One Little Word

My goal for this past year was to pause. To spend more time enjoying life. Just being instead of doing all the time. I wanted to spend more time out in the yard during the warm weather. Paint. Draw. Nap. Slow down and just be. I feel like I started out the year with good intentions, and then my plan quickly fell to the way side. This was a CRAZY year, and I knew that going in, which was part of the reason for my word. I intended to follow Ali's advice and focus on the word, do something at least once a month related to my word.. and I did not.

Things I've Done This Week

1. Knitting. Knitting is very therapeutic, especially when you knit small things that work up quickly. I have made (since Christmas).. a headband for myself for when my hair's up, a little hat for my niece (who will be born on the 21st) and one bootee. I will finish that second bootee tomorrow, and work on finishing the baby sweater that I've also been working on. I needed some small projects that weren't that sweater. I have a slew of other projects planned including a few more sweaters, a blanket or two and a bunny. Yes, I am planning on spoiling this baby, why do you ask?

Say What?

Once a year we come to the city for a hockey game. This year we left a litle too early. We met my youngest brother at a local sports bar while we had some time to kill. The wild part of it...my baby brother bought me a beer.

The Cake Is A Lie!!

When you handed me this recipe for a cake that you took out of a video game, I might have thought you had gone a little too far off the deep end. I read the ingredients, silently rolled my eyes and put the recipe into the "recipes to try out" folder. I was hoping that by the time your birthday rolled around you would have forgotten all about it. After all, who wants a cake with 7 egg whites, 3/4 cup of butter melted, a boxed cake mix, 2 cups of flour and 3 cans of frosting? I had a small heart attack just reading the nutritional information on the page you printed. He must be crazy I thought.

Merry Christmas

The light of the Christmas star to you

The warmth of home and hearth to you

The cheer and good will of friends to you

The hope of childlike heart to you

The joy of a thousand angels to you

The love of the Son and God's peace to you

~Irish Blessing

Tis The Season....

In Which We Find A List

Franklin wrote a lovely list on his blog about things he finds pleasant in winter, and I was inspired to come up with my own list of things I find pleasant in winter, because there must be a few right?

1. Warm and cozy sweaters. The thicker and warmer the better. They have to be soft however. As I age I am developing some sensory issues and find that I am drawn to soft clothes near my skin.

Bring Back The Light

It appears, that it has finally stopped snowing. It started Friday afternoon and has snowed straight through until about 5 minutes ago. I think at my house we got lucky, and it stayed too cold for the snow to be anything but light and fluffy. I am grateful to not have wet heavy snow on the weak power infrastructures. I heard a nasty rumor about more snow on Wednesday, but I am ignoring it. I haven't been able to get out and run since last Monday due to bad roads and I'm chomping at the bit. I think that unless we have horrible winds tomorrow afternoon, I'm going to brave the badly plowed roads and have a go at it.

A Song For Your Heart....

I'm sitting here by the light of the Christmas tree watching the town plow the road out in front of my house. I have the next 2 weeks off of school, tomorrow all my brothers are coming over to celebrate Christmas and I finished the sweater-coat for my little neighbor today while watching Harry Potter with Ms. Thang (long overdue if you're a regular reader, I know). I should be happy, but I have this heavy sadness that is just weighing me down lately like a boulder. It's not depression, it's just life. My grandmother is dying. Tomorrow is the 2 year anniversary of my nephew's death. My SIL lost her grandmother this week and won't be coming tomorrow, and my brother is brokenhearted over having to send her to NY without him as he had to stay and take a final for his Master's course. I haven't spoken to my mom since August except for 5 minutes the other day, and I'm not ready yet. I'm still very upset, which I didn't realize until she called and I am ashamed to say I was glad that after 5 minutes I was entering a dead zone and had to let her go (she called my cell). I feel like my list of "suck" is just so long right now.. I could go on and on, but really, do you want to hear about it all? Me either. So instead I'll leave you with the song that is playing on my iTunes. It started right as I was about to type up this post, and now I can't see for the tears... and I'm going to go to bed.

Not Such A Bad Day After All

I got out of bed when the phone rang this morning at 5:30 to let me know we had no school. I had though delay for sure, so was pleasantly surprised to find out the whole day was mine. I had a plan. I was going to finish the sweater for my neighbor. I was going to clean my kitchen. I was going to bake snicker doodles with my daughter, and I was going to knit little wreath ornaments for our family gathering on Saturday.

Stick A Fork In Me...

I'm done. There comes a time when you have to look at yourself and your situation, and make decisions that may or may not make you happy. I reached such a place today. I am tired and defeated. It's Christmas, and I should be happy. My shopping is done. My gifts are wrapped. My house is warm and festive. I'm almost done my baking, and I've managed to fit in a sweater for my favorite 4 year old neighbor that is one sleeve away from done. My house is one room (well, let's pretend The Boy's batcave doesn't exist, that's his issue.. and we won't even think about what a disaster our barn is) away from being cleaned top to bottom.

I don't feel so happy though. I feel tired, and stressed out. I am grouchy and miserable to be around at home. My son is pushing all my buttons and my normally rational self is reacting instead of ignoring. I am tired of yelling. I am tired of asking for things to get done and being ignored. I am tired of feeling like a miserable bitch. I am just plain exhausted.

The Day After

As of this afternoon 307,000 residences in my state are still without power. 3 out of 4 of my brothers have no power (the fourth is in the big city where it was just a few degrees warmer and didn't freeze), my grandfather in the next state down has no power, but has gone to stay with my aunt downstairs who has a gas stove, and my in-laws all have no power. My MIL and FIL have gone to a hotel because my FIL is recovering from knee replacement surgery and his therapy machine needs power to work. My brother S found out from the power company tonight that his power should be back Thursday. They packed up and have gone into the city to stay with friends in the duration. The HS where he works is being used as a shelter and they already called off school Monday.

The Town Said... Let There Be Light

You really don't appreciate what you have, until you don't have it. I woke up around 2:30am having to use the bathroom. I rolled over to see what time it was, and the alarm was dark. The weird thing was... there was a light shining into my bedroom. At 2:30 am you aren't too smart, and it took me a few minutes of looking out windows and confirming that the street lights were all out too... to realize the power was out. The Police Department lives behind us to the back, and they have a generator for their outside lights. Which was helpful in my not only using the bathroom, but getting my watch to the window to find out it was only 2:30 am.

The Weather Outside is Frightful....

Out in my corner of the world, we are in the throes of a rather nasty ice storm. It started this morning as rain, and around 5am the temperature started falling and the rain started freezing. It has continued to do so all day. We've got a good half inch of ice coating the land, and a long night ahead of us.

To say that I am not secretly hoping for a snow day tomorrow would get me kicked off of Santa's nice list, but seriously, I'm a little worried. They are talking about long term power outages, at least through the weekend, which would kick my arse in the getting ready for Uncle Christmas department. Oh, and because we had to remove our old, rusted wood stove (it came with our house, if you read old blog posts you can not only see photos of it but read posts about it) we would have no heat. We all know how I feel about that.

So I'm blogging to let you know that if you don't hear from me for a while, I'll be hunkered down in some blankets knitting. If you're so inclined... think good thoughts for a power filled snow day. I really need a day off.

Oh Christmas Trees.. Oh Christmas Trees

SOME TUESDAY TRIVIA:

A. 1 hour, give or take a few minutes.

Q: How long does it take your house to heat back up after you've run out of oil while everyone was off at school?

A. $150.

Q: What is the emergency delivery charge issued by the oil company to come out on an unscheduled delivery day?
(FYI, you can put diesel into your oil tank in a pinch. We will get our scheduled delivery of oil tomorrow).

All the Creature's Were Sleeping......

Want to hear a funny story? We did laundry on Wednesday like we always do, and I noticed that one of my hand knit socks I wore last week didn't end up in my pile of laundry to put away. I checked the washer/dryer and thought.. well it probably didn't make it into the wash and I'll get it back on Sunday when we do laundry again. So yesterday we did the wash, and nothing. I was a bit grumpy because really... those socks took a long time to knit up and I wanted to wear them this week with my blue sweater.

Today I put on a winter white sweater and wine colored pants. Just a few minutes ago I went for my stash of dark chocolate M&M's and as I reached up for the bag on the top shelf, something about my left "chest" area of my sweater looked funny. Kind of square and padded. WTF? I thought. I pulled my sweater up, and there was my sock! I think it was on the side of my sweater all day, and when I put my coat on to come home it moved and that's how I noticed it. HAHAHA. I'm happy to have it back though.

In Which We Find.... Sunday

5 things I am happy about today, in no particular order:

1. Fudge. I found this recipe for fudge on Allrecipes.com eleventy billion years ago, and have made it every Christmas since(without nuts, thank you). I made it today so that I can freeze it until our holiday party with my brothers later this month. My mom always made fudge when I was growing up at Christmas, and as I was stirring for 5 minutes today while I watched it bubble and do it's thing I realized that *I* only make it at Christmas time. It's not that I don't like it, cuz baby this is some good fudge. It's just in my brain, fudge is for Christmas. (In case anyone is wondering, I haven't spoken to her since the day she left in August. Just as well I suppose.)

I Am Not Fine

People have the most annoying habit of being flip when someone asks them how they are. I am as guilty of this as the next person, and I will readily admit it. Isn't it easier to just say, "I'm fine, how are you?" Or, "Good, how are you?" when someone asks you how you are. Isn't it better than getting into a long discussion about how the person is, or how you are for that matter? When you ask, "How are you?" are you really wanting an answer, or are you just being polite? I find myself somewhere between those two ends. Sometimes when I ask I really do want to know, and other times I am just being polite.

Poor Kid

So last week Ms. Thang didn't feel so hot. Her nose was runny, she was sneezy and on Thursday her throat started to hurt. We looked at it (and by we I mean The Boy did) and she had post nasal drip and it was red and irritated but that was it. Friday it hurt and she felt lousy and Saturday I could hear that her throat hurt. She had the "my throat kills" sound to her voice, and she couldn't really eat. I had The Boy look in the morning, and it was a little swollen and red, and by dinner when she couldn't swallow I had him look again. He looked in and blurted out, "Oh My God!" (headsmackhere) I asked to see, and he said I didn't need his flashlight to just have a look.

My babies tonsils were so swollen you couldn't see the dangly thing in the back of her throat. We decided she need to get to the Dr. NOW and The Boy took her to the ER. They were in and out in 15 minutes. The doctor didn't even do a strep swab.. he felt her swollen glands, looked down her throat and said, "Well, we don't even need to test this one! She's got strep, here's a prescription lets not waste anyone's time." What a trouper she is. Today I looked down her throat, and for the first time it's starting to look better. It's still red and swollen, but compared to Saturday she's come a long way.

Welcome To December

Somehow, in the midst of crazy and busy and OMG how did Thanksgiving get here.. I'm quite on top of my game this year. I was thinking of what I need to do between now and 3 weeks from this past Saturday when all my brothers will descend on my house for our annual "Uncle Christmas" celebration, and I'm doing pretty good.

My Christmas cards are made, and all but 3 will be going out in the morning. (I am short one address, and I was short two cards. So much for not actually counting and just making 32 cards). I am tickled with how they came out this year. I used to make my own cards, and then the last two years were crazy and I didn't. I always vow to make them over summer break, and never do. So this year I decided I was doing it, and made the time. I did them in parts so that it wasn't so much work all at once and then got to it.