Christmas Wishes

Wishing all of you a wonderful Christmas holiday with family & friends & lots of cheer!

It's so nice to be home for Christmas and have time to relax and spend with family for another year.  It's great to have the same traditions from year to year to look forward too as well.  This year, J&I got to help decorate the tree with all our ornaments which we haven't been home to do in a few years.  Some of you know that our ornaments are all tokens from trips & travels or accomplishments, places we've been and things we've done.  There's a memory for each one and a wide variety of items that have been converted into ornaments.  This year was especially fun as we had to search hard for some open branches to tie on the ornaments!  

Snow has been falling all day, the city chicken is cooking, lots of 'elf-ing' to do away from prying eyes and even a surprise visit from my Uncle!  

Merry Christmas!

Southern Snow

This morning I woke up, hit the snooze and decided to sleep longer and go to the 11am Mass instead of 9am.  Once I actually got out of bed, I peeked out the window and to my surprise found this.

It's hard to tell how long it actually snowed because it has been blustery outside all day.  Seems to be mostly a dusting and the roads were passable.  Anyways, a couple pictures for the 1st snow of the season as I stay warm inside working on Christmas cards and sewing.

Notes from the Week

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, with every Christmas card I write"   -in the stylings of Bing Crosby

This week in the mail, amidst the coupon catalogs, sale notices and wrong tenant letters, I received my first Christmas cards of the season!  It starts to feel like the holiday season a little bit more with each card and it'll be nice this year as I won't be able to see all of my dearest friends over the holidays like usual.  This also means I have to make sure to get mine out soon so as to not be behind this year.

It definitely feels like winter here and there are some flurry images on the weather forecast so here's hoping!  >insert snow dance here<   I've pulled up my Christmas play list while in the car and at work (where we've been decorated since Halloween) and am thinking about buying a tree as well, but so far the only decoration that's made it out of the box is my Advent wreath.  

 Last weekend I went ice skating downtown which was fantastic!  It was super cold out, even with some hot chocolate, but I had a great time.  I got to use hockey skates for the first time and have to say I prefer those over the figure skates.  I always seemed to get tripped up *toe pick!* on figures, and didn't have much trouble with the hockey skates.  I didn't fall or run over any of the little kids zooming in all directions so I'll take that as a victory on ice.  There's still the matter of learning how to stop without using a wall or natural slowing, but we can save that for a later lesson right?  ;o)

Thoroughly enjoyed the Glee episode this week as well and laughed at & loved the fact that Sue rigged Secret Santa.  Genius!  Also great was Kurt & Blaine's rendition of "Baby it's Cold Outside" and Wham's "Last Christmas."  I have yet to find a station that is playing solid Christmas music on the radio though and although most of them have interspersed the normal with holiday tunes it makes for a refreshing change.  I drove through the holiday lights in the park the other night which are pretty and festive and free! 

I'll leave you to your warm cozy thoughts and dreams of white Christmases, pretty decorations, holiday mail and hot chocolate for tonight dear reader.  

   ......fa la la la laaa......

Thanksgiving Rewind

Holy Ice Skates Batman!  It's already December!  Well dear readers I'll have to give you the short version to catch up.  ;o)  Let's take it back a week or so to Thanksgiving and go from there.....

I took a couple days off work to go home for the weekend and Wednesday dawned grey and rainy as I trundled my way into work for a 1/2 day.  I could hardly sit & work - I was so excited to start the holiday.  I planned to drive my way through Illinois to M&D's and brought along an assortment of road tripping essentials: iPod, books on CD, GPS, water, chocolate & snacks.  It took about 7 hours and passed through a whole lot of fields, sky and fuzzy radio stations in the heart of IL.  The rain stuck around for part of the drive but cleared up as it got dark which I found to be a nice trade.  I ended up listening to the book "Dear John" on CD most of the way up & back and enjoyed it for the most part.  I tried to make fudge to bring with me, but it didn't cook long enough so it didn't set.  Bummer. At least I can use it to swirl in ice cream or with fruit for dessert.  Mmm.

Once home it was nice to relax and be with family again.  It's been a couple years since we'd had a family Thanksgiving so this was super nice.  We watched parts of the parade & football, cooked & ate lots of yummy food and had a grand time.  J & I even went running with dad in the cold as a pre-dinner workout to help make room for the pie.  We went to see HP7 again (sooo good) and helped dad bottle his Amarone wine too.  Mom & I went out to dress shop for a bridesmaid dress and I think I tried on all but a couple they had to offer!  A wonderful weekend home and a break from work and family and good fun and good times.

holiday quilt tree @ work

Then it was back home and back to work again, with December creeping up on me.  Wednesday the Yo-Yos brought in lunch and treats for the staff and it was delicious.  Baked ham &cheese sandwiches, veggies &dip, cookies, pumpkin cake, meringue bites, divinity candy, and more.  Such yummy food - I didn't have to eat dinner I was so full.  Then we had our volunteer meeting/luncheon and my department helped donate supplies for our decorations.  See if you can spot what we used: scissors, spool of thread, pin cushion, tape measure and more.  I'm also getting lots of mail at work as the entries for the School Block Challenge come in.  The blocks are creative and well done so I'm excited to see the rest that are submitted.

We're getting new carpet in at the apartment too so that's fun.  It's a darker pattern which I think looks much better in the hallway and won't show the dirt stains of people moving in & out as easily.  Our 2nd Saturday is coming up again and this month is Edible Quilts - we have sugar cookies for people to come decorate with quilt designs in icing and candy embellishments!  It means a lot of baking ahead of time but yum!

Phew, I think that's as caught up as I can be for now - stay tuned for more holiday fun!