In Which We Find Some Knitting....

So, I've been working on these socks for what seems like a long, long time. I pick the sock up and work on it, and then it sits in my sock basket for a while. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. The thing about socks is that you make them on tiny pointy needles. You have to be in the mood to work on socks because they require more attention than say, a baby blanket or a sweater.

I've had the leg of this sock done (minus one row) for a good month now. This morning I picked up that sock and did the heel. I am using a sock pattern that is new to me. I've never done ribbed socks, but love that they'll stay up better than these..which due to no ribbing, and me not having the experience to make the leg a little tighter tend to slouch a bit when I wear them. The pattern is Priscilla's Dream Socks from Interweave. One day I'm going to make striped ones.

Random Wednesday... A Day Early

I want somebody who cares, For me passionately
A good friend of The Boy and I called me today to let me know that her aunt passed away yesterday. She was rather overweight and had health issues and it would seem these issues led to a blood clot that resulted in her death. Her mother (who's sister this was) is someone we're also close too and I am sad for her as J was her only sibling. So tomorrow on the way back from bringing the kids to have their teeth cleaned I will pick up a few sympathy cards. I make all my cards, except for these. I can't ever seem to create a card that fits what I want to say or has the kind of "mood" I want to convey. So I leave death up to Hallmark, even though they never have the card that says what I'm feeling either.. and from the looks of things lately maybe I should pick up a few extra.

With every thought and with every breath

In Which We Find Monday...

We fetched the children from my in laws today. My poor daughter looks miserable, but her fever is down and I think she feels a bit better than she did. Mr. Man was bored out of his skull. Blamed his sister for getting sick and ruining the fun things they had planned for the weekend. He's however going off to his best friends for a sleepover on Thursday in which he'll not only have much more fun.. but probably won't sleep much either. (They were up till 2am last time he slept over here)

Nah Nah, Nah Nah

Winter Break arrived at 3:00 Friday afternoon when the walker bell rang and it couldn't get here soon enough. We had a 7:30 meeting on Tuesday, so I made sure my stuff for after vacation was prepped and ready to go, and I hit that door running. Thursday and Friday were awful days and I left feeling discouraged and disgusted. Defiantly ready for a break. The Boy was at our school working on an Internet problem.. so I rounded up the kids and met him at the office. We came home, packed the kids stuff in the van and headed out for Manchester.

Who Doesn't Know What I'm Talkin' About?

Dear Co-Workers Who Can't Mind Their Own Damn Business,
In case you haven't realized yet, I'm having a rather crappy arse year. I don't know this could have escaped your attention. Perhaps you've been hiding out somewhere correcting papers or gossiping with the rest of the staff. Or maybe you've just been to busy minding everyone else's business.. and now you are just getting to me. I'm doing the best that I can to get through every minute.. forget every day... and come out intact at the end. I'm giving 130% every day. Every. Waking. Second. And each day that goes by is just sucking the life right out of me. I realize that in the course of your much easier day, this might be something you can't quite understand. That doesn't give you the right to tell me how to do my job. You don't get to question what I have to do to survive each day. If you think that you can do a better job.. I will gladly trade places with you. For one day. Hell.. I will give you one hour. One hour to walk in my shoes and live through my day. I will work with your students and do your duty and whatever else mundane thing you do during your day. Because it beats the crap out of what I have to do. If you are not willing.. then STFU and let me do my job.
B

How Hard Is It?

So Ms. Thang and I went to get our haircut tonight. It's been a while.. December 7th to be exact. Her hair has been growing out and needed some maintaining.. mine was getting a bit unruly and needed a little length cut off. At the rate of 1/2 an inch per month.. I should've asked for 1.5".. but it was a long day and my math-fu was off. You saw my hat photo from last week. I asked her to knock off 2 inches... keep the layers the way they were (long layers in the back) and don't angle it near my face. Somehow the only part of that request she got right.. was the don't angle it near my face. I have unruly hair. It's thick and curly. Not tight curly.. but if left to it's own devices and not having some length to pull it out and keep it in check.. it gets crazy.

In Which We Find A Lazy Afternoon...

I have this issue. Well, I don't think it's an issue, but the boy does. I have a hard time spending money on myself. There's always stuff to buy for the kids, the house, the yard, blah blah blah. So we have an arrangement where we each get x amount of money each month to spend on whatever we want. No questions asked. It's a handy thing and useful for those frivolous things like yarn and iTunes and whatnot. The thing is, even with my "fun money" I still have issues buying things that cost what I deem to be a LOT of money. The boy thinks this is silly. For a long time I've wanted a really nice easel for painting. So for Christmas he bought me one.

Sometimes The Day Can Be So Long

Ever have one of those days, where you wake up and from the moment your eyes open you just feel rotten and grouchy? One of those days where no matter what anyone says it makes you snappy and irritable? One of those days where everything pisses you off? One of those days where you wish you could snap out of it, but just can't seem to manage?

I had one of those days today. On my favorite Saturday that is supposed to be relaxing and enjoyable. I was so ugly today that I swore in front of my children.. more than once. They had one of those heart breaking "mom is in one of THOSE MOODS" look on their faces and tomorrow I will have to apologize for being so horrible.

I Believe It's Been a Terrible Year...

and no matter what the dark and twisty announcer man says ("Stay tuned next week for the devastating conclusion").. Sondra will not kill off Meredith Grey. I don't care what she says either.

It has been a terrible year. It's been a terrible 5.5 months to be exact. One thing after another is kicking my arse, and as hard as I try to convince myself that it's going to get better... it's just not happening. But I have to keep on hoping. I have to believe that somehow it's going to turn around. Every time I think that it can't get any worse.. the universe has a great hearty laugh at me. I am trying not to get nervous every time things seem to calm down a little... but I can't help it. I too have a dark and twisty side. The universe has had it out for me since the beginning.. but I'm much stronger than I used to be. And I believe that in the end I will come out OK.

The Morning After

Whistling, whipping, howling through
the wind and snow, they blew and blew
throughout the day and into night
erasing everything from sight.

Yet in the morning's early glow
a soft blue light danced on the snow
as if to say,Come out! Discover!
Mother Nature's cold, white cover.

It Was Bound To Happen Sooner or Later

I love being holed up in my house, all cozy and warm while a storm blows all around us. The winds are wild today and at times I've looked out the window and haven't been able to see my neighbors house across the way.

The kids headed to school to go sledding on the hill right after they finished eating. I snapped a photo of them after they left and I love how it came out. I don't know how much snow we have already, but it's a lot. We have gone out and shoveled twice already and it was a good amount each time. They are calling for it to intensify later this afternoon and into the evening and we are still looking at 2.5-3 feet. Quite impressive for the first real storm of the winter. We have a Blizzard warning through midnight, and so long as the power stays on, I'm OK with that. I'm glad the kids got out when they did, because I hear the rest of the week is going to be miserable cold.

A Valentine's Day Blizzard

There's something nice about a blizzard in the middle of a work week. 2 days of work.. day off... 2 more days of work and then the weekend is here. They are talking 2-3 feet of snow around these hills. Normally we've already had 3 feet of snow on the ground. We have had 3 inches. All.
Winter.Long. I love the quiet that comes with the snow. I enjoy going out and shoveling. Because I have a bad back, I have discovered that if I go out every hour or two (depending on how fast the snow is falling) then shoveling smaller amounts of snow beats shoveling it all at once. It's kind of like mowing the lawn and raking. No one bothers you while you do it.

Our school districts in the region have this thing about "calling" a snow day until the actual day. So instead of doing what 120 other schools have done already and called the day off... we will be awakened by the phone ringing at 5:20am. Last time we had a delay I actually went back to sleep because I didn't feel good. Now that DH operates on the same schedule as we do, I don't HAVE to get up with him on snow days. I enjoy staying up after the call comes. The house is nice and quiet before the kids wake up and I like starting my morning slow and easy. It's a rare occurrence during the school year and something I treasure.

Hopefully it won't be awful cold out (I hear otherwise though) and the kids will get some time out to play. I haven't had good kid/snow photos in a few years. PTO will be cancelled. Steel Drums will be cancelled. So long as the power holds out I can't think of a better way to spend a Wednesday right now that cozy at home with my family. I'll post some photos tomorrow.

And It's Hard At The End of The Day

I promised you photos of a lovely, green knitted hat. I am sad to report that the aforementioned hat was too large, and as of this moment it's being re-knit with less cast on stitches. I struggled for a few days with getting a better yarn... but all and all... it's a good hat with the specified yarn. I will eventually knit another hat, with a warmer and better yarn... and it will be a different hat. But this one is going to be knit with Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick N Quick, and it will be fine. As soon as I finish re-knitting it. (no one better mention that this will be the third time I've knit this same yarn into a hat)

Do you watch Grey's Anatomy? Holy Crap!!! I hate cliff hangers, and I hate that this episode is going to last over at least 3 weeks. I'm not the worlds most patient person, and I don't like to wait to find out how the story ends. If you haven't heard, you can read the Grey's writer blog here. I love to read what the writers have to say after their episodes air. Not a lot to read about this one (as it's not over yet)... but it's a good read none the less. Don't read the comments though... there's a million of them and no one can ever agree on anything.

How I Spent My Saturday Afternoon

1 giant bag of raisins at Costco $5.99

1 bag of flour at Hannafords $2.59

1 container of oats at the Minute Mart after we discovered something dreadful about the ones in the pantry $2.19


6 dozen oatmeal raisin cookies made while procrastinating the start of doing taxes... priceless

Long Day Is Over

I have no photo for Eye Candy Friday this week. I could look through my files on my computer, but I'm quite certain I've shared the best I have to offer, and quite frankly I'm too damn tired. On top of being the Best Day of the Week.. Friday is also the hardest.

By Friday I am exhausted, both physically and mentally. My patience is shot, my mood isn't always that great, and my nice is all but used up. It's not the best feeling in the world. But the promise of a rejuvenating weekend (unless it's busy which this one isn't thank Gawd!) and beer thirty get me through those last few hours when I think that I would've been better off doing something else.

In Which We Find Some Randomness on a Tuesday

So this weekend I drove out to Brattleboro VT with my friend (who is also my neighbor) to go see a film. They have the coolest theatre in Brat. It's part of a hotel and has quite a history which you can read about here(and see a cool photo). It has a balcony and upstairs theaters and old fashioned seats. The theatre we were in sat maybe 50 people tops. Anyhow, we went to see Pan's Labyrinth.I wasn't sure what I was getting into.. but T's sister highly recommended the movie and her DH (who is best chums with my Boy and has very similar thoughts on things) refused to go with her. It has all the makings of a classing European fairytale including gore, historical fiction and religious undertones. It wasn't scary gore.. but the kind of realistic gore that makes you cover your eyes and cringe. It was in spanish but had subtitles, which actually once you got used to you didn't seem to mind so much and the end was sad. We had a great time.

A Whole Lot of Nothing

The camera couldn't capture the true beauty of the falling snow last night. Our first real snow of the winter.. and it was so quite and beautiful. I didn't get a change to post because I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off today. Budget hearing, errands.. blah blah blah. I didn't post it last night because I was feeling to ugly to allow any kind of words to come across my fingers. But when I looked out the window and watched it snow, somehow it was calming enough to make me feel better. I just couldn't catch how pretty everything looked.

You Are My Candy Girl......

Part of the 4th grade curriculum is learning about the state of New Hampshire. In our school, the 4th grade not only learns about our state, but also other states in the country. They participate in a 5 month long State Expo project, and in March they gather in the gym and present what they learn to the school. It is not a written project, and relies on visual and material items to succeed. In the course of the 5 months, the kids have to present to their class (for a grade) 2 maps, 2 charts and 2 projects about their state(3 are needed for the final presentation of each). We've done the maps and charts and the projects were due today.