Scent Diary, Jan. 2 – 8, 2012

Montane Birch Forests in Torkilstoten (winter), by ArildV, from Wikimedia Commons

Monday, Jan. 2: Back to school! I managed to stifle my evil laughter as I dropped off the slaves (children) at school today. We put away the rest of the Christmas decorations, and I worked on a post or two. It is very cold and windy, with a high temperature of 30F, wind chill making it feel like 22F. Brrrrr. I did go get the boys from the bus stop, which is half a mile from the house. Hope the track team is running inside today.

No single SOTD today – I’m testing several things, including By Kilian Love (don’t be shy), DSH Marzipan, and a few other things I can’t remember now. Oh, yes – Amouage Honour Woman and SL Fourreau Noir.

We’ve had snow, starting at about 5pm and going through the evening, with about an inch of accumulation. I’m sure school will be delayed tomorrow. SOBedtime: DSH Chypre, which goes well with the wild wind outside and the warm covers on my bed.

Tuesday, Jan. 3: Woke up to two inches of snow and the snuggly leftover amber base of Chypre. The county schools went on two hours delay, which meant that Governor’s School was canceled, so poor Bookworm was able to get another couple of hours of sleep. It’s the dry, granular kind of snow, though, so although temperatures are in the low 20sF, the wind will blow most of it away as the day goes on.

SOTD: By Kilian Back to Black. It’s lovely rich honey-gingerbread tobacco for awhile, and then it goes cherry-Play-doh heliotropin. No.

I’m struggling a little bit with working on a novel set in a sticky Virginia summer, while snow swirls around outside and my windchimes are gonging away. (I love my windchimes – they’re large and tuned to a pentatonic scale, so that they are pleasant to listen to, not tinkly like the cheap ones.)

SOTEvening: Givenchy Organza Indecence. Yummy stuff. I made Joe Chicken for dinner (see recipe here), and then we watched Virginia Tech play Michigan in the Sugar Bowl. It was a nerve-wracking evening. (VT wuz robbed! Danny Coale caught that TD pass in bounds!)

Wednesday, Jan. 4: As predicted, the snow has mostly blown away. Temps are in the upper teens, though, and the wind chill factor makes it feel like 7 below zero. (Brrrrr!) SOTD: Carnal Flower. Omigosh, it’s so amazing. I only have a small decant which I treasure.

I’m working on porting my blog over from WordPress.com to webhostinghub.com. You’d think that it would be as easy as it was when I moved from Google Blogger (www.musesinwoodenshoes.blogspot.com) to WordPress’ blog host (https://museinwoodenshoes.wordpress.com) – but it isn’t. Arrrrgh! The new site actually exists now.

Thursday, Jan. 5: Frosty in the a.m., warmer by noon. I got a perm and my hair stinks, but it’s the price of beauty… SOTD: Amouage Honour Woman. First community chorus rehearsal of the new semester; we’re doing Haydn’s The Creation, which is early baroque stuff. Probably more interesting for us than for our audience, and although I love singing Bach and Handel, Haydn’s a little… well, obvious. He’s like early 50s rock-n-roll as compared to, say, Springsteen – the form was simpler when he was writing, so he hits you over the head with the classical approximation of “three chords and a bridge.” Oh well. SOTEvening: more Honour Woman.

Friday, Jan. 6: After dropping the boys off, I got drafted by The CEO to help move some cow-calf pairs from the Seven-Acre Field into the Barn Lot, because today’s weather was going to be nice, with temps in the upper 50sF and he needed to give them pour-on dewormers and their annual vaccinations. So I helped some and got yelled at a lot (“Bring ’em up! Don’t let those get past you! Go faster!”), and The CEO and Jeff worked 80 pairs today while I wrote a (quasi-) review of Amouage Honour Woman. Exhausting.

SOTMorning: Honour Woman. This was, obviously, before I had to go outside and chase cows. SOTAfternoon, post-shower: By Kilian Love and Tears, which smells very nice but bores me silly. Not a big jasmine fan. SOTEvening, right wrist: Anne Pliska, which strikes me as being something like Organza Indecence on steroids.

We indulged ourselves, and ate Little Caesar’s pizza for dinner tonight, along with green beans and salad. Yum.

Saturday, Jan. 7: Warm weather like yesterday. The CEO headed off with Gaze and Cory (who lives in the mobile home on the farm and sometimes helps us on weekends) to get up a cow-calf pair and treat them for a health problem. Bookworm left early this morning for an indoor track meet. I kept Cory’s little boy, Ty, who’s two. Taz helped keep Ty occupied, so the normal Saturday housecleaning took awhile. SOTD: Anne Pliska vs. Organza Indecence throwdown.

Sunday, Jan. 8: Weather still nice. SOTD: Sweet Redemption. The CEO and Gaze are deeply, deeply into playoff football, while Taz keeps clamoring to watch his new Harry Potter DVDs… Bookworm is off to church with PETBoy, and then spending the day with him. I think he’s even cooking lunch for her and his family today.

Still working on the new site and whipping it into shape. Just uploaded a new header photo taken with The CEO’s new camera, and it looks pretty good. The ads will not appear right away, but I’ve gotten the posts transferred and the blogroll rewritten.

If you know of any well-written, consistently-maintained blogs that I’ve missed, please do let me know! There are several I’ve added recently, and I dropped a few that are not being maintained, while leaving a few that have no new posts but which are so well-written that I still enjoy consulting them. (I really miss Rita of The Left Coast Nose – she might be my Evil Scent Twin as well as my ideological opposite, but I appreciate her passion and her personal investment in her blog, and while she’s in… Bolivia?… her sniffery blog is lying fallow. Perhaps she’ll take it up again at some point.)