Eventful Day

Yesterday my aunt Char, Dave and I made tamales! We made pork with red chile, pork with no chile, squash with green chile and cheese, squash with no chile and cheese, and bean with red chile and cheese tamales. Last year it was just my aunt and I making tamales and it was a long long day. This year we streamlined the operation by adding a third person and buying a tamale masa spreader. We also tried a new method of cooking the tamales and that shaved a few hours (!) off the cooking time. I have pictures, of course, but they are on Dave's camera (and getting Dave to get the pictures off his camera takes only slightly less effort than digging a tree stump out of the yard).

Anyway, that was Sunday. Today was also an eventful day.



Yes, that is the plumber, come to fix the sink. I was doing dishes this afternoon when the kitchen sink started to back up. Then the toilet started to gurgle. Then the bathroom sink started to back up. Then I called Kelly and she called the plumber and an hour later I was host to one then two plumbers who snaked all the drains, unseated the toilet, and finally took care of the problem. But it took just long enough that unfortunately I did not get a shower before work. I did, however, get a text message from the other teacher telling me that she didn't feel well and wouldn't be coming in.

Luckily, there was this:



Snow! I say it was lucky it snowed because three of the four students scheduled for class cancelled. That left me with four students, a husband and wife celebrating their ninth anniversary (year nine is pottery--who knew?) and a sixteen-year-old girl and her older sister. It was a fun class anyway.

You can see, too, our new patio wall! Isn't it a beaut? It's very tall and the patio without all the boxes of books and plants and pottery is very echo-y, but come spring, it'll be full of plants.

It's winter proper though, isn't it?