Webs

It’s October! I have gotten my Halloween decorations out and hung the lights, but we left the 6ft tall Grim Reaper in San Antonio (as a surprise in the attic!) I would get creeped out every now and then catching a glimpse of the Reaper out a window after having forgotten he was there. Tim and I also used to move him around on each other to maximize the scary potential. Despite all of those heart thumping times, I am missing him.

I hope to have one little project done in the next couple of days so I can send off! Pictures will follow.

Grotto Birthday Flowers

I work in an office nicknamed ‘The Grotto’. What seems to be an offhand nickname is, upon my 5 week reflection, more than a nickname, it is the official institutional name of the location of our printer. It is also a way of life. My coworker said the other day, ‘What happens in the grotto, stays in the grotto’. She’s right. Oh, and their names are Bobby and Shawn and they are both women. And no, those aren’t aliases.

They also got me birthday flowers today.

Tim picked me up from work and we spent 5 million dollars on furniture (though we got a 10% discount on volume) and then had a birthday spread at Cafe D’jango. Yum.

One piece of the 5 million dollar furniture gets delivered tomorrow. Expect pictures.

Holy 2007 Batman

Happy 2007 everyone! I returned last night from Florida, so didn’t exactly have a rockin new year, but am very excited for the changes that might be taking place over the next year. I wish all my family and friends the best for 2007.

Spent most of today doing the usual getting home things, laundry, grocery, etc. I talked to Regina today who reminded me to get out my black eyed peas, so made a quick salad. How can I afford to neglect something that will bring me good luck and financial well being in the new year (along with some leafy greens).

Between working on Ashley’s quilt and reading a suggestion from Mitch, I will be putting up pictures of Florida and working on my book list for 2006. Soon, very soon, I promise.

Beir bua agus beannacht!
Best Wishes!

Happy Festivus!

Hope everyone had a nice holiday! We are still in south Florida waiting for my parents to arrive out of Denver…tonight if everything goes well. The first few days here we had nice weather, so we’ve been to the beach and drove down to the Everglades. In the Everglades we saw lots of alligators (some even really close!) and dolphins uh, frolicking in the waters the bay just north of the gulf of Mexico on our boat tour of the 10,000 islands in the Everglades National Park. Since then we’ve had two days of rain, so had a low key Christmas day including a delicious mixed grill dinner and shopping in the rain today.

Since the rain has kept us in for the last two days, I’ve gotten lots of knitting done on my kitty pi bed, I might even be ready to felt it when I get back. Though I might need to make it a little bigger than the pattern as Loki is a husky cat (he’s just big boned, really!). We also played Euchre, which is a northern midwestern game, which Indiana people take pretty seriously and I think is designed only to confuse me!

Am thinking of my friends and family near and far. I hope all of you had the holiday of your dreams.

Tricked II

This time we got tricked by the weather. My parents were scheduled to fly on Friday, but haven’t yet made it out of Denver due to the huge blizzard. Their flight was cancelled for Friday, and were finally lucky enough to get their flights changed, but not until Tuesday, so we’ll just have to celebrate Christmas late. My mom and I were lucky enough to get our library shifts covered on Saturday (thanks Mimi!), and get our flights changed, so we can extend our holiday a little bit and I can show them around south Florida. Neither my mom or Andrew has been to FL before and after all that snow, I’m sure they could use a little beachy weather.

While we are missing Loki, my inlaws got a mini white schnauzer named Gabe who is very cute. We’ll have to take lots of doggy photos. Actually he is still quite a bit of a puppy with all the hilarity that ensues from that. I brought my knitting project with me and after searching down a knitting store here for the right sized circulars, it is going pretty well. There is a lot of sports on this weekend, so it will be perfect to curl up in the same room and just knit.

Today we went to the beach, saw some dolphins and ate lunch at our favorite waterside restaurant. Tomorrow? Maybe a trip to Tim’s favorite…the Everglades.

Trickery

Tricked! I don’t think that it was allergies at all…but insead a cold that never left me feeling sick except for the…well…extreme congestion in my face and chest (I know you came here for phglem stories!). Still taking the claritin as a precautionary measure, but feeling much better.

I got the last of my holiday crafting done this morning…can’t put up photos until that gift is given, but I do have another holiday quilt on my flickr page that has been received and hopefully used already! After the New Year I am all set to sew Ashley’s quilt together as all the pieces are cut and ready to go (well except for I have to trim the framed blocks to 16 1/2 inches which I was all set to do the other night except for I remembered that they also needed ironing before I trimmed and the thought of plugging in the iron…was. just. too. much. after I had already ironed and trimmed 40 4 1/2 inch blocks for the inner border.). Thien also helped me start knitting a felted bed for Loki at our recent knit night at our local coffee shop/bar Ruta Maya downtown last week. That might be my project for the holidays to keep my fingers busy, though somehow, somewhere I need to track down size 11 24′ circular needles before I go too far.

The leaves on all the trees are just turning and falling, but at 80 degrees it doesn’t feel like Christmas yet!

They’re back!

Yarr. They don’t usually appear until later in December, but a north wind yesterday brought some cedar down from the Hill Country. I am not looking forward to the next three months of allergies. IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER. Really.
But I do love the cold weather and wearing scarves and sweaters and thick socks. It means that it is really soup season. In south Texas, soup season is precarious two month affair, so I have to take advantage. Not that I am above making hot soup in 90 degree weather. I love to cook, and there is nothing I love to make more than soups. One of my favorite wedding gifts (which ironically is one of Tim’s least favorite because it is really heavy when you are cleaning it) is a huge bright yellow Le Creuset pot from my aunt Jean Marie. Other than the pot love/hate conflict, I would have married Tim for no other reason than he loves eating soup, and will happily eat it almost every night. This week I am trying a new Cream of Broccoli recipe.
There are also lots of quilts to make, books to be read and cards to mail. I did get all my packages out in the mail today, so that was exciting. Events this week, and mailing the packages all over the country made me wish once again that everyone I loved lived in one place. We are all so spread out, and it would be nice to be close to everyone that you love for the holidays, for hard times and for laughs. But a far away relationship takes work, and maybe that can sometimes add to the quality, strength and depth to that relationship.
Anyway, I am trying to get Tim to add a photo element to my posts which would be very exciting. That way I can show you all the little photos that I take that don’t really always add up to a whole set.

Drive Safely

I love birthdays, if only because your coworkers treat you to yummy food all day, and you get phone calls, emails and instant messages from everyone far away. I logged into my email this morning and found this message:

Everyone at DefensiveDriving.com wishes you Happy Birthday and reminds you to drive safely so you receive many more birthday wishes
in the future. We look forward to serving you for many years to come, whether you need to dismiss a traffic ticket or you just want
to reduce your car insurance rates. Thank you for making DefensiveDriving.com the # 1 rated online defensive driving course in
Texas since 2001!

Sincerely,
Your friends at DefensiveDriving.com

I mean really, I couldn’t wish for a nicer birthday email!

Taupe 3, Eggshell Interior

My four day weekend is flying by! That is what happens, I guess, when you spend 2 1/2 days of it painting. We started off with the idea to finish painting the hallways, but gosh we bought so much paint. And had all the stuff out…so we started painting the living room. And anyone who has been to our house know what the living room is like. The huge almost 2 story wall with the skylight? Yep. It looks amazing and I love the color, but we are wiped out. Almost everytime we paint, I am amazed at a)how long it takes, but also b)how much I love it afterwards and can’t believe that we took so long to get around to it.

And because becoming vegetarians wasn’t enought of a lifestyle change, we also downgraded out cable today to basic. Yep, 25 channels insead of the 100+ whatever we had before. On the down side, Tim will miss his SportsCenter, but on the plus side, we still have HGTV and Bravo (when does the new Project Runway start anyway?).

Speaking of the veggie bit, it has been going incredibly well. We have spent more time cooking together, planning together and having fun making food than we had in a long time. Today, we had marinated grilled portabello mushroom burgers, grilled corn on the cob, and some fresh tomatoes and cucumbers out of our garden. So good! We’ve done a 20 minute tofu stirfry, grilled veggies in pita, veggie pizza and soy corn dogs (really good! well if you like corn dogs…). I can’t wait for colder weather (for many reasons), but so I can start making chili and soups!

Hope everyone has a great holiday tomorrow!

Tone of the Year

Chuc Mung Nam Moi! I remembered today how to say Happy New Year in Vietnamese (though I am sure I am not pronouncing it properly what with the tricky inflections). My boss says that the tone of the first day of the new year sets the tone for the whole year, and if that is true, then I am set for the year of the dog. I was in a good mood all day and felt great. I talked to my parents (always the Sunday phone call), watched some good tennis (yay Federer-er), sewed quite a bit on AJ’s block of the month quilt, read (Stalin’s Folly), and even got some good laughs in with Tim. I was ever-so-slightly tempted to sweep up after the sewing as it produced many a little thread on the floor, but didn’t want to chance it. What with sweeping my good fortunes away and all. Or for me pretty much any excuse not to clean. All in all a good day.

I also started my 2006 block of the month quilt for Ashley this weekend and have my February class this week which I am looking forward to. After working for a year on one quilt, a whole different (REALLY different…Andrew fabrics to Ashley fabrics different) set of prints, patterns and colors is refreshing.

My allergies are a little bit better, hopefully I can get back on the bike and hit a few more things on the list.