misplacement (I know, not a word, really) happened last night as I wanted to get started on my craft embroidery project and photo my progress and make a glorious and impressive post. I can't find the kit! Now mind you, I photographed the kit Tuesday night, so I have had it at hand recently. Last night, I looked everywhere. Well, obviously not everywhere. Just everywhere except the "mis"place. I'm feeling quite incompetent and frustrated. It is early Saturday morning as I write this, and I am hoping that the new daylight will bring a fresh perspective, and I'll find my kit. (Yes I know this post will say Friday. That's because I uploaded the pictures last night, but was too peeved and exhausted to write, so I saved as a draft.)
In the meantime, I'll show you what I have photographed already, though it's not much, certainly no doing.
So here is the cardinal whose picture I captured. Look, bare ground! We lost most of our snow cover to rain early in the week. You can still see a bit of a snow bank where the plow cleared the parking lot. Here is the gorgeous kit from Posie (Alicia Paulson). My heroine. I couldn't get started until I'd been to Michael's where I got some polyester batting. (Sorry, Alicia. She calls for wool or cotton, being no doubt a natural fiber purist. I'm not so much, but aspire to it, I suppose....) Oh, and also, an iron-on transfer pencil, which I've never used before, and was rather looking forward to. (If I could only find the darn kit!)
And so, in the absence of a beautiful crafting/stitching post, I will use birds, birdfeeder, and filling feeder as filler. These pictures were taken January 8, and saved for such a time as this.

Not a great pic of a cardinal, because of the tree behind it and the gathering darkness of a winter afternoon. Now you know why I was trying to get a better pic yesterday.

I've been calling these little birds sparrows, but a visitor to the office yesterday told me they are finches.
Here is where I keep the birdseed, just inside the front door at the office. That's my green pea coat. (Not a London Fog). I crack myself up.

Et voila!Happy finches!

Me? Not so much. Really want to find my camera case and embroidery kit.

Next: 'Nittin' notes update.......

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

I wanted to post these birdfeeder pictures yesterday, but didn't get to it. You all know this is a blue jay, I'm sure.

There were at least 4 jays by the feeder just then and one chased off a beautiful male cardinal before I could get a picture. I never got to see if he had his lady with him. There's a goal for me this winter. A pic of a cardinal (or even a pair!) in the snow. Do you see the jay in the snow below the feeder?
That tiny little thing on the left side of the feeder is a black-capped chickadee, the state bird of Maine. They were plentiful and hard to photograph, as they flit about so much.And here's an even harder-to-identify bird due to inadequate photographing, but down on the ground is a junco. There were titmice too, but they were mainly flitting about and coming right up to my kitchen window, didn't get a pic this time.

A couple more neighborhood houses seen on my snowy walk with Jeff. Liked the sculpted drift on this roof. As we get closer to the ocean, there are fewer pines to protect from the wind, and it really seemed to be whipping around, there was even less snow, and it's only about a quarter of a mile from our place.

Back to our place, and I wanted to show you this overgrown evergreen at the corner of the house...

You can't tell it 'til at least dusk, but it's.......................

strung with lights, and a star on top.