It's been a rough few days.

This is not a "woe is me" post, but rather an explanation of why there haven't been many blog posts lately.

I have several pictures on my camera right now that I'd love to share with you.  It makes me happy to show you what's going on with me.  I have pictures of a hockey filled weekend, a Thanksgiving weekend, and a Christmas tree hunt.  Each would make for a great blog post.  So why aren't they in a blog post yet?  I'll bet you are totally wondering.

First of all, I'm in the middle of this humongous project at work.  (On a side note, isn't the word ginormous dumb?  I don't even know if I'm spelling it right.  But really.  We couldn't just get by with gigantic and enormous?  Don't they both mean "really big"?  Your point wouldn't have been made just using one of those words?  Whatever.  Back to the story...)  I mean, this project is huge.  It has been extremely stressful, and I'm feeling the pressure of not completing it fast enough.  I really, really want to do a good job on it, so I'm probably causing myself more stress than necessary, but it is what it is.  I have been SO drained when I get home every day that I just want to curl up and go to sleep.  Since that's not an option, I fight my way through the evenings, and then lay.  very very awake.  in my bed.  when it's finally time to sleep.  Of course.

And then there is this little problem I was having where I couldn't find the cable to connect my camera to my computer.  FRUS TRAT ING.  It was one of those "I know it's in this house somewhere" feelings, but it didn't matter how hard I looked.  I couldn't find it.  So last night when I was laying in bed and not sleeping, I was thinking about where I was sitting the last time I blogged.  I remembered it was the living room couch, though I had already pulled all the cushions off the couch to no avail.  All I found under the couch were a few dirty socks, some colored pencils, the 4 of spades, and two crochet hooks.  So then I started thinking about where I took my camera from the last time I used it, and I remembered that it was on the coffee table.  So this morning when I came downstairs, I glanced over to the coffee table and found the wonderous cable!  I was very very happy to find it.  There may or may not be a little bit of crap laying on the coffee table that may or may not have prohibited me from seeing the cord sitting out in plain sight on the table that is approximately 1.87 feet away from the couch that I've sat on more times than I should admit since the cable in question was unfindable.

So anyways, today at work when I wasn't buried in VLP- circuits, or KPA- circuits, or getting asked to check status of this order or finding out what it would cost to expedite that order, I was thinking about the kick butt blog posts I was going to churn out tonight.  It was gonna be super awesome.

But then at 3:47, I got a text from hubs.  He let me know that our Christmas tree that I had spent hours decorating on Sunday had fallen over some time during the day.  Do you know that my Christmas tree has tipped over every single year for the past 4 years?  Honestly.  We have gotten a new stand.  We have put plywood under the stand.  We have gotten a shorter tree every year to hopefully avoid the issue.  I just don't get it.  The only thing we haven't done is tie it up to the walls because we are just not sure about screwing into the wooden window frames.  ***SIGH***  I guess if it falls again this year, I will do it anyways.  Either that or just prop it up in the dang corner.  Dumb tree.

So we got the tree back to standing position, and redecorated, and the broken glass all vacuumed up from the ornaments that didn't survive the ordeal, and then I remembered that last year I had split my 6 strings of lights into three and three and plugged them into the wall that way.  How did I remember that I did that last year?  When I blew the fuse in the first string of lights that has 5 strings plugged into it.  So although the tree is again standing, the lights don't work.

Ok, so nothing more I can do with that whole situation at this point, so Morgan is off to dance class, Andy is at hockey practice and hubs is out flooding the rink.  Home.  Alone.  With nothing but a bottle of wine and the computer to blog to my heart's content.

So I sit down and transfer the pictures from the camera to the computer and all is well.  I open up a new blog post and title it "I bet you miss me telling you about hockey, right?" and then go to add some pictures to the post.  Apparently I've now used up all of my free storage space they allow for these little blog things.  Seriously!

So I have lots of pictures to show you.  There are some super good ones.  They are one step closer to being shared with you, but unfortunately I cannot share them with you until I figure out how I'm going to work around this one.

I've said that "F" word in my head several times lately.  Sorry mom.

XOXOX

NH

It's a Rock N Roll Christmas...

If there is one thing writing this blog has taught me, it's that I'm a creature of habit.  Since my blog had it's first birthday, I find that I'm writing about the same darn events that we did last year!  Not that it's a bad thing, I'll just have to try and keep it interesting for you!

Last Friday night was the annual Christmas City of the North Parade.

Parents, teachers, and dancers made their way through downtown Duluth.

Our theme this year was "Rock N Roll Christmas".

Our rock stars danced their little booties off!

It was certainly one of the warmest parade days I can ever remember.  Including those when I was back in high school and was worried about my flute sticking to my lips as I marched in this very parade.

I think this was my favorite theme and costume year that our dance studio has ever done.  They looked SO CUTE!

We even had a "boy band" up on the float with their light up instruments.  The fans went wild!

The energy was incredible this year.

And the choreography was great!

I know these dancers had so much fun.  They always do.

It's fun to shine!

Great job dancers!  I'm very proud of you.  You looked awesome!

XOXOX

NH

Hockey Mamas and Margaritas.

 

 

Hockey Mamas

 

Margaritas

 

Hockey Mamas

Margaritas

 

Hockey mamas, and empty margaritas.

 

Thank you for another fun night ladies!

 

 

XOXOX

NH

Somethin' kinda cool happened.

Two years ago, I made a knit headband with a big flower on it for one of my friends.  She really liked it.  She wore it to hockey, and another mom saw it and liked it too, so she asked me to make one for her.  I did, and she loved hers too.  It's very fun making stuff for people who love your stuff.

 

So a few weeks ago, my friend was shopping with one of her friends who was looking for hand knit headbands to sell at her local shop.  My friend immediately thought of me.  (!!!)

So, I got hooked up with the right gal...

...and made a few more headbands...

... and they are officially on sale at the gift shop at Spirit Mountain, our local ski hill!  I'm super excited about this, and hope people will buy them all!  (I just hope I don't get an order for 200 next week!)

 

XOXOX

 

NH

Election Day is finally here!

Are you with me when I say "THANK YOU JESUS"???

I sure wish politics didn't get so nasty.  I hate all those commercials where politicians slam each other.  It makes me want to just yell at the TV and tell them to play nice.

I really don't like talking about politics, which is why I haven't brought up the election until now.  I have my beliefs, and I'm sure they differ than some of yours.  And that's ok with me.  I'm just not one who loves conflict or debating, and I really don't want to debate politics on my blog.  I will say that I think it's our duty to be informed, and to make decisions on our beliefs, and get out and vote.

I was in line with the hubs this morning at 6:45.  Thankfully we got an inside spot, and didn't have to wait in the rain/snow mix that was falling.  There were probably 10 people in line in front of us, and by 7:00, the line stretched out the door and into the parking lot of the neighborhood church that was our polling place.  I was glad to see it busy right away in the morning.

We made our way to the "G-K" sign over the check-in table and got our little initialed cards, which we handed to the next guy down the line, who gave us our ballots.  It felt good to sit there for a second with this piece of paper in front of me, where I could give my opinion.  The little ovals that I fill out right now will be counted.  They matter.  I sort of felt powerful for a minute.  They say it could be a very close race between these two, so I was happy to contribute my opinion.  I am happy and thankful to live in a country where I'm asked.  I'm also happy to live in a country with Dairy Queen Blizzards. 

In other news, the City Christmas Tree is going up right now across the street!  It's quite the ordeal, with police blocking off probably the busiest intersection in the city.  The tree will be ceremoniously lit next Friday, at the start of the annual Christmas City of the North Parade.  Morgan will be dancing in the parade again this year, and in case anyone has the need to make a fake light up microphone in the future, a thick wooden dowel painted black, a battery operated string of lights, and some steel wool for a topper make a GREAT one.  Now to just figure out what to do for the rest of her costume.

Exercise your right to vote, and have an awesome Tuesday!  Tomorrow we can enjoy television that is political ad free!  Yipeee!

XOXOX

NH

A finished sweater!

Halloween was very uneventful at our house this year.  We did get our pumpkins carved before halloween, but the kids decided to not dress up at all.  They opted to stay home and hand out candy instead.  It was a little sad for me, but let me tell you, not having to worry about what they are doing with 2 tons of candy in the house is worth it.  There was a mad scramble to find something to work with in the house just as it was starting to get dark, but when Andy didn't want to go around the neighborhood in my red wig from the trip and a green velvet dress from the very back of my closet (it really looked awesome if you ask me - I should have taken a picture!) the mission was aborted.

And can we just talk about pumpkin seeds for a minute?  We all LOVE them in this house.  They are sooo good.  I just wish you didn't have to deal with the whole pumpkin part of it.  I hate wasting the pumpkin, but I still have some in the freezer from last year (probably ought to use that up pretty soon...) and frankly don't want to go through the whole process of preparing it again.  Ugggh.

Anyway, the topic of this post was supposed to be a sweater that I finished, so onward...

Here she is.  Ain't she a beaut?  (if I do say so myself!)

Her name is Aidez, and her pattern (free!) can be found at the Berroco Website here.  The yarn I used was gifted to me from my awesomely thrifty mama.  So, pretty much a free, cozy, scrumptious, WARM knit cardigan just for meeeee!  The temps are dipping further every day, and I imagine I'll be wearing this several days this winter.

You can bet your behind that there are mistakes in it, so please don't look too closely.  If you find them, kindly don't mention them, mmmkay?

 

Usually when I finish a project of this size, I'm at a loss for a while of what to start on next.  Not this time.  I took inventory today, and I have another sweater, two scarves, two hats, and an afghan currently in progress.  No shortage of projects right now.  No wonder I can never find any free needles when I want them...

 

I was going to show you some super cool wool mittens that I recently finished, but I forgot to take pictures of them when I was photographing the sweater, and thanks to that brilliant idea called daylight savings time, it's now 5:11 and too dark outside to take a picture.  I'll have to save it for another day.

 

 

XOXOX

 

NH