The Nook

July 16th

2010-07-16T15:41:00.006-04:00

Here's a few pictures looking back at July 16th in 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, and 2005. Amazingly only one of these pictures was taken on a different day, and that was the 17th. However, I decided not to go back any further. 2004 has the 18th as the closest day, and there was one picture from July in 2003 (23rd) and no pictures in July 2002.

2009- England
Bolton Abbey. We also went to Skipton Castle that day.

2008- Maine
Scottish Highland Games in Brunswick. We stopped on our way to Acadia.

2007- Belmont
I had just gotten a new camera lens and was testing it out on the plants in the garden.

2006- Cow Parade
This is the Trojan Cow. IT was located in South Station. I spent two Saturdays roaming around Boston trying to get pictures of all of the cows (approximately 100 of them, if I remember correctly).

2005- Philadelphia
Aunt Ethel's funeral. She had numerous scarves and Chris was displaying them and offering them to anyone who wanted any.

A year ago today...

2010-07-15T09:02:00.004-04:00

A year ago today we were in Yorkshire on a 3 mountain, 25 mile hike. The weather started off chilly, rainy, and overcast. Eventually the rain stopped and things cleared up a bit, but it never really warmed up. I guess that's ok- better to be cool than profusely sweating.

This is the last time we've gone on a big hike. And who knows how much more hiking I'll be doing. I like to hike, but it causes me a lot of knee pain. At the time, we commented that if the future kids ever wanted to go on this hike, Uncle Andrew would have to take them.

Anyway, these photos are from the summits of each of the 3 Peaks: Pen-y-ghent (694 metres - 2,276 feet), Whernside (736 metres - 2,415 feet) and Ingleborough (723 metres 2,372 feet).

Yum!

2010-07-14T09:17:00.004-04:00

Blech. We've been stuck in a hot/humid wave for about two weeks now. Not fun. And last night I decided to turn the oven on to make cupcakes. In my defense, I had a number of zucchinis from the garden sitting int the fridge wanting to be used. However, of the three (and one is HUGE) I only needed to use one of them. Here's what I made:

Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting.
2 C shredded zucchini
3 eggs
2 C sugar
3/4 C cooking oil
2 tsp vanilla
2 C flour
2/3 C unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 C milk chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees
Stir together zucchini, eggs, sugar, oil, and vanilla.
Add flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, baking powder and chips, stirring until combined.
Spoon batter into cupcake pan lined with paper liners.
Bake about 25 minutes
Frost with Peanut Butter Frosting
Yields 24

Peanut Butter Frosting
Beat 1/2 C peanut butter, 1/2 C softened butter, 1 Tblsp milk, and 1/2 tsp vanilla with electric mixer until smooth. Gradually add 1 1/2 Cups powdered sugar until spreading consistency is reached.

So what's been going on?

2010-06-14T09:55:00.018-04:00

Apparently I haven't been into blogging much lately. So what's been going on the past month plus?

I'm continuing to grow a little alien. For updates on Baby B, check out my baby blog. I mentioned to someone else recently that it was an alien and she didn't seem to like that name for it, but Chris and I both think that Baby B looks like an alien. (There are actually some more recent pictures than this which are on the baby blog.)

I went to Orlando for work. We stayed at a gorgeous hotel and the weather was mostly nice. However, due to working all day and being exhausted at night I didn't get out to enjoy it much.

Gardening. All the veggies are in, as are all of the flowers. Cucumbers and beans are both growing well. As are peppers, chives, lettuce, and many others. I've even been able to pick a couple of strawberries, although an animal got one of them. Corn is doing ok, but I think the spot it's in just doesn't get enough sun. Some of the broccoli turned to flower. Ugh. Too early for that. The carrots just didn't make it at all. Peonies looked great, as do other flowers. Still want to get a couple more things for the front.

Sheep Shearing at Wayside Inn and Sturbridge Village. The one at Wayside was pretty low-key. It was the same shearer who did the one we went to last year in Waltham. Sturbridge was nice because they were much more interactive- answering questions, etc. And it's nice to use our membership a bit more.

Two Red Sox games. I volunteered with a group from work to sell raffle tickets which got me into the first game, and the tickets to the second game were a reward from selling the tickets.

New Patio Furniture. We're getting more and more grown up.

Chris' parents, Michael, Rebecca and Elizabeth came from Georgia for a week. Here's a run down of what we did.

Projects around the house- changing out two lights and installing two new ones over the sideboard, moving the thermostat, fixing a spot on the roof, hopefully fixing a leak at the door of my craft room, and got landscape lights to work again (who knew all they needed was new bulbs!).

Candlepin bowling. Isn't this supposed to be easier than 10 pin? I was horrible.

Old Sturbridge Village, again. We're really starting to put that membership to good use. When we were there for Sheep Shearing the week prior, I had really wanted to get a photo of the spark during the rifle demo. Instead all I got was smoke. This time, I had success!

Constitution. Too bad we couldn't go to about half the ship due to renovations.

Scooper Bowl. This is an annual event in Boston to raise money for Cancer reasearch. You buy a spoon and then go to all the vendors for as much ice cream as you would like. The portion sizes are small, but this is probably a good thing. I sampled 9 different ice creams. One was icky so I threw it away, but eating 8 1/2 scoops is a lot! Ben & Jerry's had a yummy Boston Cream Pie, and Edy's had a yummy Caramel Cone. I think those were my two favorites.

Children's Museum. Fun, but they got rid of a number of the exhibits that I remember liking.

Elizabeth made a Derby car. At first she was reluctant, but she really got into it in the end. In fact, on the 2nd and 3rd days of working on it, when we came home from other activities she even let Uncle Chris know that they had to go work on it. Here she is sanding and painting. As she was working on it, Uncle Chris and I were the only ones who were allowed to see it. I hope it's nice and fast!

Baby stuff! Lots from the Rummage Sale, some clothes from Wisconsin, TONS of clothes and other stuff from Georgia. Plus we just got a couple of things from one of Chris' co-workers. The house is starting to be overrun with baby stuff, and we've barely started.

Productive weekend!

2010-05-02T14:17:00.003-04:00

Saturday wasn't all that productive. I went to a scrapbook convention, about an hour away. I spent an hour there and came home empty-handed. Ok, so it's good for my bank account that I came home empty handed, but it still cost me $7 to get in and $3 to park. Not to mention the 2 hours of driving. Blech. I just haven't been scrapping much, so nothing really jumped out at me as a "must buy".

When I came home I was feeling a bit tired so I took a nap for a bit. Then after dinner we watched Back to the Future II. Did you know that in 5 years we're supposed to have flying cars? Somehow I don't think the technology will be advancing that quickly.

Sunday was a bit more busy. We woke up kind of early and went for a bike ride. We live very close to a bike path, but this is the first time we've been out there (other than a short walk a month or so ago). The problem was that when we moved we had a washer and dryer in the shed blocking our bikes. We were planning to sell them, but I don't think either of us was really all that motivated to actually place an ad and deal with calls. Then in January I found a charity that would take them. But in January there was snow between the shed and the driveway. And then I got pregnant and could no longer lift heavy things. Finally last weekend my dad came over and helped load them into Chris' truck. The shed seems so much more spacious now!

So the nice thing is that at 9am on a Sunday there aren't too many people out on the bike path. And it also was pretty cool. Right now (at 2:20) it's about 83 degrees. The bad thing is that it was mostly downhill going away from the house which means you really have to work to get home. We went about 4 miles (turns out we almost were at the end) and then it started sprinkling so we headed back. Plus we didn't know how much further it went and I knew we had the hills on the return.

When we got home I did a bit of gardening. Watered my strawberries, rhubarb, and asparagus. 4 of the 5 rows of asparagus are looking good. Hopefully the other one is just taking a little longer. Something had dug up one of my strawberry plants, but I put it back in. And I guess I'm not too concerned. Strawberries send off runners with new plants, so if that one doesn't make it, I can always replace it with one of the runners.

When I planted the rhubarb one had looked much better than the other, but now the runty one is looking ok. Hopefully next year I'll be able to make a strawberry-rhubarb pie with fruit from my garden!

I also did a bit of transplanting and planting of other seeds. Not sure if they'll make it- may be too early, but this super nice weather gets me itching to plant. I transplanted some scallions and mesclun, and planted seeds for some carrots, more scallions, a row of corn, and a nasturtium. The corn is the only one I'm really thinking might be too early. The seed packed says "after all danger of frost" but I also had read something that said it was ok to plant when oak leaves are as big as a squirrel's ear. I have plenty of seeds though, so if it is too early I can always replant.

Now I'm off to my mom's to pay her bills. And then maybe a stop at the grocery store on the way home. And if it's cooled off at all when I get back, I may do a bit more gardening- need to prune the rose bushes and pick up some leaves and sticks from the front flower beds.

Floods, gardening, and what were they thinking?

2010-04-21T09:57:00.011-04:00

Remember how I mentioned that we had a lot of rain in March? I think it was actually the wettest month on record. In fact, for a few days our commute was really screwy. The way we normally go to work was flooded and then our alternate route had flooded as well. One night it took us over 2 hours to get home after sitting in bumper to bumper detour traffic. Not fun at all. This photo was from our normal route the day the road finally reopened. As you can see, it's till pretty flooded. Not fun. This photo was taken April 5th. By now traffic is back to normal. Rivers and lakes are starting to return to normal levels. Unfortunately there was a library near this intersection that is still closed. They've already filled multiple dumpsters. And they may even still be pumping out water.

On the home front, to make the garden all nice and pretty we ordered 4 yards of mulch. In hindsight 3 yards probably would have been sufficient, but we found places to lay it down a little thicker, etc.

The largest bed that we put it on is in the front of the house. This first photo is what it looked like when we bought the house. A patch of grass completely surrounded by beds with perennials. How exactly are we supposed to get in there and mow it? Yeah, we thought it was pretty stupid. So we ripped it out. :) We planted more perennials. It looked horrible all fall and winter. Basically a big mud pit. I tried to put down some wood shavings to act as much and to keep the mud under control, but the wind ended up blowing a lot of the shavings away.

With the delivery of the mulch, we finally were able to make it look nice. Ah, so much better and no longer a huge eye sore. I'm sure the old owners thought we were crazy. Turns out they had just redone the landscaping before they put the house on the market, and then we tore it all out. And I'm sure they weren't pleased with how the mud pit looked. But finally it looks good. I'll probably add some more things- maybe some perennials, maybe some annuals. Who knows. The only annoying thing is that some of the stuff I planted hasn't come up yet and I'm starting to think it may not. I know I planted 2 more peonies, I transplanted a calla lilly, I think only 3 of 5 day lillies have sprouted, and I think there are even one or two other things that haven't come up yet. Hopefully they are just slow, but I may have to see what kind of guarantee the plants had. Or dig around a bit and hope that maybe I just planted them too deep. Either way, in a month or two it should look nice.

We stopped at the grocery store last night on the way home from work. My food desire of the day was hot dogs. We had the dogs but didn't have buns. We also needed charcoal. And then we agreed on spicy curly fries to go with the hot dogs.

I have to say, being pregnant is good for getting what I want for dinner. :) Chris has been good about going along with my desires, even when it included sloppy joes, which he dislikes.

Anyway, as I was sitting in the car while Chris went into the grocery store I looked over and saw this sign at the cart corral. Really? Have we gotten so addicted to text speak that we can't write out the word "for"? And it's not as if there wasn't space for it on the sign. Blech.

Back on the gardening front, remember my earlier post where I said we planted the asparagus? Well that was about a month ago now and every time I looked at the bed I saw nothing. Well not tonight! It's probably because I was looking at the bed from the deck or from across the lawn. But last night while we were grilling our hot dogs we went down and actually looked at the bed. Out of 20 crowns that I plants, about 5 or 6 of them have now sprouted. Yay!!!! I really don't understand why, but this makes me very excited. I've included a picture with my finger next to a stalk to show you how skinny they are. But that's ok. They'll get better. I can't wait until next year when we really can start harvesting.

New additions...

2010-04-18T15:31:00.004-04:00

A new addition to the family is coming this fall! This ultrasound was from back in mid-March. Baby was just a blob then, hence the arrow and the text that the tech added to the photo.

Baby Bredford is due November 4th, although I would happily deliver 5 days early and have a Halloween baby. :) Feel free to go here to follow along as Baby develops.

The past few days have been filled with telling people. Thursday and Friday I started to tell people at work and yesterday I announced at skating (only 1 more lesson and then I'll stop for the rest of my pregnancy) and at a family reunion.

Announcing at the family reunion was interesting. No idea why I was so nervous, but I was shaking when I got up to announce, and for a few minutes after I sat back down. We apparently have a dowser in the family, and he came over and offered to tell us the sex of the baby. (He claims that he generally is correct about 80% of the time.) I kind of thought about it, but we declined since we'd already decided that we aren't going to find out the gender of the baby.

And one of the final announcements came this morning when I announced on Facebook.

Really?

2010-04-15T11:32:00.002-04:00

I just looked at the forecast for this weekend. Didn't the weather gods get the memo that it's mid-April and we'd like nice weather?

Saturday Night
	Rain in the evening...then rain showers likely with a chance of snow showers after midnight. Little or no snow accumulation. Lows in the mid 30s. Chance of precipitation 80 percent.

Sunday
	Mostly cloudy. A chance of rain and snow showers in the morning...then a chance of showers in the afternoon. Highs around 50. Chance of precipitation 40 percent.

Spring has sprung!

2010-04-05T11:43:00.006-04:00

I'm probably jinxing myself by saying this, but it definitely feels like Spring has Sprung! After a few weeks of rain, we've had fabulous weather for the past 4 days or so, and it looks like it will hold for most of the week.

A few months ago I planned out my garden and ordered plants/seeds. The seeds were shipped at that point, but all of the plants are shipped out when the company thinks is the appropriate time for them to be planted in your region. Imagine my surprise when on March 13th I got an email saying that my asparagus has shipped. Eek. We weren't ready. We hadn't built the bed yet where they would be planted. With rain in the forecast for the coming weekend we took the 17th off to get the bed built. Of course these things have a way of taking longer than you imagine. Luckily the rain held off for the weekend and we were able to get it finished and get the asparagus planted. The photo shows the asparagus on rows of compost. It was then filled in with more dirt/compost/llama-poop-fertilizer.

It's a good thing we got the asparagus in when we did, because we were then met with another week of rain. This is making our commute interesting because many roads are flooded. But the rain ended last week and we had a weekend with temperatures in the 70s. Saturday I spent some time picking maple seedlings out of the front flower bed. Wow, there were a lot of them. I was putting them into a paper grocery bag as I pulled them out, and I probably got at least a half inch of the bag full. That's a lot of trees! Now I just need to get some mulch ordered and delivered so that we can get that spread in the flower beds.

We once again hosted Easter this year, with a mix of family and friends. There were 12 of us, and it's a good thing the weather was so nice. I wasn't really sure how we were going to fit 12 people in the dining room, so I decided that we should eat out on the porch instead. Perfect! Wish I'd gotten a picture of the table. It was a little tight, but not bad. Brunch consisted of French Toast (with strawberries or syrup topping), bacon, quiche, deviled eggs, cinnamon rolls, and ham.

And the house is starting to look like a florist shop! I had bought a couple of bouquets on Saturday and then other people brought flowers with them. Some of them were absolutely gorgeous!

Joining us for Easter were Mom and her caregiver Iko, Dad, Liz, and Hanna, Andrew and Gentry, and friends York, Desta, and Kristin. After eating we played some badminton, and then after the "adults" had left, we played Telestrations. It was interesting since we had some repeat words this time from when we've played before. Photos of everyone are below.

Knitting/ skating time

2010-02-28T20:30:00.003-05:00

So a few weeks ago I decided to make some legwarmers to wear for skaitng. I don't wear them for my Saturday group class, but I've also been taking private lessons on Sundays to prepare for my competition in two weeks. Since it's a more intense class I wear my skating dress and tights (and a sweatshirt). But since it's cold at the rink I decided I wanted some legwarmers. They took about a week and a half to finish.

The dress is what I'll be wearing for my competition. As you can see, I've added some trim to the top and bottom. The trim at the top makes it a little difficult to get in and out since it isn't stretchy, but it's not too bad. And I sewed it on with fairly big stitches, so it will be easy to change if I want different decoration at a later point in time.

Congrats

2010-02-27T23:07:00.002-05:00

Congrats to my brother Andrew and his ~~girlfriend~~ fiance, Gentry, who just got engaged!

To quote Andrew when he called me,

It's early, so you can't say "no you're not". I asked Gentry to marry me and she said yes.

So for some back story.... When Chris and I got engaged, I called Andrew to tell him. But it was 11:00 or so, he was in bed, and I woke him up. So when I told him, he replied, "No you're not." Yeah, thanks for the support.

I was a bit more supportive to his news.

Fun new game

2010-02-24T14:05:00.004-05:00

Shortly after Christmas Chris and I got this game. A few people saw it and agreed that it looked like fun, but we didn't get a chance to play until Saturday. O. M. G. I don't think I've laughed this much in years!

Basically each player gets a card with a word on it that they draw. Then they pass their sketchbook to the next person. That person looks at the drawing and write down on the next page what they think it is. They then pass the books to the next person. That person looks at the new word and draw it. Etc. Until it gets back to the original person. You then reveal all of the drawings and guesses.

So in the example here, the word is kickball and by the end it's swiss cheese.

When we played, it was interesting how some stayed pretty consistent throughout. Others started off one way and then switched to something else halfway through, and others.... Yeah, there was a lot of laughing!

If you play games with 4 or more people, I highly recommend this.

Cream Cheese Frosting

2010-02-16T14:53:00.002-05:00

Every time I make a recipe that calls for cream cheese frosting, I fall in love. This time was no exception.

I decided that in honor of Valentine's Day I should make red velvet cupcakes. Chris saw the recipe which included a note from someone who commented that it made a LOT of frosting and that next time she would half the recipe. Chris scoffed, so I made the recipe as written. We now have a container full of leftover frosting.

We also decided that for future holidays I should just change the color of the food coloring. So there very well could be green velvet cupcakes for St. Patrick's Day. I also think I need to get a large star tip for decorating purposes.

Work in progress

2010-02-09T10:00:00.000-05:00

So here's a work in progress of my legwarmers. The color is all wrong, but I love the texture of it. Unfortunately I don't know if I'm going to have enough yarn. The pattern said two skeins, which is what I bought, so I thought I would be good. But as I'm knitting, I realized I'm nowhere near the finished length, but my yarn is quickly running out. So I check the pattern. 2 skeins, but 100g each. The yarn I bought was 50g per skein. Doh! Hopefully the store will have more of the same color. It could be challenging because this yarn has been discontinued. If they don't have it, I'll have to do something creative with mixing in different colors or trying to find the yarn elsewhere.

Skating and music and knitting, oh my!

2010-02-08T08:54:00.005-05:00

Yesterday out on the ice, I sucked! I got better, but the first time through practicing my program I was downright awful! I think it was the lack of warming up, plus I wanted to do well so of course I was bad. My coach commented that she knew I could do these things and that I just needed to relax.

Saturday I went and got my dress. I had looked at dresses online and noticed how crazy expensive they were. I figured I would look locally and see what I could get and then order online if I couldn't find anything. So my coach and classmates suggested that I go to a local store in Framingham. I did, and here's my dress. Except I got it in black. I had thought about getting one in a simmery black velvet, but they didn't have a style that I liked in that color.

But holy expensive, Batman! This was more than the ones I saw online. Well, more than the cheap ones I was considering. However, I know this fits and it was comfortable, so I guess it was worth the price. Now I just need to pick up some tights. And I think next week I'll start practicing in it.

Saturday while driving around I was flipping through radio stations and found a fun one. And Chris and I have now discovered a new favorite song. :) Ladybug, Ladybug, Ladybu-u-ug. Yes, it's a kids song. No, we don't care.

And in knitting news, I'm still working on a secret project, but it is almost done. However, I've taken a break and started on some legwarmers. I figure they could be good for skating. I just started them last night, so we'll see if I can finish them by the weekend or not. If I do, chances of me getting burned out are high. Last weekend I finished up my eggplant, pictured here. The pattern book used the alternate word, aubergine, which I love. I also love the word courgette.

Fun times

2010-02-03T09:10:00.002-05:00

So last night as Chris was driving home, a cop pulled out behind him. And the cop was behind him for about a half mile or so, following him through lights and turns, etc. Then, two houses away from being home, the cop turns his lights on and pulls Chris over.

Cop: Do you know why I pulled you over?
Chris: Actually, I have no idea.
Cop: Your inspection sticker has expired.
Chris: I just got it inspected last week!
Cop: Oh, well my computer says it's expired. Maybe the records just didn't get updated yet.

The cop even got out his flashlight and looked at the sticker. Luckily not too closely as he did, indeed, have an expired sticker. However, Chris did bring it in for service a week ago and he paid for an inspection. He just never received that inspection. Fun times.

Competition Time

2010-02-01T11:56:00.003-05:00

For probably about a year now, my skating teacher and other classmates have been saying that I should learn a program. Learning a program is no fun by itself, so this means having a place to perform said program. And on Saturday my teacher told me about a competition the second weekend in March. So I said ok, I'll do it. When do you want me for a private lesson? How about tomorrow at 11? Ok. So yesterday I had my first private lesson. And today I hurt. It wasn't really anything new, but it was the intensity. By the end I couldn't do it anymore. My legs weren't supporting me. Only six weeks to get ready. Hope I can do this!

And I'm very quickly realizing why I put this off so long. It's expensive! $40 registration fee for the competition. Not too bad. But then there's the costume. No clue how much that will end up being, but they're not cheap. $15 for ice time for practice, plus another $30 for each private lesson. And I don't know if I'll need those weekly or if I can spread them out a bit. I also should probably try to find some mid-week time to practice, as it doesn't really make much sense to just skate on Saturdays and Sundays.

What's amazing to me about all of this is how much I've learned and improved in the two years that I've been skating. I remember in my second class I started crying because I was so stressed and frustrated and feeling as if I couldn't do anything. I just hope I don't suck too horribly come competition day.

(The photo is from January 2008, about a month or two after I started lessons.)

Spring, Hurry up and get here. Please.

2010-01-28T12:16:00.004-05:00

Earlier this week we had a "warm" spell. It was in the 40s. Glorious! The warmer temperatures, combined with some rain, and the foot or so of snow on the ground mostly all melted away. I knew it was too good to last.

As I write this, snow is starting to fall outside my window. There are a number of things that I'd like to get done outside at home, but it's always dark, too cold, or everything is covered in snow. Blech. And I continue to have spring fever.

Even though I know it won't truly warm up for 3-4 more months I've started to plan my garden. I've run into issues in the past where I've put it off and things I've wanted to order have been sold out. So over the past couple of weeks (inspired by some emails I've received) I planned out my garden and placed a number of orders. We still have work to do prepping the ground (building beds, etc) but all of the plants and seeds have been ordered. And according to UPS tracking, the seeds should be coming to my house today.

I've ordered tomato, asparagus, rhubarb, and strawberry plants and lots of seeds-
Petunias
Nasturtium
Cosmos
Four o'clocks (never heard of these before, but they looked pretty)
Cilantro
Basil
Parsley
Mesclun mix
Broccoli
Sweet peppers
Zucchini
Cucumbers
Beans
Scallions
Carrots
Corn

Wow, that's a lot of stuff! And most of it will go into 4 4x4 foot beds. The asparagus, strawberries and rhubarb will be going into a larger bed along the porch. And the flowers- haven't really decided. A few here, a few there. And maybe some of the herbs will end up in pots as well. All I know if I've got my work cut out for me with seed starting. Hopefully I'll have better luck than I've had in the past.

Thoughts on a Thursday

2010-01-28T10:51:00.005-05:00

Today's post is all about knitting. As many of them have been lately. I don't really understand why I'm so much into knitting all of a sudden, but it all started right after Christmas when I saw a knitting calendar with a pattern for cookies. Then that led to the penguin hat also in the calendar. And I wanted to make something to give along with the hat, which led to the monster booties (and another secret project). And along the way there were vegetables and fingerless gloves. And my latest internet addiction- Ravelry. This led to elf slippers and the desire to order lots and lots of yarn. Yup. I have a problem.

My scrapping, however, has been sorely neglected. I still have a couple of layouts to do for my 2008 album. Plus their are the 2008 vacation (Acadia) and Christmas albums. For 2009, I think I've only done 2 or 3 layouts. So not only is there the normal album, but there's also the England album. And although I did start it, I never did finish the 2009 Cookie Baking cookbook. Yup. I'm rather behind. With little chance of being caught up. Blech.

We have company coming on Saturday which means that the rest of the week needs to be spent cleaning and getting ready for that. But all I want to do is go home and finish knitting an eggplant.

Busy weekend

2010-01-24T23:24:00.005-05:00

This weekend's knitting projects included these elf slippers, making cases for my double pointed needles, and starting to make a bunch of grapes.

I found the pattern for the slippers on Ravelry on Friday, bought the yarn on Saturday, and finished them up Sunday evening. Kind of funny because earlier in the week I had been discussing slippers with someone at work and we mentioned elf slippers. So I think these will have to go in to work when they are done. And there was some leftover yarn that I figured was grape colored, so I started to make some fruit.

I went with a pattern that I had for Halloween eyeballs and used that for my first grape. It turned out a bit large, so I left out an increase and a few extra rows and I think the smaller size will be fine. Then I made the stem out of some yarn leftover from Tucker. I have 7 more grapes to make for this bunch, but I think it may be part of an even larger bunch of grapes. That will have to wait to see.

And for the knitting needle cases, I started them a few weeks ago. Actually, the project is even older than that. I think it was last spring when I decided that I wanted to make the cases. But this afternoon I finished them up. Sorry, no picture to share of those.

Hello, Pink.

2010-01-19T12:01:00.003-05:00

Finished up my fingerless gloves over the weekend. I think I should have made them a size smaller. they seem a little baggy. However, they also fit well over bulky clothes, so maybe it was the right size. Maybe it's just a yarn without a lot of elasticity. The photo of my left hand looks a little wonky, but that's just because of my sweatshirt sleeve and my watch underneath the glove.

And they are working. My finger tips are sometimes still a little chilly, but in general I am feeling that they are a lot warmer. And my hands are ALWAYS cold!

Someone at work saw them today and commented that it they weren't pink they might look somewhat Austen-ish. Or maybe he said Dickensian. Either way, they kind of fit into those periods.

Blech

2010-01-18T13:07:00.003-05:00

I need to learn to read knitting patterns better. I have a project I'm currently working on, and I keep messing up. My most recent mistake was following the directions for a Medium size, when, in fact, I'm making a large. No wonder it seemed wrong. Guess tonight I'll have to rip out a section and get that fixed. And this isn't the first time I've made a similar mistake. At least I'm getting practice with picking up a row of stitches.

Weekend recap

2010-01-18T09:38:00.003-05:00

Chris and I went to the Museum of Science on Saturday. We went for the Harry Potter exhibit. I didn't think I would be that impressed by it, but I loved seeing all of the costumes and seeing the details of them.

We also looked around the rest of the museum. Well, not all of the museum, because it's huge. And I saw this sign. Obviously it humored me, since I pulled out my camera in the ladies room.

In knitting news, I finished up my fingerless gloves. Need to get a picture of them. Not really all that special, but useful since my hands get chilly.

I also put a number of my past projects up on Ravelry.

Derby Planning, already?

2010-01-14T17:55:00.002-05:00

I'm not entirely sure why, but today I seem to have the Pinewood Derby on my brain. I guess it started out when I was browsing a baking website and I started to look at their chocolate molds to find car designs. And then I started thinking about decorations so I went to Oriental Trading. And then since I was looking at all this other Derby stuff, I may as well go ahead and order the trophies.

So we don't even have a date for the Derby, but the trophies are ordered. (I went with a slightly different design this year. Sent 2 pics to Chris and let him choose.) For now, I resisted ordering other things. But I've found that if I wait too long the racecar stuff will sell out at Oriental Trading.

Back before Christmas the Georgia family members were asking us when the Derby would be. We don't know. We still don't know. I understand their reasoning for asking- they want to come up to visit and need to request time off at work and they want to come for the Derby. I think that's great that they want to be here for the Derby, but our brains can't plan a party like this 6-8 months in advance! Even picking a date 3-4 months in advance seems super early to me.

But for those who must know, I'm kind of leaning towards early August. Or possibly late June. Two very different times, but that's what's going through my brain these days.

2010-01-14T08:06:00.001-05:00

Took a break from a longer knitting project last night to start another. Initially I was just planning to look at what yarns I would need to buy for a couple of projects. But then I remembered one that I had already that I thought might work fora project. So I started knitting fingerless gloves. This is key because my hands get really cold. Especially in my craft room where my only source of warmth is a space heater, which doesn't get turned on until I get home from work. If I'm lucky, they'll knit up quickly.

Also got a couple of gifts boxed up and ready to mail. I had meant to take better pictures of them, but I forgot. I guess I'll have to ask the recipient to do that for me. At least that way they can be modeled, which is even better.

Yum

2010-01-13T09:44:00.002-05:00

Over the weekend we were in Target and I tried out Burt's Bees Honey & Grapeseed Oil Hand Creme. since it was so cold out, when we left, I put my gloves on. Now, whenever I put my gloves on, I smell honey. Love that!

House decorating

2010-01-12T17:30:00.001-05:00

Back in either late November or early December I decided that I wanted to make a gingerbread house. I figured this would be a fun activity to share with our friends. Well due to scheduling, we couldn't get together until this past Saturday. So we decorated houses and then had a re-gift Yankee Swap.

It's funny, because when we had the supplies on our counter in the kitchen it didn't look like we had all that much. So we asked people to bring some candy to share. Wow, when it all was on the table, it was apparent that we had more than enough!

To allow time for the houses to set up before decorating, Chris and I made the basic house shape in advance. And we used graham crackers since I figured it would be easier than baking enough gingerbread to make 17 houses. So we started putting them together on Friday night. And we soon discovered that two boxes of graham crackers weren't enough, so we finished them up on Saturday morning after a trip to the grocery store. And in the end, 2 people were unable to make it, which was probably a good thing as the house was pretty full with 15 people (6 of them being kids).

We started off the evening with dinner. I think in Chris' and my minds we were thinking we would start with decorating and people could eat whenever, but as it turned out, we ate and then decorated. Back at the end of December I had come across this recipe for mini ham and cheese sandwiches. I thought they sounded good, but was also somewhat skeptical. But we gave them a try, and they were delicious! A little greasy/buttery, but very good. We knew those wouldn't be enough, so we also had salad and pizza. We recently discovered the BEST pizza ever. Papa John's BBQ Chicken with Bacon. Amazing! Normally it comes with onions, but we have a number of non-onion people, so we got it without. Still very good. That pizza went quickly.

For one family, this was their first time coming to one of our game nights. They commented that they found it amusing that we essentially hosted a kids' party when we don't have kids. Hey, we like to do fun "kids" activities. :) Besides, I've found that sometimes it's better to include the kids if not having them there would mean that the parents are unable to come due to lack of babysitters, etc. So the kids come and they run around the house, play games, watch movies, etc.

And it's not like we ignore the kids. Kristin was the first of the adults to finish decorating her house. Probably because she wasn't busy helping the kids with theirs. So when she was done she started playing with the kids. It seems their game was to all hold onto her legs as she tried to walk.

We rounded out the evening with a Yankee Swap. For the most part it was a re-gift Yankee Swap, but I think there were a couple of items purchased especially for the event. I think one of the "best" gifts was a small glass plate etched with an image of The Last Supper. But the best part of it was when Caitlyn referred to it as "Thanksgiving". Her mom then responded that she thought they needed to get to church a little more often.

So to wrap this up, here are some more pictures of the houses.

A little of this, a little of that

2010-01-05T17:30:00.001-05:00

I guess I'm just not meant to blog all that frequently. I'd like to get back into it, but I seem to lack topics to blog about. And this post is all over the place as I play catch-up with everything.

I took some vacation days and was off of work from Christmas Eve until yesterday. It's a bit of a shock to the system to get back into things. While I was off I did a whole lot of nothing. And I loved it!

I watched a lot of movies and some TV shows. Serenity, A Knight's Tale, (yes, we started with an Alan Tudyk theme) Troy, There Will be Blood, Four Christmases, Nobel Son, Surviving Christ mas, Lost in Austen, Dangerous Beauty, Picture Perfect, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Harry Potter 1-6, the final episode from season one and the pilot of Dollhouse, and Buffy, season one and 15 episodes of season two. Plus we went out and saw Sherlock Holmes. Our Netflix account definitely got a workout!!!

I knit. And I knit some more. (Basically I spent my time knitting and watching movies.) This included 2 chocolate chip cookies, an oreo, a sugar cookie, and a peanut blossom, all on a plate and with a matching mug of milk. To combat that sugar, I made 2 sugar snap peas- one with a closed pod and the other pod open with 3 peas in it. (Not sure why the pattern for the open pod is about half the size of the closed pod.) Then for clothes I made a quick black and white hat and then have started a couple of other projects.

I bought new ice skates and Chris even humored me and went to the rink with me one day. Although he won't readily admit it, I think he had fun. He didn't fall and was actually skating away from the wall for a while. If only they actually sharpened rental skates, he might have done even better.

Had a scrap night with Kelly. I had grand ambitions of working on my Acadia album from when we were there in 2008. Instead I spent the night helping Kelly with her album. And we got 12 pages done, finishing up DJ's first year of life!

In other Christmas relatedness....

I was a little late getting the decorations up, but about halfway through the month things finally got spruced up. Due to various other scheduling I imagine decorations will be up through the end of January.

We had survived Cookie Baking. We cut back the number of recipes and stretched it over the weekend. We also did gifts over the weekend, thus eliminating the need to schedule another event. I still need to finish making the cookbook.

On Christmas Day, Mom came over and we had a nice meal, gifts, etc. Then that evening we went and saw Sherlock Holmes.

Coming up... on Saturday we're having friends over to make gingerbread houses and do a re-gift Yankee Swap.

Coming up.... Jan 30th getting together with my mom's extended family for our "Christmas" gathering. A turducken is in my future...

Other December activities included a Lost and Found concert. Hard to believe that I've been following them around for 16 years now! Michael (frizzy hair on my right) and his wife had a baby recently so I gave him a little sweater that I had knit. When George had his girls they got dresses, so it was only fair. Plus it was a sweater I had originally planned for a baby boy I know, but it ended up looking too girly.

We shoveled snow a couple of times. And then when we came back from Cookie Baking to 8 inches of snow in the driveway, our next door neighbor asked us if we wanted the number of his plow guy. Um, yes, please. He's now saved in my phone as "plow guy". :) While waiting for the plow guy I looked out the window and saw this fabulous sunset. (The snow picture is from our commute in to work earlier in December.)

In other news, I got new glasses. Not very exciting, but in mid-December I realized I had about $400 left in my FSA. Since it's a use it or loose it kind of thing, I figured since I hated my old glasses, this would be a good way to use up the money. Hopefully these will stay on my head better than my old glasses.
What was weird though, is when I went in to pick out my frames, the saleswoman remembered my name. I hadn't been there since the summer! She said she remembered the fun colors of my hair.

And at the beginning of December Chris once again had a table at Good Shepherd's Craft Faire. Pictured here is only about half of his inventory. He's done really well this year, especially with his Etsy store.

Halloween Festivities

2009-11-03T14:11:00.010-05:00

So there's this blog that I follow called Cake Wrecks. And on this blog, they feature things like this cookie creation. We had a Halloween Party at work (more on that later) and someone brought in this cookie for the party. As soon as I saw the inscription, I immediately thought of Cake Wrecks. It's not too wrecky, but the Wreckorator does need a spelling lesson.

On the home front, the ApotheSCARY is back in action, this time in our front hall. Many of the bottles still haven't gotten labels. Guess people will just need to use their imagination to decide what's in them.

Also at home I had my glass pumpkins and some candles set out on the bookcases in the "library/office" area. It's really just this odd space between the front entry and the rest of the house where we've got a few bookcases and Chris has his computer desk. Anyway, I thought it was a good space for this display, although it is a little crowded.

The final area to decorate was the windowsill in the dining room. I had thought about putting things out on the sideboard like I normally do, but thought this was a more visible spot. It has my ghosts, a few more candles, and some items that I got from a swap last year. I had my witch mobile hanging from the ceiling fan in the dining room.

Since I had the ApotheSCARY set up at home, I wasn't sure what to bring to decorate at work. And did I even want to decorate at work? It was kind of expected of me since I still had the brick wall set up from last year's display, but what should I bring in? In the end, I brought in a large skeleton and some fake gravestones and had those set up. Not too exciting, but it also didn't take a lot of effort or creative thought (which I was lacking).

So more about work.... We had a Halloween party again this year, which I planned. We decided not to have a cube decorating contest again since so few people had participated last year. This actually was good for me since I was out of ideas.

Instead, we just had a costume contest. However, we did add a new category this year. For individual costumes we had winners for Best, Scariest, Funniest, and Most Original. And we added the new category of Best Group Costume. I was wondering how many groups would get into this and was happy to see that 3 groups participated (ranging from 3, and 4 participants, to a 12 person group).

The party itself was pretty easy to plan. Put together some invitations and posters, send out calendar invites, contact the cafe for food... Then on Friday run to Costco for beer and a few other food items, set up, and Party!

I actually ended up with two costumes. I wanted to wear my Ren Faire dress for the party and I wanted to wear a costume all day. However, I knew it wasn't practical to wear it all day. But then I decided to wear a costume for skating on Saturday, so got a cat costume. Perfect to wear for work! So I started off in a cat costume, and then changed just before the party. I had thought about just wearing the ears and tail with normal clothes, but then decided to go with the leotard, tights, and dance skirt. And jacket. A "must" since the leotard was a little skimpy.

The winners for costumes were: Me for Best, Jeremy as Dracula for Scariest, Chris as a Spelling Bee for Funniest, and Linda as "Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Rain". I don't have a picture of her costume, but it was a blue shirt with cotton ball clouds and she walked around with a squirt bottle spraying "rain".

The Best Group Costume was the Legal department as The Wizard of Oz.

Another fun costume was "Smarty Pants". And I got a shot of everyone from Marketing who was in costume- Flavor Flav, me, a cop, an escaped convict, and a hotdog.

As to Halloween itself, as I mentioned, since it was Saturday and I had skating, I dressed in a cat costume. I then wore my costume for various errands. But then in the afternoon I was exhausted I lay down for a nap. I ended up sleeping for 4 hours and woke up at 8:30. Chris hadn't turned on the outside light, so we never did get any kids at our house. :( How disappointing that I slept through Halloween!

Once again, my photos are "published" online!

2009-10-27T14:06:00.007-04:00

A couple of years ago a photo I took was put online at BBC.com. Once again, I've got a photo up at an online news site. This one isn't quite as cool though.

Boston.com was looking for user submissions on Halloween decorations, so I sent them a couple of photos of my ApotheScary shop. Here they are! (You can click on them to view larger.)

Getting creative again

2009-09-20T22:19:00.007-04:00

Wow, I scrapped! It's been way too long since I had a creative outlet. And then I got two layouts done in the past four days! I just need to keep this up. I was hoping to finish getting my craft room unpacked, but instead I just started to mess it up even more. Plus I think that most of what's left, especially what's on the table, is pretty much going to live there anyway.

It also helped that I joined the Tally Survivor challenges. And I did the challenge on the first day. That NEVER happens! Usually I make my LO on the last day of the challenge, or have to do a makeup challenge, so this is quite the accomplishment for me.

Now I need to edit some photos and place an order. I have about a year's worth of photos to scrap. Yikes, I've gotten behind!

Edited to say, that after posting this, about an hour later I finished another LO. I'm on a roll!

It's official...

2009-08-24T15:26:00.003-04:00

... we're homeowners. On the 14th we closed on our house. Spent Saturday painting. A little more painting on Tuesday. And two days ago we moved in. Lots of boxes! Still a few miscellaneous things at the old apartment that need to get moved over.

HUGE thanks to Andrew, Gentry, Kristin, Jason, Pete and my dad for helping us move. Sorry we had to pick one of the hottest days of the year. Too bad that rain didn't cool things down and cut the humidity. Wish we could have done more for you than just feed you pizza.

Also HUGE thanks go out to Liz for her assistance with unpacking yesterday. I realized last night that I lack focus. Actually, I think I knew that, but I confirmed it to myself. Chris was putting together the cabinets that we got for the kitchen. I was unpacking a few boxes that I had borrowed from work and needed to return. Most of these boxes were in my craft room. So I go in there, open one, and realize it belongs in the office. So I bring it to the office. Then I notice an open box of books. So I take out the books and finish putting those away. Then I have to break down the boxes. Um. No. I needed to get those original boxes emptied.

This is why Liz was fabulous. With her help we got the dining room completely unpacked and put away. And she put out some candles to give it a nice decorated touch. She also tackled the kitchen. This room was completely overwhelming me because there weren't nearly enough cabinets. (What you see pictured is all of them, probably about half of what was in our old place.) But she found a place for almost everything. And I think that with the cabinet that we got, we now should have homes for everything.

Tonight's agenda is to go to the old place and try to get the remaining stuff. Tomorrow is trash day, so we'll put that out (there's a lot!), empty the fridge, load up the cars, and if the weather isn't too gross, maybe I'll dig up some plants that I want to take with me. And at some point later in the week, we'll get around to cleaning and touching up the walls. Unpacking at the new house? Probably not so much of that tonight.

2009-06-22T12:49:00.001-04:00

Sunday was Father's Day and in honour of the occassion I made these very cute desserts. I got the idea, directions, and templates from Bakerella. Pretty easy to make, but a bit time consuming due to all of the steps. But worth it, I think. Next up, cake pops?

Happy belated 12th of June!

2009-06-18T19:00:00.001-04:00

Apparently our town decided that they didn't want to deal with fireworks on the 4th of July, so instead they had them last Friday. Huh? And Boy Chris was able to have an "I told you so" moment. The fireworks were scheduled for 9, with music starting at 8. So I suggested that we bring some food and get there around 7:30 or so. No one was there. Ok, the DJ was there, but that was it.

Silly me, I assumed it was live music and that people would get there early, set a blanket out on the ground, and have a picnic. Nope. Seating was on the bleachers of the football field. Around 8:30 it started filling up. I'd say that we now know better for next time, but seeing as how we're moving, there won't be a next time.

I did have a chance to play with my camera and try some new things with taking pictures of fireworks. Would have been better with a tripod, but I didn't want to deal with that.

What?

2009-06-18T00:22:00.002-04:00

It's 10 days before the Derby and I'm actually done with my car? This is most unusual. I'm usually finishing it up the day before or the day of. But here it is.

I also am making another car. It's the same design that I've done before- one that's pretty quick. I usually make a simple one and then don't feel so bad if I have to give up on my fancier car. So my simple car may need another coat of paint, but otherwise is more or less done.

I guess this means I can spend more time doing other things like decorating cookies and baking Friendship Bread.

Britain's Top 10 castles

2009-06-16T10:15:00.000-04:00

The Travel Channel had a program a while back of Britain's Top 10 Castles.

10. Windsor Castle
9. Hampton Court Palace
8. Edinburgh Castle
7. St. Michael's Mount
6. Stirling Castle
5. Caernarfon Castle
4. Leeds Castle
3. Tintagel Castle
2. Warwick Castle
1. Tower of London

I think I've been to all of them except for Stirling Castle. Although Caernarfon I saw when I was 8 and really have no memory of it. After this trip Chris will have all of them except for Stirling, Caernarfon, and possibly Leeds.

I guess next we'll have to work on Europe's Top 10 Castles.

Tales of a Pinewood Derby car

2009-06-15T22:52:00.002-04:00

Last year my friend Jeremy made a US flag for his Derby car since it was held on the 5th of July. So we were talking about what special holidays might be around this year's Derby. I looked it up and here are a few of the special holidays.

Captain Kangaroo's birthday, National Columnists Day, anniversary of the melody to Happy Birthday being written, National Orange Blossom Day, National Picnic Day....

I entertained the idea of decorating a block of wood to look like a cake and putting the words to Happy Birthday on it. I thought about doing something with a picnic theme, but then Chris said that he wanted to make a picnic basket. He's since dropped that idea.

I decided to go with National Orange Blossom Day. I drew a branch onto my block and then cut it out- making sure to leave branches for the axles. However, the problem was then that my "car" weighted .7-.8 ounces. Ugh. I cut away a lot of weight. We went in search of fishing weights. We were going to go with tungsten since they are much more dense than lead, but instead we got a variety of lead weights.

We drilled into the front and back and added half an ounce on each end. Add some stain and putty, and I'm now up to 1.7 ounces. Still nowhere near what I want. For leaves I had thought about carving them, but I tried that and although it was working, I wasn't thrilled with the way they were turning out. And it still wasn't going to be heavy enough. Then I thought about polymer clay.

But did clay flowers and leaves count as "simple add-ons"? Since I was unsure, I asked my back-up committee of judge, and he told me that it would be ok. So if anyone has a problem with it, it's Boy Chris' fault! I was going to add some bits of lead into my clay before baking, but Chris told me I couldn't do that. Something about fumes. Whatever!

So instead I took some lead fishing weights and pounded them with a hammer until they sort of resembled leaves. Hopefully I can get them to stay on the car!

Then there was the clay. Yesterday I made a bunch of leaves and flowers. I had one flower that I really liked. The directions said 130 degrees for 15 minutes per quarter inch, and don't overbake. Mine were about 1/8 inch so I did 5 minutes- checked, nope. 5 more minutes. Pulled them out. Left them for a bit and tried one and it broke. Did they need more time? I put them back in a bit longer. When I took them out, they still broke. What was going on? If you overbake do they become too brittle? That's when I re-read the directions. They were supposed to go in at 130 degrees Celsius (275 Farenheit). Wait, who puts the Celsius temp first? Maybe it's European? I checked- Made in the USA!

Tonight I tried again with much more success. The pictures that you see here were from tonight's batch. Once my lead leaves get painted I should be able to start assembling it. And if I'm lucky, when it goes down the track, it won't break or fall apart.

Finally, I leave you with a mystery. I don't think it's Derby related. Ok, there's a derby website on this post-it, but what I want to know, is what the heck I was sketching. I asked Chris what it was and he doesn't know either. Any ideas??

Trying not to overplan....

2009-06-15T15:45:00.006-04:00

Done

Flights booked
T in the Park tickets purchased
Reserved tent, sleeping bags, etc for T in the Park
Hotel in Edinburgh booked
Hotel in Horton-in-Ribblesdale booked
Hotel in Bingley booked
Hotel in Maidstone booked
Hotel in London booked
English Heritage 2 week membership purchased
Maps for 3 Peaks of Yorkshire hike purchased
Guide books and road atlas purchased

To do

Arrange for cat sitters
Book rental car
Book Globe Theatre tickets (decide which show we want to see- Troilus & Cressida, Romeo & Juliet, or As You Like It)
Decide what are must-see's, maybe-see's, and what can be crossed off the list
Get adapter so that will be able to use the computer
Countless other things that my brain can't handle right now!

So what's on the list of things for us to see? Yes, I realize this is quite ambitious for a 16 day vacation.

T in the Park- booked because of James, but will enjoy 3 days of music.
Edinburgh Castle
Nelson's Monument
Holyrood House
Hadrian's Wall
The Forbidden Corner
3 Peaks of Yorkshire walk/hike
Bingley, including 5 Rise Locks, Prince of Wales Park, walking along various footpaths....
East Riddlesden Hall
Cow & Calf Rock- Ilkley Moor
Bolton Abbey
Kirkstall Abbey
Saltaire
Skipton Castle
Harry Ramsden's
A football match at location to be determined- Chris is in charge of figuring this one out
Warwick Castle
Coventry Cathedral
Hever Castle
Dover Castle
Leeds Castle
Greenwich
Windsor Castle
Eton
Cambridge
Kew Gardens
British Museum
Sir John Soane Museum (not to be confused with the Sloop John B Museum, which is what I keep wanting to call it)
Millennium Bridge
Cabinet War Museum
Platform 9 3/4
Harry Potter (it opens while we're there)
Globe Theatre
Misc other things that I'm sure I'm forgetting or various other things that catch our fancy

Flowers and houses

2009-06-12T16:00:00.000-04:00

So what's happened in the world of Chris since I last posted? And aren't you impressed that I've been updating more frequently? Three posts last week and another one now? That's 4 posts in 10 days! But who am I kidding, I'm sure this won't last.

When I thought we were going to get the other house, I went to the library and started looking through gardening magazines. One of them had an article on peonies. It suggested that instead of leaving them out on the bush where the stems are likely to break since the blooms are so heavy, as soon as they start to bloom, you should cut them and bring them inside so that you can fully enjoy them. So I did. And they're pink and wonderful!

And speaking of the peonies, I've been going back in forth in my mind (and a bit with Chris) about what I should do with the peonies and various other perennials in my garden when we move. I've spent a fair amount of money on them, and they've taken a few years to become established and actually look good. So do I leave them in a garden that may quickly become neglected, overgrown and unappreciated, or do I dig them up and move them to the new house? If I do decide to move them, that means that I'll need to know where they're going, and will need to prep the area in advance. This could be easier said than done. I think the ones I care the most about are the peonies, my lavender, and my chives. I've had those chives since I lived on Myrtle Street. They're at least 8 years old and have moved 4 times.

So how's the house hunt going? We've looked at a ridiculous number of houses! we started on May 1st. I think we've looked at 18 houses- maybe more. And that's just the ones we've gone into. We've looked at so many more online. They all start to blur together! We put an offer on the one I mentioned last week. We were ready to put an offer on another and then learned that they were under agreement.

Wednesday night our realtor sent us a listing. Chris and I both liked what we saw. It had been on the market for two days. We asked to go see it ASAP. Last night we went to check it out. Our realtor commented that he had gotten there a bit early and was able to walk around and look at it, and then he went out to his truck and started to fill out the papers. We loved it. We were ready to make an offer. We agreed on a price and he gave them until the end of today to respond. He wanted to get it finalized before their scheduled open house this weekend. When we left we stopped by to visit my dad, and after talking about it a bit we decided it wasn't worth haggling over what is a relatively small amount of money, so we called our realtor back and said we were going to offer the asking price. They accepted. So I'm still a bit wary and am trying not to get too excited, but I think it's ours. Here are the pictures.

All good things must come to an end

2009-06-05T12:49:00.001-04:00

Turns out I spoke too soon on the house. Even though we had a verbal agreement, someone else came in and offered them more. We weren't given the chance to match that offer.

So now we're on to looking at more houses. Saw one online last night that we thought looked fabulous. It had only been on the market a few days. Told our realtor about it. Someone else has already put in an offer. Grrr. However, we do have a few others we're going to try to see this weekend.

What else is going on?

2009-06-04T18:00:00.000-04:00

So I realize there is a huge problem in the fact that it takes me a month or longer to update this blog. Guess I should make more of an effort to keep up with it. So here's a rundown of some of the other things that have been going on.

For our anniversary we went to see the Spinal Tap: Unwigged & Unplugged concert. It was awesome! It was a mix of classic Spinal Tap songs, some of their "earlier" work (when they were The Originals, The Thamesmen, etc) as well as Folksmen songs from A Mighty Wind, and even a song from Waiting for Guffman. Here are a few of the pictures from the concert.

Throughout the show they showed various clips of things on the screen behind them. So for Stonhenge they showed a little Stonhenge being lowered and then troll dolls dancing around it.

However, I think the best moment for me was after the show. We went around to the stage door. We certainly didn't rush out there, but we were the first ones. Odd. The longer we waited, the more people showed up. And then we got the sense that they were trying to make a speedy exit because the tour bus was moved up more into a direct exit with the door. However, that didn't stop me from getting Christopher Guest to sign my copy of Guffman- my favorite of his movies.

And a little bit of an update on my mom, since I've mentioned concerns, but then never gave details or an update. Since the fall we've been concerned about her and the fact that she was living alone in a 2-story home. However, she resisted any suggestions that we made about her moving elsewhere. Then in March things took a turn for the worse. Presumable it was an exacerbation of her MS. But she was stubborn and still thought she would be ok on her own. Visiting Nurses and a home health aide started to come, but there were some other problems and she ended up going to the hospital. She spent 5 days there and then since she wasn't going to be ok on her own, she went to a rehabilitation hospital for a month. She's still not back to a self-sufficient functioning level, so now she's at a nursing home. Time will tell how long she stays there or where she goes next. Thanks to everyone for the kind words, notes, etc that you've shared with me during this time.

Skating continues to go well. In fact, I've even started taking a second day of lessons. However, these new lessons are a very different format, and I haven't decided yet if I really like them or not. I think my big problem is that it's not really challenging enough. I just keep working on basic things. Which can be good to perfect my technique, but it's also a bit boring.

I guess between looking at houses and everything else going on, my scraping has kind of slacked off for a while. Not sure if it was just that I was busy or if my mojo was gone. I did actually get into my scrap room and made some cards over the weekend while Chris was at poker. It felt good. I just need to get back in there and create more. I'm feeling really behind. I'm trying not to let it get to me, but it's starting to get to the point of being completely overwhelming. Especially when I think that I've barely started pictures from last summer's vacation, and in a little over a month we'll be off to the UK, where I'm sure I'll take 100's more photos. Must make an effort to do more.

Exciting news...

2009-06-03T11:31:00.004-04:00

We are soon to be homeowners! We put in an offer on a house, they countered, and we are accepting their counter. So by the end of the summer, we'll be the proud owners of a little green colonial built around 1918. I didn't take pics of the front of the house since those were available online in the listing, but here are the other pics that I took of the house. This one here is if the backdoor and a peek at the yard.

In other news, the 6th annual Pinewood Derby is coming up in less than a month. The day that it's being held (June 27th) happens to be National Orange Blossom Day, so my idea is to make an orange branch with leaves and flowers. I started over the weekend and the branch part looks pretty good. Carving flowers and leaves out of wood is going ok, but I think I may try making them out of clay instead. However, my big problem is that my car is very light. We'll have to get very creative with weight placement to get it up to 5 ounces. Ideas in the running are putting fishing weights into the clay as well as steel leaves. We'll see. I have 3 weeks to figure it out.

Goodbye winter!

2009-04-28T15:23:00.004-04:00

(Recited to me many times by my mother in an over-emphasized Brooklyn accent.)

Spring is sprung, the grass is ris.
I wonders where the birdies is.
They say the birds is on the wing.
Ain't that absurd?
I always thought the wing was on the bird.

Next stop, Olympics training camp?

2009-04-04T23:41:00.008-04:00

Remember this video? Well, now it's a little over a year later, and I'm much improved. Or am I? I can do the basics a lot better, but I still keep falling on that lunge. :) In my defense, this time I'm trying to do a three-turn at the same time as my lunge.

It really gets entertaining a little after the 3 minute mark, but you can actually see my "talent" if you watch the earlier parts.

Enjoy!

(Damn copyright infringement! Youtube removed my audio track! For now it's still available on Facebook. Hopefully you don't need to be my "friend" to view this.)

Derby Time!

2009-04-02T00:21:00.005-04:00

Finally got around to finish scrapping last year's Derby pictures, and now I need to think about what to make for this year's Derby. Any suggestions?

And to anyone who's interested in coming or sending in an entry, it's June 27th.

2009-03-31T22:09:00.004-04:00

I'm a bit emotionally spent at the moment so am not up for giving details, but here's how creativity hit me tonight. For those of you know know what she's been going through, let's just say things have taken a turn for the worse the past few weeks. Now we just need the strength to get through this and come to an agreeable solution that will be beneficial to her health. And since the brunt of this will be on my shoulders, let's hope we dont' kill each other since I don't have Andrew's patience.

More trip plans

2009-03-10T13:58:00.002-04:00

So on Friday I commented about not knowing how we were going to deal with the whole camping aspect of going to Scotland. I started thinking of the various options- bring our own gear with us, ship stuff to the UK office, ask people from the UK office if they had anything we could borrow, buy new while we're there... None of these seemed like good options.

I posted on the James forum about my quandary. One person offered that if I wanted, I could have stuff shipped to her, and she would bring it along. Nice offer, but probably not something I would choose to do- sending things to a random stranger. And then someone else mentioned about Tangerine Fields.

This is the best option yet! You book through them and you get a tent, air mattress, and brand new sleeping bags. When you're done, you can take the sleeping bag with you, or if you leave it, they'll donate it to charity. Also, they do all the set up and take down of your tent. This certainly isn't an option I would choose had we actually been living in the UK, but it's perfect for us since we'll be flying. So I booked a tent package this morning.

Hmmm, what's next on the planning list?

I've started to look at flights, and they're all ridiculously expensive. We'll probably fly in and out of different cities- either fly into Edinburgh and out of London, or vice-versa. However, finding direct flights to Edinburgh, or anywhere near there, is proving to be impossible. And like I mentioned, everything is crazy expensive. Flying RT from the same city doesn't really help anything.

And realizing that we're going to have to pay for a rental car to be parked for 3 days while we're at T seems like a waste of money, but otherwise we're not going to have anywhere to stash the rest of our luggage. I'm somewhat concerned about leaving a laptop in the car for 3 days as well, but not too much we can do about that. I know I'll need it for back-up for my photos. I'm sure I'll be taking way more pictures in 2 weeks than my memory cards will hold.

Active Weekend

2009-03-08T17:36:00.002-04:00

So skating has been a lot of fun lately. Although my waltz jump is still really sucky, my teacher has realized that I'm better than the other students on other things. So last weekend she taught me to do a spread eagle, and then yesterday she had me doing a lunge and a 3-turn simultaneously. Yeah, not so easy. And I was doing so many lunges that I'm in a bit of pain today.

But then since the weather has been so nice (upper 50s, low 60s) Chris and I went for a bike ride today. Only about 6 miles, but that was enough. I don't think we've been on our bikes since we went to Acadia back in August.

Too bad tomorrow it's supposed to snow. I guess we're back to winter for a bit longer. too bad the garden didn't get that memo. I've got bulbs popping up all over the place.

Mel, you can call me crazy now...

2009-03-06T05:28:00.003-05:00

So a week and a half ago when I first mentioned it to Chris, he seemed to think I was crazy. I guess somewhere along the lines I wore him down. Would have been cheaper if he had said yes a week ago though. :)

James is playing at T in the Park in Scotland in July. If I had gotten tickets last week when they first went on sale, we might have just been able to get a ticket for Saturday. However, he didn't approve the purchase a week ago, so tickets sold out, without me getting any. And then yesterday I saw that a limited number was going to be re-released. (Ticketmaster had a limit on how many could be purchased, so these were some of those extras now going to the public, etc.) No mention though of how many tickets, what types, etc.

Tickets were going back on sale at 10 am. 10 am UK time, 5 am in Boston. Blech. I dutifully set my alarm for 4:30. For those of you who know me, I HATE mornings. But I was even semi-awake before my alarm went off. Hit snooze a couple of times and got up.

First I tried for tickets for Saturday only. Tried a few times and no luck. Tried for weekend with camping, and found tickets right away. So now we're going for the whole weekend and somehow we have to figure out how to get a tent and other camping gear over there. I guess worst case we skip the camping and find somewhere else in the area to stay, but who knows.

And we all complain about Ticketmaster fees, right? Well the service charge on the tickers and the parking ticket are expected. But for ticket delivery, when purchasing internationally, box office collection is the only option. Why does that cost me £2.25? It's not like they are sending it anywhere. Actually, I gladly would have paid to have the tickets sent to me, but that wasn't an option.

So yeah, we're going to Scotland. Now we need to plan the rest of our vacation. :)

Productive Day

2009-02-22T21:41:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I went to a crop. It was scheduled to go from 9-9. I knew that this was way too much time for me, so I figured I would get there around 10, and leave around 7 or 8. Well I got there at 10:45 and left around 5:30. I didn't bring nearly enough to work on, so by that point I was done with what I had brought. Oh well, I still had a productive day.

And then today, I spent some time this afternoon cleaning up my scrap room. Came across lots of things that I didn't remember that I had. Probably have a lot more that I can get rid of as well. Now I have a bunch of things to give away, some to save for a yard sale, and some others to possibly put on eBay.

2009-02-11T19:58:00.003-05:00

Chris joined the Facebook and now she doesn't seem to blog anymore. Not that she was blogging much to begin with. She's also not sure why she is referring to herself in the third person.

However, she feels that Facebook is a rather interesting addiction. It's amazing how many people want to become your friend. And she realizes how horrible she is with remembering names. What? She went to school with you 10+ years ago and she's supposed to remember who you are? And your current photo is supposed to trigger a memory of you were? Not likely!

I'm a scrappin' machine!

2009-02-01T22:18:00.005-05:00

While the rest of the world (or at least most people in the US) were watching the Superbowl, I was watching The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and scrapping. Well, mostly watching the movie, and then when it ended I got my scrap on. Three more layouts to check off the list! Woo hoo! And earlier this week I got another one done as well.

I pretty much failed with LOAD, but at least I'm getting back into it. I'm feeling really behind, so hopefully I'll get a little more caught up soon.

Brown paper packages tied up with string...

2009-01-14T10:32:00.002-05:00

Ok, so they're not wrapped with brown paper or tied up with strings, but coming home to a package on my doorstep is a favorite thing- or at least a fun thing.

On Monday the Derby trophies arrived. It's weird having them so early. I opened them up to make sure they're spelled correctly, and then they went back in their box and down to the basement with some of the other Derby stuff.

And then according to the tracking, I should be getting another package on Friday. This one makes me VERY happy! A little over 3 years ago I ordered a new trimmer. They were being made by a small family run company who made each one individually, so they took a long time to produce. And there was a lengthy waiting list. Then the family sold the company so the new owners had to take some time to get things up and running to the same standards. But now mine is on its way! I hope it was worth the wait and that it lives up to its hype.

And for those of you wondering why I would wait 3 years for a trimmer? Because I've already gone through at least 6 other trimmers. Favorites aren't favorites for long. They always seem to develop some kind of quirk that you just can't fix. And many of them can't cut a straight line. At all.

Days 6 - 8

2009-01-08T22:07:00.002-05:00

So what have I done, scrappy-wise, since last posting?

Day 6 I didn't do anything. Everyone needs the occasional day off, right?

Day 7 I worked on a 2-up album of some photos from the days before my wedding- an Open House that we had, rehearsal, bowling, etc. This project should be really easy, but 5 1/2 years later it's still not done. Nothing really worth posting, but I think it will be my project for the next few days so that I can finally cross it off my list.

So that brings us to day 8. Tonight I did both of the layouts pictured here: Suzanne's graduation photos from May, and the cover page for our 2008 album. Chris' mom requested photos of the kids and their families for Christmas, so on Thanksgiving I had Andrew do a mini photo shoot of Chris and I.

Not happy with it

2009-01-05T22:22:00.004-05:00

Here's my day 5 of LOAD, and I'm not happy with it. I liked it much better when the photo was centered over the strips of paper and it was centered towards the bottom of the page. But I wanted to add the little journaling block. The only way I think I would have been happy with it stylistically would been to have hid it behind the picture, but I didn't want hidden journaling. Oh well. I guess not all of my pages can be winners. (I realized this fact a LONG time ago!)

And since I haven't posted it yet, here's day four. I like this one. Not sure when I realized it, but somewhere along the line I realized that when I had taken a photo during my UK trip in '98, I took a picture of the same rock that my mom found in '86. I wish the pictures were a bit lighter, but I wasn't up for lightening it in PhotoShop. I guess I'm more happy that they are done.

2009-01-05T15:39:00.002-05:00

So today I joined Weight Watchers Online. For a while now I've been less than happy with my body. After going through adolescence and never having to worry about what I eat, I think it's starting to catch up with me. Over the past few years, whenever I go to the doctor, there has been an increase in my weight. I'm still within the "healthy" range, but I'm personally not happy with my weight, the extra bulges of fat, and the slowly increasing clothing sizes.

So, please, if you see me, don't make the comments about "you look great, you don't need to loose weight." Remember, clothing hides a lot of the flab.

But I don't think I realized how restricting this would be! I only get 21 points a day. I plugged in what I've eaten already today and what I plan to have for dinner, and I'm already over. And I'm sure that I normally would have added an afternoon snack, and even more at dinner, but now I see what a real portion size is. Ugh.

I think one of my issues is that I have absolutely no self control when it comes to food. If I'm hungry, I grab a snack. And I'll admit, I'm really bad about the portion size of that snack. If I want a cookie, I'll have 5 or 6. I also eat when I'm bored. And it certainly doesn't help that there's a well stocked kitchen of snacks here at work.

This is going to be tough!

January LOAD

2009-01-03T22:39:00.003-05:00

Lately I seem to have gotten out of a scrappy groove. I know I'm in bad shape when I'm behind in my albums going back to about May. To help remedy this, I'm hosting a LOAD (layout a day) challenge over at Tally.

Unfortunately, I really need to find the time to sit and edit photos for my 2008 album, so until I get a chance to do that, I'm working with some photos that I had on hand.

So here we have the start of my challenge. Yesterday I did Halloween 1984- The Indian and the Witch. My scanner really doesn't like lumpy and bumpy stuff, so it had a hard time with the numbers. That's why it's so dark and blurry.

Day two I did Christmas 1948. I need to find out who Santa was, and once I have all of the names I'll slip them into the gold label holder on the upper right.

On day three I was on a roll. Still working on the older photos, so I looked through my stash and found this one of some rocks behind my childhood home. When we were younger, Andrew and I each had our own rock that we would climb on. Mine was the jagged one because it was easier to climb- more foot and hand holds. He got the nice smooth one.

Then, since I was still in a crafting mood, I decided to make some cards. I have some really fun supplies that I was itching to use, so decided to make some birthday cards. And I used some older supplies as well, which is always nice.

I have so much stuff in my craft room I often think that I could scrap for a year and, except for adhesive, not need to buy a single thing. Too bad I'd never do that.

Is it Derby time already?

2008-12-30T16:24:00.003-05:00

This must be the time of year when most "normal" people hold their Pinewood Derbies. By normal I guess I mean the Boy Scouts of America. I say this because I just got an email from the place I ordered trophies from last year. They were offering them at 10% off. Always wanting to save some money, I went ahead and ordered them. How's that for being ahead of the game?

For those of you wanting to plan for the Derby, nothing definite yet, but my in-laws said that the middle of the month is easier for them to get away than the beginning or end. So plan for the middle of probably June or July. I'm guessing by August they'll need to get back home for the start of school.

Christmas 1948

2008-12-20T22:15:00.005-05:00

Prior to Thanksgiving my aunt and uncle did some sorting of the various slides that they have and divided them into piles for some of the various family members- some for me, some for my cousin, and some for my aunt's cousin. This is one that I got. It is my mom, my aunt, and my uncle celebrating Christmas in 1948. I LOVE this picture. Had to go out and get a new slide scanner so that I would be able to get a print of this and others. I love how Aunt Cathrine and Uncle Rob get that they are supposed to be playing with their toys, but my mom just is quizzically looking at the photographer.

Or what about this one?

"Santa, how did you know I wanted a new dolly? You're the best! I'm going to try to pretend that I don't notice how dirty the trim is on your suit. Maybe it got that filthy from going down all of the chimneys? And I'll also ignore how fake looking your beard looks."

Meanwhile, Aunt Cathrine, being the smart young lady that she is, is just laughing to herself about how gullible her baby sister is.

Ah, those were the days.

Days 5, 7, 8 and 9

2008-12-09T22:27:00.007-05:00

Day 9

Are you looking for that perfect gift this year for a teacher’s gift? Well this is a great gift cheap & easy....Cookie Mix in a Jar

I made these about 4years ago when Kyle was in preschool for his 3 teachers and they loved them! I got this idea when I saw them at the store selling them for whatever ridiculous amount they were asking for them! After reading the ingredients I thought I could do them myself for half the price! And there are so many different ways to make these such as different cookie recipes or decorating them your jars and the best thing they don't have to be just for a Christmas gift a great gift for many occasions! I couldn't find any mason jars so i found this jar and found some snowman decorations that are made of some kind of plastic and i cut the head off and glued it to my jar makes my jar look a little extra special for a Christmas gift!

Now you will get your ingredients for your cookie mix and will layer them into the jar one by one. Layering flour on the bottom packed down (don’t push hard it will go all over believe me!..lol), mixing the rest and pack them down tightly (if you don’t have enough room for the chocolate chips (you should not have too, but i thought it would be cute to put them in a baggie and you could tie them to the jar).

After you have packed all your ingredients tightly in your jar you are ready to decorate your jar your own way! Put your tag on it with your baking directions and there you go Cookie Mix in a Jar! It will probably cost about $8 (not including the ingredients you may already have them) to make, can’t beat that for a gift and its the PERFECT HOMEMADE GIFT!

As you can see, I decided not to go with a cookie mix. I just didn't know who I would give a cookie jar to. However, I have the perfect person in mind for this "jewelry making" jar.

Day 8:
Let it Snow!!! Let it Snow!!! Let it Snow!!!

This challenge is to scrap about what snow and the holidays mean to you! You may interpret this broadly. You can do a page about a great snow storm you had on Christmas Eve. A sled as a present. Or maybe that Christmas Cruise to Mexico where you actually MISSED the snow. Or maybe your holidays are always snow-free; how do you feel about that?

Other than the snow/holiday theme the other requirements are:

Use blue or purple as a prominent color on the page.

Use something shiny! (Bling, glitter, glitter letters, whatever)

Use circles and/or snowflakes (which are kind of circular)

DAY 7
Okay ladies! I want to see a two-page layout. I hardly see these and I am guilty of never doing them. Here are my rules. Two page layout (no smaller than 8 1/2x11) 7 pictures 7 patterned paper 7 buttons and last but not least...... 7 different techniques (such as distressing, inking, sewing, paint, doodling)

Day Five
My challenge will go with the 12 days of Christmas song. So the 5th is the Fiiiiiiiive Goooolllldeeeen Riiiiiiiiings part. :) like my singing? My challenge is to scrap a page using gold and tones of gold (tans, yellows, etc.) and iincoorperate ONLY round and circular embellishments into your page. (five would be SWEET)

Scrappiness continues

2008-12-07T20:34:00.004-05:00

I guess I'm in a creative groove, because I think I've been making something pretty much every single day. Plus I spent some time yesterday working on cleaning up my room a bit.

So here we have the 3rd tag for Day 4 and a birthday card for my nephew. I also made this year's holiday card, which I did for Day 6, but I'm not going to post it here yet. Don't want to spoil the surprise.

Now to get cracking on Days 5 and 7. I have an idea of what to do for 7, but no clue about 5!

12 Days of Christmas

2008-12-04T23:26:00.006-05:00

So in my last post I mentioned that I was participating in a "12 Days of Christmas" challenge over at Tally. Here are my entries for days 1 - 4, as well as the rules that went with each one.

December 1st Challenge
"I Believe"

Welcome to the first day of the 12 days of Christmas! I present you with your first challenge.

I was driving along and heard this old song "I Believe in You" by Don Williams, and thought, hey, this is my theme for the "Twelve Days of Christmas" challenge!

So your challenge is to Google the song, and lyrics.
*Use any part of the song; the title, lyrics, etc.
*Use the word "Believe" in either your title or journaling or both.
*Use red. A little or a lot, the choice is yours.
*You creation need not be Christmas related, the choice is yours!

December 2nd Challenge
Times are so different from when we were kids. Parents had to put together gifts, baking was an all day event, Advent Calendars, the specials on TV. Remember the sights and sounds of childhood. I can still envision my favorite Christmas. The things we did as a family. Our traditions. Some may have slipped us by and we should remember them. Your challenge is to:

Scrapbook a tradition from your childhood that you no longer do and miss now.
Must include journaling and the color red.
Use Wordle somewhere on your page or let it be the page. The words should be thoughts of your traditions from Xmas. Wordle.

DAY THREE This challenge is about YOU. As parents we are so busy running from toy store to electronics store to walmart and to a zillion other places we tend to forget about ourselves. So this layout focuses on you. It should be titled "Dear Santa/mom's Christmas list". Requirments: 1. Your Christmas list 2. You must use at least 2 different alphas on the page. 3. Santa must be somewhere on your page. 4. Must use a stamped image of some sort. 5. Colors must include Red, green and blue. 6. Must include a photo of yourself!

Welcome to the 4th day of Christmas! Today your challenge is to make FOUR things....don't worry, they're small! Your challenge today is to make one ATC and three gift tags. You can keep the ATC for yourself, or trade with someone else who completes this challenge. The gift tags are for you to use on your gifts this year, since a handmade tag adds a lovely personal touch to your gift!

Sounds easy so far, right? Okay, here are the rules:

1. Your ATC (sized 3.5 x 2.5 inches) has to include at least FOUR things from the following list:

a reindeer
an angel
the colors green and white
Santa Claus
a snowman
bling (ie glitter or rhinestones)
a tree
the colors red and silver
a candy cane
a star

2. Your gift tags must be the same size as your ATC or smaller. They need to have the words "To:" and "From:" on them, but otherwise....anything goes!

Ooops. Just reread that as I was posting and see that I need to make a 3rd tag. Guess I'll be taking care of that tomorrow.

12 Days of Christmas

2008-12-02T12:34:00.004-05:00

Over at Tally I'm participating in a 12 Days of Christmas challenge. For the first 12 days of December a new challenge is being issued every day. No idea what I'm doing for yesterday's challenge yet, but I have some good ideas for today's. One element for today's challenge is that it has to include a Wordle, so pictured is the one I created, using the words to 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. If only I could be at home scrapping.

In other Christmas news, since probably 1999, every year we get together with my dad for Cookie Baking. Originally it was one of his theme weekends, but due to schedules it's now pretty much become a one day affair. We use to schlep all of our stuff out to Secret Lake, but in recent years we've had it at our place.

Anyway, in 2002 I started to make an annual cookbook, including pictures and recipes from that year. Last year I was stressed with a number of different things, so I didn't make the cookbook. A couple of weeks ago I had a coupon code for a free photo book and I'd been hoping to finally make a book for last year. That's when I found out that due to a computer crash I lost all historic record of last year and that is bumming me out a bit. I tried looking at pictures of what we made, but many of them are blurry and I can't tell what anything is. (Also, many of the bars end up looking similar.)

So now I'm starting to look at digital scrapbooking items and wondering if I can essentially make the book ahead of time so that all I'll have to do is drop in the photos for this year. Anything to make the process go more quickly, right?

Weekend To-do list

2008-11-21T15:03:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I was working from home so that I could be there for the cable guy, but it also gave me a chance to get some stuff organized for the craft faire. (I will be so happy when it's over!) There's still plenty more that I would like to get done, but now I feel comfortable with what has been done. Most of the day was spent with printing price signs, taking photos of some of Chris' puzzles and editing them, etc. One of the things on my list, was to make more lavender sachets if I had time. The ones I had made previously were knit, and probably took about and hour and a half to two hours each to make. Due to a minimum order requirement, I had TONS of lavender, so I figured I would sew some up instead. So in about 2 hours, maybe a bit more, I made 25 of these. I hope I sell most of them, because otherwise I have no idea what I'll do with all of them!

Friday- tonight

Redo price signs for sachets- changing price of knit and making new sign for fabric ones
If there's time, make some more cards (Ha! this one is really wishful thinking on my part)
Iron and price apron
Sew cupcake print coaster sets (these have already been cut out. however, if I don't get to them the world won't end)
Start to load up the car

Saturday

I typically have skating on Saturday mornings, but due to the craft faire I'll be missing this week.
Craft Faire- set up starts at 7:30. Not sure if we'll be there that early or a little later. Sales goes from 9-2.
11ish have to leave the Faire to go pick up my mom. Not really wanting to do this, but if saves her from having to find rides in both directions.
Afternoon- relax/ nap?
Dinner most likely at Sunset. I think we'll both be too exhausted to cook. And if we go, we'll probably run into friends who told us they would be there.

Sunday

Brunch at home of one of Chris' coworkers
Relax!!!!!

I lied

2008-11-20T16:53:00.003-05:00

So on my last post I mentioned that I had lost my thumb ring. Guess what- I didn't! I can't sleep with my rings on, so I always put them in this little dish on my dresser. Turns out that when I was putting on my other rings, I never put on my thumb ring.

Today I've been "working" from home. The cable guy came to get us set up for digital cable, but I've also been busy getting things ready for the craft faire- taking pictures outside in 25 degree weather, editing those photos, creating price tags, etc. Now that the rest of the things are more or less under control, I may start making some more product. I'd like to make a few more cards and some more lavender sachets. We'll see....

Happy Birthday.... to me!

2008-11-18T11:49:00.008-05:00

So I wake up and Chris says Happy Birthday. I ask him if I can have my gift yet (a new camera). He says no, it's not wrapped yet. I say, but I know what it is, so what's the point in wrapping it? And I'll want it to take pictures of my cube (since I knew Vanessa was going to decorate it). He still said no.

I little while later I get up and I see the camera sitting on the dining room table. Yay! I call him to make sure that I can open the box. Yup. Yippee! I take out the necessary components and bring it with me to work so that I can charge the battery.

On the way to work I notice that one of my rings is missing. :( I've had this ring since summer before senior year of high school, so 14 years. I've lost it before, but I somehow always find it again. It certainly has no monetary value, but there is sentimental value. You see, my dad and I were at Wal*mart to get me a watch before I went on a youth group trip. Watches are in the jewelry section, so I was looking at the rings. I kiddingly asked him to buy me one. He said no. Later that evening we were making dinner. There was a steel ring holding a bag of potatoes closed. He took it and gave it to me as my ring. I've worn it ever since. Except when I've lost it.

This has happened a few times. Partly because I wear it on my thumb and so it needs to be pretty big to fit on over my knuckle, but then it's loose so it can come off easily, and partly because it's an adjustable size style, so it can get snagged on things and come off easily. Normally when I loose it I find it pretty quickly. One time though, I searched and searched and couldn't find it anywhere. I gave it up for lost. I bought a bag of potatoes to get a new ring, but it just wasn't the same. It didn't feel right. A few months later I found it in my car. In a place I know I had searched before.

Well today I thought over my actions on my way into work, and my hunch is that it is either in the garbage bag that I left on the curb, or it fell off when I put the bag into the garbage can. I'll try to check when I get home, but I imagine it's gone.

So after that, coming into work and seeing my decorated cube was a great way to put a smile on my face. And after charging the camera battery, I was able to test out the camera and take some pictures. :)

How was your weekend?

2008-11-17T18:00:00.001-05:00

Mine seemed rather hectic. It's amazing how long some things take. Thinks that you would think would be really quick. Here's a run-down.

Saturday

Skating
Michael's
Christmas Tree Shop
Old Navy
Haircut
Refundables
Yarn store
Target
BJ's
Stop & Shop
Lowes
Shaw's
Clean
Game Night

Sunday

Read the paper
Take photos of lots of Chris' puzzles and ornaments
Trial set-up of Chris' stuff to get a sense of how much stuff there was
Help with pricing, labels for boxes, etc.
Trial set-up of my stuff. Good chance to see what I had.
Start to create an inventory list
AC Moore for dowels, page protectors, and photo corners
Target for boxes for Chris
Finish knitting chocolate frosting for cupcakes
Add sprinkles to one cupcake
Finish bird ornaments
Finish quilted coasters
Watch The Unit
Bed

Chris knows how to blog?

2008-11-13T08:00:00.001-05:00

Time to breathe. The past few weeks have been a bit crazy. Self-imposed craziness. A friend’s blog has links to other blogs listed in the sidebar and it tells you when they were last updated. At first mine said one week, then two, then three…. You get the picture. It now says “one month ago” but it’s actually been 7 weeks. Yikes! I keep meaning to update, but the longer you go, the harder it is. There are just too many topics that you want to cover. Sorry if it reads a little disjointedly. It’s taken me over a week to write this, and I’ve kind of been jumping around.

I love Halloween, and at times I’m a bit of an overachiever. I guess you saw that already when I made 18 mobiles with 54 witches. And I had to use the good beads on them. I couldn’t use just some cheap plastic ones. I try not to think about how much I spent on those. More about Halloween later.

So one topic that I seemed to overlook, was a trip that we took over Labor Day weekend. LL Bean offers free concerts during the summer. We looked over the schedule and saw that Lonestar was going to be performing. Rather than making a 2-3 hour drive back home after the concert, we decided to camp in the area. This was a week after we returned from camping in Acadia, and a week before camping at Hammonasset. Lots of camping!

We found a state park right next to Freeport. Pretty quiet place. Might have been nicer to spend some more time there. We had plans to hike some of the trails at the park, but never got around to that. Too much of the “normal” activities for us to do- Land’s End, Freeport, etc.

We arrived up on Saturday afternoon. Got into Freeport and spent longer than usual trying to park. We wondered why many of the entrances into the LL Bean parking lots were closed off. Finally we found a spot and started to head over to see how many seats were claimed already. Yikes! Now we know why parking was so bad. When we’ve been to concerts here in the past, it’s usually just seats on the grass. This time there were LOTS of bleachers set up! Luckily we found a spot fairly close to the front, although it was off to the side. After putting down a blanket to save our spot, we headed off to do a little shopping. As it turned out, mostly window shopping. I guess that’s good though, right?

Then it was time to head back to the concert area. Wow, it had filled up with lots of people in the short while we were gone. The concert was a lot of fun. I wasn’t that familiar with their songs before we went, but it was still a fun time. Certainly not bad for a free concert. I got a video of their finale- it was a montage of a bunch of covers. Started off with Van Halen’s “Jump” and as soon as I heard that, I grabbed the camera that shot video. Not online at this time. Actually, the quality of it is pretty horrid. But it’s still fun. Maybe one of these das I’ll add it to YouTube.

Sunday we headed off to Land’s End. It was at Land’s End that Chris proposed to me, so it will always be a special place to us. Of course it was cold and miserable that night so we had to stay in the car. And then I called Andrew in my excitement to tell him that I was engaged, and his response was “no you’re not”. Thanks, bro!

We took our pictures with the Land’s End Lobsterman, and then I waded into the water a bit. There were lots of little crabs there. Hard to walk without stepping on them.

And the cribstone bridge. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places and is the only bridge of it’s kind. And we’re afraid that they will be getting rid of it. Ok, truth be told, we have no idea what’s going on. But there was a bunch of construction work going on right next to it, and it looked suspiciously as if a new bridge was being built. This makes me sad. I just did a bit of googling and found this. I didn’t read into the 402 page attachment, but it seems as if the state gave them some money for repairs.

Monday we headed home. And on the way, while Chris was driving, he ran out of gas. Fun. Sitting by the side of the road, roasting. Broken AC. Waiting for AAA.

Besides going to the James and Gaelic Storm concerts that I previously blogged about, I got a new car in September! We decided that my Echo was a bit on the too small side. Plus, with the broken AC it was fairly miserable driving around. So, after doing a bit of looking, we settled on a 2009 Subaru Forester. Unfortunately, this means we now have a car payment again and are further into debt, but things are still going pretty well on the debt reduction front.

September also provided me with the chance to meet another Tally friend. Jan and her family were up from South Carolina vacationing in Newport, RI. Tami came down from NH and we headed off for The Ocean State. We had lunch and then did a bit of walking around and poking into shops. While we were walking we got surprise calls from both Minda and Christine. How fun to say hi and pass the cell phone around.

In September/October knitting news, I knit some eyeballs. Super cute. Unfortunately I had them in a candy dish at work, and I guess some people thought the eyeballs were something that they could take, rather than as a decoration like I had intended. I’m now down to only 4 eyeballs. Guess I’ll have to knit some more next year.

The last concert of my month of concerts, was New Kids on the Block. The concert was on the 26^th, the same night as the Glass Pumpkin preview. Mel sent me my ticket so that I could try to be in two places at the same time. I went to the preview, scouted out some that I liked, grabbed some dinner while I waited for Chris, conferred with him briefly about ones I liked, and then headed off to The Garden. I missed the opening act, but I was ok with that. I got there not too long before the concert started.

I don’t think I’ve laughed so much in a while. I found it very funny how so many women were still so enamored with this band. It was fun, but I certainly wasn’t screaming for them. (Sorry Mel.) I was glad I went, but I think I’ve moved on.

I’ve blogged in the past about MIT’s Great Glass Pumpkin Patch. It’s an annual fundraiser that they have and we’ve gone for a number of years now. This year we knew we wanted a certain style of pumpkin, so we saved a little bit every month to be able to afford what we wanted. Now that we have it, I’m not sure if I’ve fulfilled my pumpkin wishes or not. I’m still saving, so I guess that means not. Or at least this way we’ll have the option to get another if we so choose.

This year it was raining for pumpkin weekend. They always say that if it rains on the Saturday (the traditional day of the sale) then the Sunday will be the rain date. But what do you do if the forecast calls for rain on both days? They put up a HUGE tent! Luckily when the sale started it wasn’t raining and they were able to move some of the pumpkins out into the daylight for better viewing. As we were headed back to the car the sprinkles started. Perfect timing!

Rather than putting lots of photos here of pumpkins, here’s a link to a layout that I did about this year’s pumpkin patch. You can click on the image to see it bigger.

Glass pumpkin day happened to be Chris’ birthday. He gave me lots of crap about making him get up early, but I think I made up for it when we got back to the house and I gave him his birthday gift- a Wii. He opened it up and started playing, and I took a nap. Later that evening we invited people over for cake and an impromptu Wii party. In recent weeks it hasn’t been played as much, but I think in a few weeks life will quiet down a bit and we’ll play some more.

So as I mentioned earlier, I am an overachiever when it comes to Halloween. This wasn’t completely apparent at home- I pretty much had my standard decorations, although I did add the Yankee Candle haunted mansion tea light thing. Finally! Only took me 3 years. They’ve always sold out so quickly that I had to buy it in August.

My Halloween overachieving transpired at work. In an effort to make the work environment more fun and to encourage interaction between departments, we had a Halloween party. And since it is known that it is one of my favorite holidays, I was asked to help plan it. Ok, go ahead twist my arm. And the best part? All of the stuff that I bought for the party- I get to keep it

So not only was there a party, but as one of the activities there was a cube decorating contest. I decided to bring in my apotheScary from last year. I had seen online vinyl sheeting stuff that I mentioned to Chris I would use as a backdrop. He had something even better! Turns out that Brandeis had overbought some vacuform brick wall for a show. So we took a sheet of that and then Kristin painted it for me. It looks fabulous! So good, in fact, that people have said that I should keep it up year round. (I foresee a fireplace for the winter months, and then in the spring and summer maybe some ivy and flowers?)

But since I’m an overachiever, apparently just having the wall and the apotheScary bottles wasn’t enough. I had to go and get a streetlight. And a bloody/rusty lantern to hang from the ceiling. And then people were commenting that I was really only decorating one wall, and not my entire cube, so then I went and got some of the vinyl sheeting stuff and decorated outside my cube and put in a little cemetery.

I guess it was worth it, since I won, but I spent a lot more than my $50 prize. Good thing I can reuse everything!

Remember how I said I’m an overachiever? The cube decorations are only part of it. I also had to carve the company logo onto a pumpkin and then bake and decorate 4 dozen cupcakes. Yup, self-induced stress.

There also was a costume contest. I was completely blown away by how many people got into the spirit of things and wore a costume. It was fabulous! Funniest was “Super Garbage Bag Man”, Best costume was a lion (fabulous mane!), and scariest was a witch. I went with the Ice Princess costume that I made for Linda 7 or 8 years ago. People weren’t quite sure of what exactly I was, but after I told them they all seemed to get it.

Back at home after the party, I added my new tombstones to the yard, scattered some bones, and hung up the skeleton. (The bones and skeleton had previously been party decorations.) My pumpkins- I kind of took a quick approach to these and very roughly had carved “trick-or-treat” into them. And a few days later I think a squirrel absconded with one of the pumpkin lids. Not really sure where it has disappeared to. Better the pumpkin though than my newly planted bulbs.

And so that brings us to what’s going on now. There’s a craft faire that is going to be held at our church on the 22^nd. Chris is going to have a table. I’m going to have a table. I’ve been crazily working for the past week or so knitting, sewing, and making other items. Here are pictures of cupcakes, toadstools, and sachets that are awaiting the lavender that I ordered. Lots more to do. Hopefully I don’t stress myself out too much!

I’m also insanely behind in my scrapping, so in an ideal world I would manage to get a bit more “caught up” with that. Yeah, I know, I should stop dreaming. If only work didn’t get in the way!

Congratulations on having made it to the end. Hope you’ve enjoyed, and maybe I’ll be better about updating more regularly. I’d like to have once a week be my goal. Maybe every other week.

The coven takes flight...

2008-09-22T08:30:00.000-04:00

Here's what 54 witches look like.

And here's what they look like as they start to take flight.

And for those who are clueless about what this is about, I'm doing a Halloween swap over on Tally. There are 17 of us in my group, plus I'm making an extra set for a friend who loves Halloween as much as I do. Basically we each make 17 of the same item, mail them to the hostess (me) and then I'll repackage everything and send each person 17 different things. It's a neat way to expand your collection of Halloween goodness.

Last night I got 8 sets strung up. I was running out of places to put them, so I now have them clothespinned to the blades of the ceiling fan in the dining room. It looks pretty cool. I'll have to snap a picture when they're all up there.

And in other concert news...

2008-09-19T18:00:00.001-04:00

Apparently this is the month for live music! We saw Lost & Found at Hammonasset, James on Monday, and then we went to see Gaelic Storm on Wednesday. And next week I'm going to see New Kids.

Gaelic Storm was actually at the same place where we saw James. Unfortunately, dinner before the show didn't agree with me, and I had horrid stomach pains all evening. This definitely put a damper on my mood.

They played a lot of new music. And unfortunately we don't have the two newest CDs, so we weren't familiar with a lot of what they played. It was still a good show though. And here are two videos of one of their songs. Unfortunately I stopped the recording after the first snippet, but then I kept it going through the rest. I guess it's a good thing though, since my memory card filled up just as the song was finishing. Anyway, here's Johnny Tarr, sung in many different musical styles. Sorry they're a little on the dark side. And I had my old 3.2mp camera. Not the best.

More from Monday

2008-09-19T08:00:00.001-04:00

First off, if I offended anyone by the content of the previous video, that was not my intent. Although I agree with the sentiment stated by Tim, I do support our military. I don't believe it was right for us to be in Iraq, but I do support the men and women who are serving their country.

Here are a couple of other videos from Monday. I didn't shoot them, but they are just fabulous.

Here's a vid of their opening number. At the beginning when Saul, their guitarist, comes up to the front of the stage and is staring out into the audience, he was looking directly into my eyes. What a great way to start the show!!! And towards the end of this clip you can even see the corner of Chris' face. :) You can also see some of Tim's wacky dancing. Love his dancing!

This one is more from the end of the night. The beginning sound quality is kind of bad, but the audience participation towards the end.... Oh my. Such a powerful thing to have been a part of that.

It was also interesting watching Chris. He's a fan, although not as big a fan (or at least not as long a fan) as I am. And so they would start playing the songs, and I would recognize them, but there would be this look of confusion on his face. For the new album I can kind of understand that since he only started listening to it in the past month, rather than since April like I have. But for the older ones he would be confused and I would look at him and tell him that he knows it, and wait for the moment of comprehension. But there was one, Sound, where even later when he was singing along, he still wasn't quite remembering it. Rather funny.

And about the new album... it was released in the US on Tuesday. However, I would imagine that the majority of the people there, probably 80-90%, were like me, and ordered it from the UK back in the spring. They played a lot of stuff off the new album but based on the cheering and singing, everyone knew the songs.

So in my previous post, I mentioned that they brought up an audience member to play guitar. Well, his name is Jonah. here's a photo of him, and here's his story, in his own words. Apparently this was the first time that James has ever done something like this. What a fabulous experience for him! I wonder if they'll start doing this more often?

Here's the set list from Monday. I think there were a few differences in the encore, but otherwise it's pretty accurate. I was kind of making my own set list through the night. I knew I wouldn't be able to remember all of the songs, so I took short video clips during each of the songs. However, especially at the beginning, I wasn't filming them during the songs since video wasn't allowed. I haven't looked at them yet, but I imagine I have lots of video of the shirts of the people in front of me. :)

And now for the best news.... according to the James forum I've been reading, they'll be back in February or March!!! I have no idea if that means the US or Boston, but they'll be back! I'll definitely be getting tickets for more than one show. As it is, I looked into going down to NJ to see them tomorrow, and I kind of looked into Chicago/ Milwaukee/ and Minneapolis tickets for next weekend. But way too much going on next weekend to be able to go on a road trip. However, with a little more advance warning, I might be able to convince Chris to go for it.

James concert!

2008-09-16T00:33:00.003-04:00

Ok, the concert absolutely rocked. I've been a fan for about 13 years now- right around the time the stopped touring here in the US. Tried to see them in London when I was studying in England, but they were sold out.

Sorry the video quality is pretty sucky, but you do what you can when there are signs saying no videos. :) But there was someone in the front row doing a vid as well. I love the intro to this song. So glad they had to restart it due to a broken guitar string. Then Tim made some comment about them "not being allowed to a political song" which is funny, because that's how Chris and I refer to this one- as their political song.

For one of the encores they had a guy from the audience come up and play guitar on Come Home. That was pretty cool. Wish I had gone to last night's show as well. Oh, and there were people there who had flown over from the UK. Now that's dedication!

A summary of my time in Acadia

2008-09-09T18:00:00.000-04:00

It has been mentioned that I have been back from vacation for two weeks now and I still haven't updated my blog.

I guess I'm just overwhelmed. I took about 380 photos, and I have no idea how to narrow it down. Also, most of those pictures are of landscapes and granite carriage road bridges- not exactly the most exciting to the viewer/reader.

So here's a really lame summary:

Saturday- headed up to Acadia. We stopped along the way in Freeport to go to the Maine Highland Games. It was kind of interesting. We didn't stick around for too long as we still had a few more hours of driving, but we heard some bagpipes and watched some athletics. We both agreed that we wished there had been commentary during the sports as we really didn't know what we were watching or what the point was of it.
Got to the campground in the late afternoon, set up, made dinner, and then went to one of the evening ranger programs. I remember going to these all the time when I was a kid. It was kind of interesting, but we were cold, so we left a bit early to go back to the site to put on warmer clothing.

Sunday- decided to climb Cadillac Mountain. Cadillac really kicked my butt. And my knee. For the past 5+ years I've had a knee that hurts when I go hiking. It was fine on the way up, but the hike down sucked! Then even walking around camp really hurt.

Monday- woke up with my knee still hurting. Going for another hike was not going to be an option. However, it turns out that biking wasn't causing me pain, so we decided to hit the carriage roads for a bit. Went for about 9 miles.

By the evening my knee was feeling a bit better, so we went for a walk around Bar Harbor and did a little bit of shopping. However, both the yarn store and the scrapbook store were closed, so we'll have to come back. :)

Tuesday- we had planned to go for another bike ride, but on our way out it started to rain. Blech. Change in plans. Instead we went into Bar Harbor so I could go to the yarn store and the scrapbooking store. Yes, these are important things to do. Found a cafe where we could get online for a bit, so at least we were out of the rain and we got an internet fix for an hour or two. We then headed back to camp for reading and napping. I guess doing nothing all day is tiring. :)
In the evening it was time to go back to Bar Harbor so that we could go to Bar Island. We had looked at the tide schedule for the week and figured that this would be the best day to go. The rain had stopped, so we decided to go ahead with our plans. Then it was time for dinner in town. We were actually pretty good during this vacation with not spending lots of money at restaurants.

Wednesday- Time for another bike ride! We started off doing a loop that was about 8 miles, and then decided to do another 5 miles after that. And as if that wasn't enough exercise, we went for a hike.

This time we decided to hike the North and South Bubbles. Both of these are really short hikes, but they are a tad steep so are fairly strenuous. We did lengthen the hike a bit by coming down an alternate route. And we're very glad that we didn't climb up that way- lots of bouldering.

Thursday- Started the morning off with a carriage ride. The driver wasn't the best, but it was still a pleasant time. While we were out we even passed by one of the Rockefellers. Nice to see that they still make it up to the island.
After the carriage ride we went for more biking. It was our goal to see all of the bridges, and there were some we hadn't seen yet. Guess we overdid it a bit the day before- we were exhausted! We had thought about doing another hike, but we just didn't have it in us. We were beat. We did go over to Thunder Hole, but got there at the wrong time so it wasn't that exciting.

Just a random photo here of our dinner. This is pizza crust, cooked on the campfire. Looks like a certain country, huh?

Friday- Time for another hike. This time it was the Beehive. It was here that I discovered that I kind of have a fear of heights. Well, make that a fear of cliffs. I realized I'm ok with heights when on balconies, roller coasters, or other places where I am more or less secure, but on the ride of a cliff? Yeah, not so much my thing. I was very glad when we got to the top! We came down via a different route, but we had planned to do that anyway. When we got to the bottom and saw how many people were climbing the Beehive, we were glad we had gone earlier so that we would be able to go at our own pace.
After our hike we headed back to Thunder Hole. The tide was coming in, so it was supposed to be getting to its "peak" time. The waves were certainly better, but still nto that impressive. We decided it's probably best during a storm. We asked some ranger sand they agreed. One of them even commented that he had come out in a hurricane and it was fabulous!
We then stopped at the beach just long enough for me to run in and get wet. Beaches just aren't Chris' thing. At this point I was tired and wanted to go back to camp, but figured I had to at least go in, so I did and then we went back to camp.

Saturday- Time to head home. It was great not having to take down and set up camp every night like we did last summer. However, that's not to say that the day was without drama. When we were about 30 minutes from home Chris quickly pulled over three lanes and stopped the car. We were out of gas. Blech. About 40 minutes later AAA arrived. And wouldn't' you know it? There was a gas station less than a mile from where we had stopped.

Hammonasset

2008-09-08T18:30:00.009-04:00

Hammonasset. Where do I begin? I first attended this event 16 years ago. 15 years ago I saw Lost & Found there for the first time. And I became a groupie. It was such an awesome experience for me to be able to see them back at Hammo again. When I was in college they were playing there about every other year. Then after college for one reason or another I have had to miss all of their return visits. But not this year. I was determined to go! I was ready to camp elsewhere in the campground and crash the event.

And then word came about Tropical Storm Hanna. At first we thought the event would be cancelled, but instead it was just held in an abbreviated format. The Friday activities went on like normal, and then the Saturday and Sunday events were held on Saturday at a local church, with the event ending at 6. We left a little after 1 so that we would be sure to avoid the worst weather.

So we get there Friday, arriving before it was completely pitch black, although it was after sunset. We got the tents up and then headed over for the concert, actually scoring some decent seats. After the concert I kind of hung around the merchandise table for a bit. I was off to the side, letting Michael do his thing. He was greeting all of the kids, "woman/man, what can I do for you". (Interestingly there were far more women than men.) The kids all were getting a kick out of it. Then he turned to me and said the same thing. I responded "Don't 'woman' me" (but in a friendly tone. I realize that may read kind of mean.) and then he immediately recognized me. I love that 15 years later they still know who I am. It's not like I haven't seen them in 15 years, but with everyone they meet, it's still nice to know that they remember me.

So we chatted for a bit, but then it was time for me to head back to camp and be a responsible adult. :) Our group sat around for a bit chatting, and I explained how I became one of their groupies. How I met them 15 years ago when I was in a small group that they were leading.

I remember we were playing a game where we had to say our name and something about ourselves, and then other people would ask questions. We knew it was time to move on to the next person when I would ask a really random question. I remember I was wearing my "cow" sweat pants. They were black pants that I had cut various holes in them and my white legs underneath made up the "spots" of the cow.

I told the group about how when I went to the National Youth Gathering (that's a link for the upcoming one) in Atlanta I had questionnaires with me for them, on the off chance that I ran into them. And how people knew I was looking for them, so they brought me over to them. How one of the questions was about what I should do with a yard of cow print fabric and that George had answered make a dress for his daughter, so I did. And then I made one for his second daughter as well.

I told about how I went to concerts every year at Valpo, and how then I've seen them all over NY and New England, and dragged Chris with me, so that even he knows the songs now. And I told about how excited I was to be seeing them at Hammonasset again so that I would get the extended concert experience. They tend to use a lot of the same jokes at concerts, so I was looking forward to new stories and witty repartee.

And then I was touched when Amanda and Brittany led our group in prayer, and they both mentioned their thanks that I was able to see Lost & Found again. I know I sound like a psycho groupie, following a band around 15 years later (I guess this is similar to Mel and her Donnie obsession), but I'm really not normally this bad. I think it was just the extreme joy of being able to see them at Hammonasset again. I don't think I get this way for normal concerts. And they were playing in Rhode Island Sunday night and I didn't feel the need to go to that concert.

So we went to bed Friday night. The air was very warm and humid. Somewhere after midnight the rain started. Then around 4am there was really bad thunder and lightening. I woke up and hear the girls talking. Turns out 2 of them had to get up to go to the bathroom. They got soaked!

Woke up in the morning and the rain had stopped. But of course everything was soaked. I think most people's tents had leaked so everyone was on the wet side. We packed up and headed to Friendly's for breakfast. Surprisingly the place was pretty empty. I've never seen a Friendly's that deserted before. After breakfast we headed off to the church, making sure we would be there in time for the 9:30 Lost & Found performance. We kind of kidded around about how I wasn't going to let the group be late. We got to the church and I grabbed seats for us in the second row, Michael side. (I had told them the night before about how for a while I would show up over an hour early at shows to make sure I had a seat front row, Michael side.)

Another tradition I have when I go to see them (although I haven't always done it in recent years) is that I give them a set list. Sometimes these are rather extensive. I didn't have time to prepare one in advance, so after the concert Friday night I quickly put one together with only 4 or 5 songs on it. I had given it to Michael, and later George asked if I had one yet. "Yup," I told him. "And #1 on the list was Alexander." He responded, "can there be a substitution?" Nope. Unfortunately I knew it wasn't going to be played, but I had to request it anyway. (It's an oldie that I love, and they used to play it all the time, but now they never play it.) But back to my story.... Friday night after turning in my set list I thought of two others I wanted to add, so when we arrived on Saturday I told them of my two new additions.

They played for a bit, and then we had some other programming that was part of the weekend. We had a break at one point and I went out to talk to them. I mentioned that if they were going to play anything from my set list it would have to be before lunch since we would be leaving afterwards. Then George mocked me for leaving at since apparently Hanna wasn't going to hit until 2am. I told him it wasn't my call, that it was our vicar's and he said that I should have her come talk to him so that he could set her straight.

So the next time they got on stage they talked about how an old friend of theirs had requested a really obscure song of theirs, and they played one from my list - The Hi-at Hotel". And then a little later the same thing, really obscure but their friend Chris requested it, and it was "Jesus Loves Me" complete with the hand motions made up by an 8 year old. They had done this song 15 years ago at Hammo, and I've frequently requested it since then, and they had never done it, until now. Yup, warm fuzzies. Here I was thinking they would be doing a different one since they had told me they would do two of my requests.

Shortly after that musical interlude was lunch. We ate, and then I gathered the group together for the annual photo with the band. (Like I was going to not do photos with L&F?!) And then it was time to head home.

We hit a bit of bad weather along the way, but it wasn't too bad. I think I'm glad that we left early though. If we had stuck around, who knows what the rain would have been like, and I don't like driving on the highway in the dark. And everyone was tired and was sleeping in the car, so it all worked out for the best.

It would have been better without the rain, but I think, all in all, it was a fabulous Hammonasset experience.

Two posts in two days...

2008-08-13T18:51:00.007-04:00

First off, here are some Toadstool Baby Rattles, and no, I'm not pregnant. I started the rainbow one last week. Should have used size 2 needles instead of 3, but I didn't have any. As a result it's a bit big. Got smaller needles on Sunday and finished up the yellow one last night. I got a request for a pink one, so I'll have to see if I have appropriate yarn, and if not, head to the store before we head for Maine. I figure these will be a good vacation project. Also got a request for a couple of cupcakes.

Another project for last night was to bake this cake. It was for someone at work who has a birthday this month and she loves butterflies. She also loves pink and purple.

A little of this, a little of that.

2008-08-12T08:30:00.002-04:00

It's been way too long since I've last blogged, so here's a rundown of what's been going on for the past month.

It started off with my work's summer outing at Kimball Farm. Yum! Such a fun place, and in addition to the fabulous icecream, the food was above average for a corporate outing-type place. The weather was as bit hot, but we took advantage of the free mini-golf. The line for bumper boats was too long, so instead we just had our icecream and then headed to NH for a night of camping with Tami and her family.

Unfortunately we only camped for one night. We had doctor appointments the next day back near home and didn't want to have to drive back. Turns out it was probably for the best as that Sunday I ended up being struck by a rather horrible summer cold. It was interesting taking pictures. I forgot how much kids move around, so I had a number of blurry photos since my shutter was open for too long. There also was lots of rain which made for an interesting camping experience, but I think we all still had fun. Maybe we can find a time to do it again?

Once again the ART scene shop built the set for Shakespeare on the common. The show this year was As You Like It. It really is a popular event. We got there almost 2 hours before "curtain" and we were pretty far back. I took these photos afterwards and was only lucky to get so close since Chris knew the crew. In fact, because of that connection we were able to have them move the trees so that I could get a picture of the plane. Very interesting cartoony trees. And if you're confused about why there's a crashed plane in the Forest of Arden, join the club.

The garden is progressing well. I've been harvesting green beans, and my tomatoes should be ripening soon. Cukes- only 2 so far. They haven't really recovered from all of the rain. Zucchini- not really sure. That's what the yellow flowers are. There are lots of flowers, but they don't seem to be doing anything other than flowers and giant leaves. Lettuce is done. It started to turn bitter. If only I could somehoe time things right so that the lettuce was ready when everything else was. And the broccoli- huge leaves, but nothing else.

And my mystery plant? Yeah, still don't know what that is. It's behaving like a day lilly, although doesn't really look like one. It looks more like an amaryllis, but it didn't come from a bulb. No clue. But it is pretty and adds some color to the front of the house, although it doesn't really look so good with the marigolds. Maybe next year I'll have to try a different color of flower in my barrel.

Can I just say, sometimes I really love my 300mm lens! It doesn't do well in low light situations, but being outside for the "Futures at Fenway" event, it did a phenomenal job. We were no where near the field, but I still was able to get fantastic photos!

It was a double header, with the Lowell Spinners and the Pawtucket Red Sox. We arrived a little late to the first game, during the second inning, I think. But then we got free baseball, since they ended up going to 12 innings. The Spinners won, which continues the tradition of the home team never losing when Chris and I go to a game. We ended up leaving during the 5th inning of the second game since I was way too hot. Our seats were in the sun and I was feeling very crispy. My face got a little burned, but it's not too bad. I can see my nose starting to peel already, so I think moisturizer needs to become my friend.

And Jeremy, this comment is just for you. We had parked at the Common, and walking back from the game my shoes were on the verge of giving me a nasty blister. So I took them off and walked down Comm Ave barefoot. And I had only been drinking water. See- I don't need to be drunk to walk barefoot down city streets. Attempting to walk on my hands? Maybe I need to have some alcohol in me for that one.

Mystery plant

2008-07-14T12:12:00.008-04:00

In the spring of 2007 I planted 3 hostas in the front of my house. No hostas came up, but instead, this did. Last year it was just the leaves and I figured it was some kind of lily, most likely a daylily.

Here it is from June 23rd. I no longer think daylily, but I have no idea what it could be.

This one was taken June 31st. The stem is rather thick. Thicker than any daylily I've ever seen before. I start researching it a bit online and decide it might be a clivia.

The following photos of if in flower are from this past weekend.

I've since changed my mind on it being a clivia. The flowers are all wrong. Also, like a daylily, the blooms are only open for one day. However, the stem is still very thick and not like other daylilies I've seen.

Now that I have some pictures of it in bloom I think I'll be taking them to local nurseries to see if anyone knows what it is.

Edited:
Thanks to Rachel for the links to a place that has way more daylilies than I thought imaginable! Here are some options of what it might be. Let me know what you think:
SILOAM BUTTON BOX
LITTLE AUDREY
CAROUSEL PRINCESS
None of them seem exactly right, but they're pretty close.

Derby #3- a look at all the cars

2008-07-07T16:26:00.021-04:00

Here are photos of all of the cars at the start of their races. Hope you enjoy! Good thing I took pictures of the scoreboard or I probably wouldn't have remembered who had which cars. You can click on them to view them larger.

Our first cars to race were Pete in yellow against DJ's Batmobile. On the right are York's cannon (the first of his 3 cars) against Siggy's blue/green/yellow car.

On the left we have two very short cars racing against each other! York has the tortoise and Boy Chris has the Jeep. On the right we have Jeff with the black and white car against Rosaline.

Mom Tedford in yellow raced against Dad Tedford in red. On the right is York's hare (which is a puzzle and comes apart into 4 pieces) and Willy's car, which won for fastest.

On the left we have Caitlyn in red and Evan with yellow and red, while on the right is Jeremy's American Flag with too many stripes racing against Michael.

Davis had Lightening McQueen and Lydia had Speed Racer. On the right is Elizabeth's pink/green car and Rosita's flag. (Seemed to be a bit of a theme this year. Rather appropriate seeing how it was the day after the holiday.) Lightening McQueen did not live up to his Cars fame and was the slowest car at our Derby.

On the left is Andrew's legal car in red, and the black/purple one is Caitlin's. On the right is Kristin's covered wagon and Billy's blue car.

On the left we have my car (dark green) and Siggy's chameleon and on the right are Dekota (yellow)and Sharon (snowflakes)

Billy's ship racing my car. We had an odd number of car entries (29 legal cars) so this car got a by through the first two rounds.

2nd Derby update...

2008-07-06T12:33:00.008-04:00

I think these updates are going to have to come in pieces. With 210 photos from the 4th and 226 from the Derby, I'm a little overwhelmed with photos at the moment!

So here are the scoreboards:

fastest

slowest
(ignore the columns 2nd from left and 2nd from right. we didn't erase those names after we ran for fastest car)

illegal

and a perfectly attired race fan :)

Derby results...

2008-07-05T22:30:00.003-04:00

Fastest car- Willy, upstairs neighbor (almost 4 years old)
Slowest car- Davis- son of Boy Chris' co-worker (3 years old)
Best in Show- Andrew (click this link for construction photos)
Illegal- Boy Chris' Dad

The best thing about the fastest car... the dad came down around 10:30 this morning to buy a kit and in a few hours he made the winning car!

Caitlin was faster than Billy....

Um, that's all I remember off the top of my head. I'm exhausted and heading to bed. Pictures and details coming soon.

Now you see it, now you don't!

2008-07-02T20:56:00.005-04:00

See this tree? This picture was taken in December. That's a pretty big tree in front of our place.

Got home from work today and at first I saw the power lines that were down next door. Then I saw what was missing from in front of our house.

Yup- tree's gone. This is all that's left.

The long promised grocery bags...

2008-06-28T18:46:00.007-04:00

After promising for a few weeks that I would post pictures soon, here they are. We used them for shopping today. This was a large trip, and I even had some extra bags. Guess I didn't need to make quite so many.

I've got 4 of the lemon "paper" style, and then 2 of the maps and three of the cupcakes, both of which are "plastic" bags.

Stop & Shop now has this new system where you take a scanner when you enter the store and then as you shop, you scan and bag your items. Then at the checkout just check the scanner back in and pay. In theory it's faster. And Chris really liked getting to scan everything. The produce department even has special scales where you weigh your produce and it will give you a label that you then scan.

They're here!

2008-06-26T20:41:00.002-04:00

Aren't they cute? Awards for fastest, slowest, best in show, and illegal. Much more fun than the little ribbons/pins we've given out in the past.

Your order has been shipped...

2008-06-25T14:21:00.004-04:00

Yup. That's right. Derby trophies are on their way!

I love getting messages like this. Especially when you're not entirely sure if the items will arrive in time. I actually told them I needed it a week earlier than I did just so I'd be sure that they arrived on time.

I just tracked it, and my package is in the state, and should be here tomorrow.

So now everything that I have ordered for the Derby has arrived or is on its way! This weekend we're going to go shopping and make sure we'll have enough food. And then I just need to sit back and wait for any mail-in entries to arrive. I wonder how many packages we'll be getting next week.

Rain, rain, go away!

2008-06-24T22:39:00.007-04:00

So I know there are some parts of the country (the south) where they are wishing it would rain more, but I'm sick of it!!! The past few days we've had torrential downpours, and the forecast for the rest of the week seems like lots more of the same. Blech. I'm starting to think of what we will do it rains on Derby Day. Tarp attached to the top of the tennis court fence? Only works if no one shows up to play tennis.

I came home from work today and couldn't drive up the road. There was a tree down, right in front of our house. Wouldn't have been so bad if there wasn't a car parked right next to it. I wonder if the car was parked there before or after the tree came down.

And my poor garden! There is so much rain that the gutters can't keep up with it. Not sure if the gutters are clogged or if they are just full of water, but the rain is pouring off the side of the house and onto my garden. My beans, carrots, zucchini and cucumbers have all seen better days. Yesterday I tried to add more dirt (some got washed away) and propped the beans up a bit, but they were back to looking pathetic again today. I can plant more beans and carrots and I think I'll be ok, timing-wise, but I think it's too late to try to get more zucchini and cucumber plants.

On the plus side though, my broccoli looks fantastic!

It's official... I'm a dork

2008-06-18T10:29:00.005-04:00

Yup. Big dork. I ordered trophies for the Pinewood Derby. And we have goodie bags for the kids this year. Kind of crazy.

Not doing so well with the making of the cars. Chris and I went to the shop on Sunday and I started. My simple car is more or less done. My fancy cars? Yeah, not so much. And of course I got bored pretty quickly working on them. We'll have to see how they turn out over the next few weeks. I'm guessing not so well.

LOAD? Going fantastically! Finished up the Christmas album last night. Have pictures ordered for a few more LOs, but then need to do some photo editing so that I can order the rest. Just not enough hours in the day.

Fabric shopping bags? I'll get pictures up here soon. I promise. I'm making two different styles (paper and plastic) and was going to wait until they were all done to post. The plastic ones are done, but haven't done the paper yet. Again, not enough hours in the day.

Bike riding? Went for a 10 mile ride on Saturday. Took about an hour or so. Quite the workout, especially since I'd already gotten a work out while skating that morning. And in skating we are starting to learn a routine. So much more fun than just practicing individual elements. Maybe one of these days there will be a new video to entertain you.

Healthy living

2008-06-08T14:20:00.007-04:00

When did I become so green? First it was the vermicomposting, and now it's reusable grocery bags. Made some cute ones over the weekend, but then the power ran out and then I ran out of thread, so they didn't get finished. Photos coming soon.

Also, Sunday Chris and I went on an 18+ mile bike ride in 90 degree heat. My butt's a bit sore, and my legs are slightly jello-ish.

About the bikes... I drive past a bike shop every day on my way to and from work and thought it would be good to get one. I had Chris semi-convinced, and then our stimulus check arrived. :) Half of it went to credit cards, the other half went to bikes. Wow, they're expensive! And then there's all the extra stuff you can get. I got a cyclometer because I want to know how fast/how far I've gone, but I was good and got their cheapest model. And then we also needed a bike rack. We went with one for my car rather than the truck, which means we'll have to do some creative packing of the car when we head to Maine this summer (with bikes in tow). Usually we have the bed of the truck pretty much to overflowing, so it will be interesting to see how well we cram it into my care.

Derby and LOAD

2008-06-05T22:19:00.003-04:00

So for the month of June, I committed to a challenge over on Tally called LOAD, or LayOut A Day. As of day 5, so far so good. In fact, on a few days I've made more than one thing. However, my variation of the rules is that it doesn't have to be a layout (it can be a card or something else creative) and as long as I work on something every day, that's ok- I don't need to actually complete it. So if you're interested in checking out what I've been up to, head over to Tally.

And in other news, the Derby invitations are out. If I missed you and you think you're interested, let me know and I'll send you the details. I still haven't started my car yet, and I'm feeling a little anxious about that. There's exactly a month to go, and usually I would have started by now. Granted I'm usually busy finishing things up in the day or two before (or day of) but I've usually at least started by this point. I think I know what I'm making, so at least that's a start. And I've bought the goody bags and contents for the kids at the Derby, but that probably doesn't really matter.

And with that, I'm off to bed.

I'm on a roll!

2008-05-21T23:17:00.009-04:00

I've been feeling like I haven't been doing much creating lately. A while ago I tried to set a goal of one item a night, be it a card, LO, or even just start a LO. I did well for about a week and a half, and then I pretty much stopped. Not really burned out or anything, just unmotivated.

Well I like creating and would like to get back into a groove. And tonight- wow! My one item became 4. I did 2 layouts and 2 cards. My 2007 album is now finished! (Still need to do my 2007 Christmas album plus another mini album from 2007, though.) And one of the cards I made is for a June birthday, not sure about the other one.

I also love the fact that I used a mix of newer and older products. "Rockin' New Year's Eve"- the only new thing on there is the star embellishment on the bottom. Everything else was at least a year old.

For the "Counting Party" LO, pretty much everything is new. In fact, a couple of the embellishments I got this past weekend at the Dollar Scrapbooking booth, where I worked at CKC Manchester. This booth really is a fabulous way to get some great items for a fantastic price. After all, do flowers, brads, and paint really go out of style?

And on the cards, pretty much the only new product was the patterned paper, which was scraps from the Counting Party LO. The "Happy Birthday"and "Cheers!" labels are many years old. Nice to be able to use up the stash. If only I actually had some willpower and could resist buying new things.

Chris Breecher, "published" photographer!

2008-05-07T10:11:00.004-04:00

Normally I try to avoid posting work related things here. Call me paranoid that someone will google my company's name and find my blog. But I can link this without saying names....

So a few weeks ago I was roped into taking some pictures of our CEO. Freak thing where I was in the right place at the right time. Our receptionist had sent out an email asking if anyone had a digital camera with them that she could borrow. I went out to see her (we're friends) to find out why she needed a camera. While I was there, she was talking to our PR guy (who would have been taking the pictures) and she mentioned that I had a good eye for photos. Great, Chris, can you take the pictures? Um, ok. What time do you need me? In about half an hour. Ok. I'm going to run home, get my camera, and I'll be back in time. I figured using my camera, which was better than the point-and-shoot, would be better. Plus I was more familiar with how to use it.

And that brings us to today. Just got an email sent to us from our international office... article of our CEO is up on BBC.com. I go to check it out, and there's my photo. So here's a link. My photo is the first one. Unfortunately no photo credit, but I'll take what I can get.

Monday ramblings from Chris

2008-05-05T20:50:00.006-04:00

So I've meant to post before now, but it just hasn't happened. Sorry. I'll sum up...

Today I mowed the lawn. Maybe not a big deal, but it's Chris' job but he was slacking and the length of the grass was annoying me. So I called him up (he was still at work, I was at home) and I asked him how to work the mower. Wow, pulling that string to start it is hard work! Almost gave up. Also didn't help that he told me the wrong lever to hold while pulling the string, so there was some useless attempts until I decided to hold down both levers to see if that helped.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I now have worms living in my kitchen. Here's a link to their home. So why do I have them? I'm vermicomposting. I've had my worms for just about two months now, and they're doing very well! Lots of "tea" so far to use to fertilize my garden, and hopefully I'll have some good rich compost later this summer. So why vermicomposting rather than normal composting? We don't have a good location outside for a compost pile, and even if we did, it's not something that would be easily used in the winter. So once I got over the ick factor of having worms (and other bugs) in my kitchen, I've embraced this new crunchy aspect of my life.

I started some seeds inside a month or so ago. Not good success. Not sure what happened, but none of them sprouted. Planted some new seeds, and now my lettuce has started to sprout, but that's it. Guess I'll have to get lots of seedlings like I normally do. Also I've added a few plants to a shady spot in the back. Hopefully they'll take. But after some gardening this weekend, my arms are rather achy right now. And they only got worse from trying to start the lawnmower today.

Last weekend I was in New Orleans for work. Fabulous time. Drank way more than usual. Probably drank more in that week than I do in 3 months combined! Also ate some fabulous meals. Getting back into the cooking routine took some work.

And the final bit of news- this year's Pinewood Derby will be held on Saturday, July 5th. Everyone is welcome to come by, or if you can't make it to MA, as always, mail-in entries are welcome.

The end is in sight

2008-04-08T11:15:00.005-04:00

It's only taken me 8 months, but our vacation album is almost done! Only two more layouts to go. When we returned from vacation in August my goal had been to have the album done by Thanksgiving. November came and went and my goal was Christmas. Then in was suddenly January and I no longer had goals. February and March I tried to scrap a LO a day, but that didn't last for very long. But the end is in sight! I also only have 4 layouts left for my 2007 album, and then my Christmas album, but I'm sticking to a specific paper line, so I don't think that one will take too long. Then 5 layouts for 2008, and I'll be "caught up". Yeah right, that will never happen.

I was going to post some links to LOs, but there are 29 new ones since I last posted. That's way too many to link.

In other news, we have worms in our kitchen, but that's a story for another day....

And finally, wondering who John Flint is? He was my Jr year prom date. Here's a picture of us from back in '94. He did email and gave me a link to a bunch of other pictures. If I didn't know it was him, I don't think I would have recognized him. Wow, how people change.