Knitting class?

I have been knitting more and more everywhere I go.  It's become quite an addiction of mine.  I suppose there are worse addictions out there, right?  Sometimes I wish my addiction was cleaning my house.  Or doing laundry.  Or cooking.  No such luck. 

Lately I've been seen knitting at the hockey rink, the dentist office waiting room, and the dance studio.  I knit my way through the baseball season last summer at the field, and I often knit at my desk at work on my lunch break.

The most common comment I hear when I'm knitting in public is, "oh Nance!  What are you making NOW?"  and then, "Oh my gosh, I'd love to have one.  Will you make me one?"

Now, don't get me wrong, it's very flattering when someone asks me to make something for them.  It means they truly like what I do, and would even wear it themselves!  I love making gifts for people, and watching them open them with delight.  And I love seeing a picture on a friend's blog of a hat that I made them a year ago in every-day use.  There is no better compliment someone could give me than to tell me that something I made them is in use.  LOVE that!

Other comments that I often hear are, "I can't believe you made that." or "How the heck do you do that?" or "I wish I knew how to knit."

So, my question for you is this:

If I were to offer a Knitting 101 class for a small fee, would anyone local be interested in taking it?  I'm certainly not a pro, but  I would love to help anyone get this addiction off the ground.  The infinity scarves are so popular right now, maybe it would be a good first project?  Just think of all of the home-made Christmas presents you could make next year!  We are talking SUPER basic here, for the wet-behind-the-ears beginner.

Anyway, it's just a thought I had.  There would most likely be wine involved, and probably some laughing and fun.  Anyone?

XOXOX

NH

I Am a Hockey Mom.

I am a dance mom too, but that will be another post, another day.

I find myself continually wanting to blog about hockey, and then feeling like I shouldn't because I just blogged about hockey last week.

But then I find that I have nothing else to talk about, which is why there have been 3 blog posts this month, and it's already the 25th.  Well, once Christmas has passed, my life is full of work and hockey.  And so, I will write about hockey.

My brother sent me THIS article this morning from the newspaper, written by a local hockey mom.  This could have been written by me, or any of the other 8 million hockey moms that I know.  So, so typical.  Exactly how my life has been for the past nine years.

I remember Andy's first UMD Bulldog hockey game, when he was about 5 months old.  THANK GOD I don't have to haul that diaper bag with me to the games any more!  He graduated from bottles and diapers, to tupperwares full of dried cereal, to a few pieces of candy that would fit in my purse, and ALWAYS having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the third period, right after play started again, and would squirm so bad you thought you'd have a puddle to clean up if you didn't get to the bathroom right now!  Then it was on to soft pretzels, nachos, frozen lemonade and frozen malt cups, and now - well now I don't know what he buys because the moment we step foot into the arena, he asks for money and then is off sitting with friends somewhere and I don't see him until either there are two minutes left in the game, or he runs out of money.

When Andy was 2, we would tell him that his peas were green hockey balls so they were "cool" enough to eat.  He had a lego hockey game that he used to play with for HOURS on end, all by himself.  When he lost too many of the lego players that were like those little green army men, he made due with his set of Bulldog hockey player cards (like baseball cards) and use them as players in his game.  He'd line them up along the sides when they were to be sitting on the bench, or line them up on the two blue lines and sing The National Anthem at the top of his lungs.  I don't know what age he was when he finally realized that the actual last word of that song isn't really "BULLDOGS"!  I probably don't want to know the number of times he has watched the movie Miracle, and also some game at some state tournament that the Hawks played in that we happen to have on DVD.  I really can't understand why someone would want to watch the same hockey game over and over and over.  Um, I think you know how the game is gonna turn out...

The woman who wrote the article above tells us to "embrace the hockey-ness" of it all.  What great advice!  Jump in with both feet and enjoy it!  Morgan has finally gotten to that point.  She has really started watching the games, and caring what the outcome is.  That poor girl has spent more hours in hockey rinks than any girl should have to.  The other day she was invited to a sleepover, and really had to think about if she was going to go or not because it would mean missing one of her brother's games.  The sleepover did win out, but the fact that she had to debate with herself over what she wanted to do was really cool to me.

Last weekend Andy's team played in a local tournament.  I wasn't sure what to expect, because I knew that there were quite a few teams coming to the tournament from the Minneapolis metro area.  It's often hard for us to compete with those associations because they simply have so many more kids playing for them than we do.  The skill level of an A or a B player in their organization may be very different than ours.  I was pleasently surprised when we found ourselves playing in the third place game on Sunday.  Let me tell you, it was one of the most memorable and exciting games of hockey that I've ever watched.  The score was 0-0 at the end of regulation.  #21 on our team scored the winning goal shortly into overtime.  Talk about excitement!  My heart was bursting with pride for that whole team.  The cheering section went crazy, everyone was hugging everyone, and the team looked like they had just won the Stanley Cup.

Hockey is a game of the highest of highs, and the lowest of lows (especially for an old goalie mom like me!) but I think that's why I love being a part of it.  I want so badly for those high moments for my son, and my heart breaks with his every single time a puck crosses his goal line.  I can only hope that he learns something with each one that sneaks past him.  Also, I hope he learned something last night after our loss when I gave him a stern talking to about slamming his Brand. New. Expensive. Goalie stick onto the ice at the final buzzer, and how his response to my stern-ness was very inappropriate.  Ugh.  What are you going to do though?  Support him.  Support the team.  Celebrate the wins, learn from the losses.  Try to deodorize the car.  Put in your volunteer hours at the concession stand.  Count your blessings for all of the friends this game has brought into your life.  Look back at old pictures and realize that this is going to be over far too soon. 

I am embracing all of the hockey-ness, and loving every single second of it.  And so, I will blog about it.

XOXOX

NH

It's been kinda cold outside.

This is what weather.com told me it was like outside on Monday morning.  Now, I realize I live in Northern Minnesota, but this is really, really cold.

When I posted this photo on Facebook, my friend Beth who lives in Florida asked me how we survive this kind of weather.  She wanted to know if everyone just walks around in those ski masks all day.  My response to her was that no, I don't wear a ski mask (because I don't want to be accused of robbing a gas station, and it would wrek havoc on this mop of hair I have on my head).  We just spend as little time outside as humanly possible.  When you do go outside, you don't want to take too big of a breath in through your nose, because boogers freeze.  If it helps any, I absolutely couldn't imagine living in Florida in the summer.  I'd have heat stroke for sure!

I heard someone say on the news on Monday that with this wind chill temperature of -43, if the average house keeps their thermostats set at 72, it feels 115 degrees warmer inside your house than outside.  Cool.

I was happy to see the huge raise in temperature by 4:05 PM!  Yay!  Feels like -32 now?  Practically balmy!

The kids had school off on Monday to observe Martin Luther King Jr day, and were all crabby because school most likely would have been closed for those kinds of temperatures.  Kind of like when it always snows on Saturday.  My kids would pay $100 for a "snow" day.  Also, Andy came down with a bout of the flu Monday morning, so spent most of the day sleeping.  Another Murphy's Law situation - getting sick when you already have a day off of school.  THE WORST!

And then on Monday evening, we got the message that they had decided to close school on Tuesday due to the cold temperatures.  You would think my children would have won the lottery.  Even Andy with his sick feverish self was doing a happy dance.

Of course last night they were glued to the TV, and every now and then I'd hear an, "Oh come on.  Call school for tomorrow.  COME ON!"  Sorry kids.  No luck.

So this morning I headed outside 15 minutes before the old Honda had to leave the driveway and said a little prayer that she would start.  She groaned at me a little, but did start up.  When we came outside 15 minutes later to leave, the defroster had left angel wings in the frost on the windshield!  Or a mustache?  Or eyebrows?  You decide.  Anyways, it looked picture-worthy to me.

When I checked weather.com a little while ago, I was happily surprised to find an actual temperature ABOVE zero!  Woo hoo!  (Still feels like -15, but who's counting, right?)

One of my very favorite bloggers, Sharon at Three Irish Girls wrote one of the funniest blog posts EVER yesterday about a parka that she only digs out in dire emergencies.  Go check this out for a funny read:  The Parka of Ridiculousness  Sharon is so funny, takes super awesome pictures of my daughter, and also hand dyes her own yarn to sell.  I want to be Sharon when I grow up!  :)

There are people left and right posting cool pictures of Duluth in this cold snap, and I was going to try and steal some of their photos (and give them full credit, of course) to post here, since there was no way my cold butt was heading outside with my camera, but apparently people don't want to make that easy for me, so you'll have to go look for some on Google or something.

I hope it's warmer wherever you are.  If not, grab some hot chocolate and spike it with something yummy, and go sit by a roaring fireplace.  Or go back to bed.  Either or.

Stay warm!

XOXOX

NH

Blog? What blog?

I seemed to have forgotten that I have this little blog, and that sometimes it's fun to put pictures and stories in it.  Sorry about that.

I have been spending pretty much every waking moment that I haven't been at work, the dance studio, or the hockey rink preparing for our hockey tournament that we hosted this past weekend.

There were signs to be made for 10 teams.  Have you ever used a Cricut before?  Holy fun. 

There was Chuck A Puck to organize.  There were T-shirts to order.

And lots of hockey games to plan.

Mother nature had other things in mind, and made it 40 degrees outside and rainy, which makes maintaining outside hockey rinks a bit of a challenge.  We did have to cancel a few games, but by Saturday afternoon, we were rolling again.

There were plenty of indoor games too, but if you don't spend a significant amount of time in hockey rinks, you wouldn't understand they they are often as cold inside as the weather is outside.  We do love our zamboni drivers!  What would we do without you!?!

The tournament was a huge success (we didn't finish quite as high in the standings as we probably hoped, but it was still a great weekend.)

I am soooooo glad it's over though.  Now I can get back to the important stuff.  Ahhhhhh.

Isn't this yarn gorgeous??? (Doesn't my new iPhone take awesome pictures??????)

This is what I get to do on my lunch break now, instead of figuring out the penalty box and concession stand schedules.  Ahhhhhhh.

Happiness.

XOXOX

NH

I'm back.

I am back from a brief blog hiatus.  I missed you!

I had a wonderful Christmas, full of family, friends, and new memories made.  I didn't take as many pictures as I probably should have, but I did manage to take a few with my phone, so I'll share my break with you thanks to Apple and Instagram.

Here's what has gone down in my world in the past two weeks:

It snowed, and made pretty tree branches.

Christmas lights and decorations were in abundance.  LOVE.

Yeah, I spent a LOT of time in hockey rinks.  Six different ones, to be exact.  And we are headed to a seventh one tonight.

Always room for a little sparkle, no?

I found this ornament on the in-law's tree.  Super cute!

Emma, the in-law's cat, loved to snuggle up on Morgan's lap.

A little Phase 10 action with the fam.  (It took me FOREVER to get through Phase 1, but once I did I DOMINATED!)

LOTS of knitting time.  Yep, even at the rink.  With my new Essie Sand Tropez polish on from Santa!

(More info coming soon on what this baby turned out to be!)

More hockey...

And more hockey....

We covered lots of miles to hockey games.  Luckily when it snowed, it was only a few inches at a time, so the roads weren't too bad.

Hockey sisters have to stick together when their brothers are on the ice.

Going crazy from too much hockey.  And it's not even over yet.

National Anthem at the third place game!  (We lost, but I'm very happy with fourth place out of twelve!)

I got to ring in the new year with two of my favorite boys, Tom and Jerry.

And Morgan got to ring it in by going in the hot tub with friends and cousins!

This is what 10 and 11 year olds do.  Fixin hair, playin on phones, waiting for midnight.  Most of the adults had to be woken at 11:50 so they didn't "miss it".  It's sad when it's so hard to stay up until midnight anymore!

We are now back into the swing of things.  I'm happy to report that the tree did not fall over again this year.  One time is enough thankyouverymuch. 

The house is almost all de-Christmased, and I'm on a de-clutter rampage thanks to the new Rubbermaid containers my mom got me for Christmas.  I went through the cupboard and got rid of all the old junk that was older than my marriage, and replaced it with gorgeous, unscratched, matching, not spaghetti sauce stained, stackable, pretty little containers with lids that all snap together.  There is a happiness that I haven't felt in a long time that surfaces when I now open that door to the cabinet.  Next up is the pan cupboard.  Ugh. That one needs some serious help.   Then it will be time to take off the child safety locks on the cupboards that have only remained because we rely on them to keep the cupboards closed.  What?

How was your Christmas???

XOXOX

NH