It’s 14°F outside right now. So, can anyone tell me why exactly it would be that instead of having nice, fuzzy, warm slippers, Target would have their shoe department stocked with flip-flops?!?
I need new slippers. I don’t expect that I’ll have a need for flip-flops for at least another 4 months. And when I do, they’ll probably only have slippers and winter boots available…
We were social butterflies this weekend! Saturday was a holiday party with Denis’ new office. The party was held at Casa Larga, which was actually where we had our wedding reception. It brought back some really great memories, and it was a fun party despite the fact that neither of us knew most of the people there. We actually wound up dancing quite a bit more than usual (mostly so we wouldn’t look so awkward sitting at a table by ourselves) and had a blast.
Sunday, of course, was our friends’ Super Bowl party. Jenny took first place in the poster contest, and her poster was definitely fabulous. Our take on a sign that we’d hold up if we were in the stands during the superbowl was a little less polished, but we still won second place:
We’re attending a holiday party this weekend. Denis started his new job last week, and for some reason they hold their holiday party in February. It’s “semi-formal” – which makes me think of prom gowns and midnight bowling after, but I don’t imagine that’s what it will be like.
I’m nervous, as I haven’t actually gone out for an evening among adults in years. I’m worried that I will be boring, as the only topics of conversation I really have to offer revolve around Carrie, knitting, and the musical.
I’m also worried that I won’t have anything to wear on my feet. I bought a dress last night, just a simple black dress with three-quarters length sleeves. How hard could it be to find a pair of dressy but not strappy black shoes? Apparently, even though my feet are a rather normal size 9 in regular shoes, they are freakishly wide for dress shoes. I mean, I can’t even squeeze half my toes into the shoe. I went to three different stores this evening after rehearsal with nothing to show for it.
Luckily, Zappos is having a free overnight shipping thing going on right now, so I’m going to go order several pairs of black dressy shoes in various widths and keep my fingers crossed that when they arrive on Thursday at least one pair will fit me. I guess I wouldn’t make a good candidate for Cinderella…I don’t imagine glass slippers come in wide widths!
Today is my “baby” brother Michael’s birthday, and also Lauren’s birthday.
Carrie’s been wandering around singing “Happy birthday dear Uncle Mike-o” all day. Now if only I could actually catch it on video…
I know most people hate winter. And ice in winter is even worse. But how can you not admire something like this?
I adore this tree. Even if it does leave squishy crab apples all over the ground in the fall. Check it out in the full glory of springtime:
I just hope it survives this winter-that-isn’t-really-a-winter. I didn’t really check it out before the ice, but I know there are (were) new leaves on our rosebush out front and new growth on just about everything else in the front garden…
After seeing mention of bloglines all over creation, I’m finally going to try it out. I switched from using Safari to using Firefox a couple of months ago, and I never re-subscribed to all the RSS feeds I was watching. I didn’t even import my enormous bookmark list, and surprisingly I haven’t really missed them. But I have fallen behind on the blogs I was reading, because I don’t have the time to click through all of them on the off chance that somebody updated.
Hopefully this will be a good substitute, and if I ever change browsers again it won’t matter!
The years are seriously going by too quickly. I mean, there obviously isn’t enough time in any given day, month or year, because I didn’t actually have time to accomplish any of my goals last year!
I have things I’d like to change about myself and my surroundings this year as always, but I think I’m going to organize things a little differently. I’m not making a list of resolutions. Instead I’m going to try to accomplish one constructive thing or start creating one new habit every week. It’s much more concrete – and manageable – to say “this week I’m going to sort through one box of fabric” than “this year I need to organize my craft room”. Or “this week I’m going to do something active every day” than “I have to start going to the gym more this year.” So, this week, I’m going to do something small that makes me smile every time I go into my room: I’m going to make my bed every morning.
The other thing I’m planning to do is to start using an organizer. A real, honest-to-goodness paper organizer. With checklists. For me, being able to check a task off a list is a very motivating thing. (I’ve been known to add things to a to-do list after I finished them just so I could check them off. Very satisfying.) So if I have a list of things to accomplish in any given day or week, I’m much more likely to spend Carrie’s naptime doing a few constructive things in addition to my usual knitting and computer time. I briefly toyed with the idea of resurrecting my pda, but I’ve survived without carrying it for 2 1/2 years, and I don’t think I need it weighing down my purse (even more than it already is) and beeping at me at odd intervals.
Of course, it’s January 1st. I can say I’m going to be more organized and try to accomplish things pretty easily today. I guess we’ll see next year whether it works better this way than just the blanket list of resolutions ever does.
Among lots of other wonderful things, I got a new game for Christmas: Shear Panic. Now, purely from a gaming perspective it may not be the absolute best game out there, but it has two really strong things going for it:
1. it’s fun to play.
2. it has sheep! 11 sheep figurines, which are lovely and detailed and…did I mention they’re sheep?!?
Santa must know me really well to know that not only do I love all fiber-y things, but I also like to play a good game now and again.
Actually, Santa (and various family members) all decided that Carrie needed a stash of her own games – she has five (5!) new games now. Not all of them are things she’s quite ready for, but I’m sure she’ll grow into them soon enough. Add to that the fact that we bought several games as gifts to others, and there were a whole lot of games exchanged a couple of days ago…
As an aside, I really do plan to post about all the fun stuff I’ve been making for the past several months that I haven’t been able to show off at some point. It’s just a little overwhelming, since I made a lot of gifts. I started in…June? I think next year I may have to start even earlier…
I don’t know if you believe in Christmas
or if you have presents underneath a Christmas tree
but if you believe in love
that will be more than enough
for you to come and celebrate with me
for I have held the precious gift that love brings
even though I never saw a Christmas star
I know there is a light I have felt it burn inside
and I have seen it shining from afar
Christmas is the time to come together
a time to put all differences aside
and I reach out my hand to the family of man
to share the joy I feel at Christmas time
for the truth that binds us all together
I would like to say a simple prayer
that at this special time you will have true peace of mind
and joy to last throughout the coming year
and if you believe in love
that will be more than enough
for peace to last throughout the coming year
and peace will last throughout the year.
OK, so who had the brilliant idea to put Carrie in a toddler bed less than a week before we went on a five day trip?!? (I’ll give you a hint. It wasn’t me. If it were me, I’d keep her in the crib until she mentioned that none of her school friends sleep in a crib anymore…)
I knew it was going to be a disaster when, on the ride down, Carrie refused to nap in the car. She was sobbing that she wanted to sleep in her crib. At home. At home with the doggies, Mommy! There’s really nothing sadder than a baby who wants to sleep but can’t.
The sleep “issues” continued for the rest of the trip. But Carrie had such a great time with her cousins, so it was worth it. In fact, one night Carrie was calling from the room she was sleeping in, “Lizzy, Michelle, come sing alphabet song with me! Everybody sing alphabet song!” (This might have been cuter if it wasn’t already 11:00…)
We are all so tired it’s almost ridiculous. In fact, the toddler who wouldn’t go to sleep before 11:00 any of the four nights we were gone was sound asleep by 8:30. In her toddler bed, of course. We’re still using the inflatable bed – I think we need to do something about that as soon as possible. But that’s something to worry about after a good nights’ sleep!