2015 recap and 2016 resolutions

2015 went by so fast! Like many years, it had its highs and a few big lows. Unfortunately nine weeks after losing my grandpa, my grandma passed away in January. I'm so grateful we got one more Christmas with her after losing my grandpa but it was so hard to lose them so close.

There were a lot of bright spots in the year though. In the spring we finally felt like it might be time to have a third dog again. We had been keeping an eye out at the Welfare League's website to see if it looked like any dogs would fit in with our current crew. While we were looking, we learned about a dog who needed a home from one of our family members. We agreed to meet her and it was love at first sight. Foxy joined our family - a two (now three) year old chihuahua-German shepherd mix. She is everyone's little love puppy and I couldn't imagine not having her here.

I'm still chugging along in year two of my job and I got promoted this year! It's been such a great move for me, both in terms of my career and the amazing people I get to work with. J started Kindergarten; C is in third grade and tested into the gifted program!

We took a leap and bought an RV, which we took to San Diego for what is turning into an annual vacation for us. It was so great having a place to chill, with a kitchen to cook in instead of having to go out for every meal. The boys had a great time hanging with their cousins and riding around on bikes and hanging out at the beach. We took them to the San Diego Zoo for the first time too!

As in years past I also tried to keep up with a goal list, so on to the list:

• Blog three times a month - nope not even close. Things were so hectic and yet so ordinary that I didn't have a lot to say
• Make stockings by Christmas for each member of the family - 50% done. C and J both got to use theirs this year, but I still need to do E's and mine.

• Knit at least three pairs of socks - yep, in under the wire. I finished E's Christmas socks two days before Christmas. Funny enough two of the three pairs were for him this year. But he appreciates them so much.
• Make a shawl/stole - not quite. I'm about 2/3 done with a scarf/stole thing
• Sew an item of clothing - yep. Made four bow ties for the kids in my sister's wedding to wear.
• Make bread - yes!!! After being on my list every year, I made some on Monday! So worth the effort - especially now that I have my kitchen aid
• Make caramels - nope
• Make truffles - nada
• Lose 10 pounds - not even close
• Read at least seven books - blasted through this. I read at least 11; I think it was more but that's all I wrote down
• Learn to play guitar - nope and I think this will end up waiting a few more years
• Learn a new cast on/cast off - no. Most of my knitting was types of things I know how to do.
• Finish office/craft room organization - Almost. I got a new desk that can change heights so I can use it for typing on the computer or sewing, then raise it up if I want to cut fabric. I also got a new (old) file cabinet from my grandparents house when we were cleaning it up. It's super functional and nicer than mine but very 1980s wood and gold finishes. Doesn't match the room. So I sanded it down and am repainting it "Oxford Blue" aka Tardis blue. The handles are painted silver. It's actually sitting in the garage waiting for the last coat of paint. Then my beautiful office/craft room is done!!

So four done, six not and three half done or more. Not too shabby. I wish I had done a little better but c'est la vie. Now onward to 2016. I'm guessing grad school will be a time suck so this is a short but hopefully reasonable list:

• Get accepted into and start grad school
• Sew a skirt for myself
• Lose 10 pounds
• Finish the last two stockings
• Read 8 books (Honeymoon Suite - 4/12/16; Babyland - 4/15/16; Heart of the Matter - 4/19/16)
• Make truffles
• Blog 24 times
• Knit 2 pairs of socks

Happy 2016!

 

 

Happenings

School started a couple of months ago here, so I am now officially the mom of two elementary students! (And goodbye daycare payments, woohoo!) What I'm wondering is when did I become old enough to have a third grader; I remember being a third grader.

Both boys are playing sports this year. J started a second season of soccer a few weeks ago, and after taking a couple year hiatus C had his first basketball practice this week.

On the knitting front, I'm working on a second Christmas stocking. I've pretty much conceded that E's and mine won't be done before this Christmas but I want to make sure both boys have theirs.

 

My scarf is slow going. Unfortunately I missed the deadline for the lace along I was participating in. It's pretty much become just my plane knitting since the stocking is too bulky to take.

 

Speaking of plane knitting, I got to cross another state off my list as I had to go to Oregon last week. I've now hit 40% of the US. By the way Portland is beautiful!

I'm also applying grad school! I'm mildly terrified - I'll be 35 when I start and 37 (hopefully) when I finish. I finished my Bachelors 2 days before my 22nd birthday so we're talking 15 years between the two degrees. My kids think it's funny that mom will have homework like them. I'll also be working full time. Goodbye free time ...

 

Update

What a hectic month! So much happened with family and work. My sister got married! I'm so excited for her and my new BIL is a great guy. I was one of the bridesmaids and my boys were both in the wedding too. I finished the bow ties that I was working on for the little boys.

I'm so happy with the way they turned out.

(Goofy kid modeling the tie at the wedding)

Speaking of this goofy kid, he finished preschool!

And C finished second grade! It's hard to believe that I will have two in elementary school in the fall. They're growing up so fast - J was about 6 months old and C was younger than J is now when I started blogging.

We also adopted a new dog. It was sort of unplanned. We had been talking about getting another dog but hadn't made a firm decision or found one who fit with our family. Then my SIL told us about someone who needed to re home their dog. When we heard more about the dog we knew she would be a perfect fit for our family. So meet Foxy!

She's two and about 30 lbs. She loves our boys and gets along amazingly with our other two. I'm so glad she joined our household.

On top of all of that I also had to travel out of state twice for work in the last month. Not so bad but certainly kept me hopping with all of the other things going on too.

And of course where would I be without my knitting. I finished a set of washcloths for the bride; paired with some Bath and Bodyworks soap and voila I had a nice gift.

Now I'm working on a couple of the projects on my resolution list. I've started the first Christmas stocking. I'm using some leftover acrylic worsted weight from my grandma and a size 7 needle. The pattern is Fiona's stocking and has a spot for customizing names on each one. I also was really drawn to the snowflake motif.

I'm also working on a lacy scarf with a great merino silk blend. This tends to be my more portable project and one that I pick up when I don't feel like eating a chart. It's lace but only has two alternating pattern rows, with a row of purling between each one. The pattern is Strangling Vines and it's perfect for anyone looking for an easy intro to lace. Bonus - one of the groups I belong to on Ravelry is having a lace along, so that is providing the momentum I need to finish it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goodbye grandma

Yesterday my family had to say goodbye to a kind, beautiful, funny woman. My grandma passed away early last week and we had her memorial yesterday. So many great stories were shared and we all smiled and laughed at the memories. Goodbye Grandma, you will forever be in my heart.

 

2014 Recap and 2015 Resolutions

2014 was an interesting year to say the least. Lots of changes and quite a few rough patches. Towards the beginning of the year I started a new job after twelve years at my old one. That was definitely one of the high points of the year - I'm very happy with the change I made. Unfortunately I lost my grandpa this year and we had to put down our (almost) 14 year old dog. J broke his arm, I dealt with a bad staph infection, and C had to have oral surgery to remove an extra tooth in his palate. I'm hoping 2015 is a healthier year.

C turned 7 this year. (I can't believe I have a second grader. I remember being a second grader!) J turned five. E and I celebrated our lucky number 13 anniversary. We were fortunate enough to vacation with E's family in San Diego for a week this summer. The boys got to experience Legoland for the first time and we had lots of beach time. I also got to travel some for work this year, going to San Diego, Denver and Seattle. I've only been through Denver, not staying there (for example we ate at Casa Bonita on the way back from Iowa last summer) so it was nice to spend some time there, even if I was pretty busy. I did manage to find time one evening to have dinner with a friend too! Seattle was great too - again really busy but I'd never been there before. Very different than Arizona.

We were also hit with an epic rainstorm here. Our area went one of the longest times without rain but later in the year we had a 100 year storm come through. It literally flooded out most of the freeways. I'd never seen anything like it.

And now onto my 2014 resolution list. Like most of the past few years, I got through 40% of my list. First the hits.

• Read five books - yep, in fact I read at least seven. A couple of reasons, one I put more effort into it; two with the new job I was traveling more. More time in airports and on planes led to a lot more reading time.
• Organizing the pantry - I knocked this out early in the year and kept it more or less fixed the whole year.
• Make a crochet project - I made washcloths to go along with my homemade vanilla extract and one was crocheted. It finally seemed to click with me.
• Sew a needle holder - It was a little wonky - one piece was sewn in the wrong order so a seam shows on the outside. But it works wonderfully and I use it all the time.
• Frosting piping practice - Decorated my son's birthday cupcakes in a Minecraft theme.
• Blog at least three times a month - I'm going to fudge and say yes. Some months I didn't hit at least three times but I did get over 36 posts total for the year and wrote at least once every month.

And now the misses. Make bread, make truffles, make caramels. Nope, still on the baking bucket list. Although I have yeast in the pantry, ready to go... Learn to play guitar - never made it a priority. Learn entrelac, learn a new cast on or off - I really tried a new cast on, I just can't seem to wrap my head around it. Garden - I have such a black thumb! Lose 23 pounds - epic fail, I actually put a little weight back on.

So the list for 2015 will have some repeats on it. But I've got a few new things too:

• Blog three times a month (36 for the year)
• Make stockings by Christmas for each member of the family
• Knit at least three pairs of socks (2/27/15, 4/14/15; 12/23/15)
• Make a shawl/stole
• Sew an item of clothing (5/3/15)
• Make bread
• Make caramels
• Make truffles
• Lose 10 pounds
• Read at least seven books (40 Love - 2/11/15; Sleeping Arrangements - 2/22/15; Baby Proof - 5/18/15; Fishbowl - 5/23/15; The Good Daughters - 6/181/15; Inside the O'Briens - 7/29/15; Funny Girl - 8/3/15; The Help - 9/18/15; Fall of Marigolds - 9/29/15; The One and Only - 10/29/15; Still Alice - 11/1/115; Shopaholic to the Rescue - 12/29/15)
• Learn to play guitar
• Learn a new cast on/cast off
• Finish office/craft room organization

Hopefully I finish above 40% this year! Here's to a great 2015!

 

 

 

 

 

Rainy, rainy day

Today was absolutely bonkers in terms of weather here. We got multiple inches of rain in just seven hours. In fact it set the all time record for rain at the airport and closed parts of five different freeways and highways. Totally not expected in the desert! J's preschool actually closed for the day - never thought I'd see a weather related school closure

He definitely took advantage of it though!

 

San Diego Vacation

Last week we took a vacation to San Diego. My MIL and FIL and my SIL and her family go every summer; last year we went for a long weekend but this year we wanted to take a little more time there. My BIL and his wife were able to get up there too so for a few days we had the whole family there.

Our first day was a travel day so we didn't get to do much but we did get there in time to see fireworks. My in laws were close enough to Seaworld that we were able to see the nightly fireworks. C used my phone and took a few pictures (okay a lot of pictures).

 

Day 2 was a trip to Pacific beach with most of the family. The boys and I had a great time, although I did take a tumble and scraped up my knee (still messed up a week later!)

The boys also learned how to fish - sort of. My mother in law tried to teach them but it mostly resulted in squeals over worms and tangled lines, no fish.

Day 3 was our Legoland visit. One of the new features is a behind the scenes feature of the Lego Movie, including the actual set. Plus the boys got to meet Wyld Style.

We also found a cool Mexican food restaurant to eat at in Carlsbad after we left the park.

The next day we took a tour of the USS Midway, then hopped aboard the Coronado Island ferry. Plus that evening we grabbed some froyo!

Our last full day was another day back at the beach with family and friends. After we got cleaned up the boys went to hang with my mother in law while E and I got to go out. E was nice enough to stop in a yarn store with me (the Grove) while I picked up some locally dyed yarn - my souvenir! Then we headed to Gaslamp. It was a bit nutty as Comicon started the next day but we still managed to find a good Italian food place and then a pub afterwards for drinks. Plus we stopped by the Ghiradelli store and got some chocolate.

Unfortunately we had to head back to Phoenix and the 116 degree temps the next day. But I had so much fun while we were there!

 

Happy 4th of July

 

 

 

 

What a Month

And I don't mean that in a good way. I've been MIA and not keeping up with this as much as I wanted to. But frankly June has been a rough month; I'm kind of holding my breath for the next three days.

The month didn't start too bad - J got his cast off and E and I celebrated our 13th anniversary. But they went downhill from there. I got a staph infection and ended up in urgent care to have it drained. A month later and I'm still being treated, although the end is in sight. Five days after the urgent care visit we had to say goodbye to our dog. Jack had a good long life - he would have been 14 this week - but I still miss him. He was such a good dog! I never thought we would survive those puppy years, but he grew up and became one of my most beloved dogs ever.

A week or so after that a stomach bug hit our house, taking us each down one at a time. At first I thought I was lucky, because C had it on Saturday and I was fine. But then Thursday afternoon I got knocked down for the count. This week has been fairly tame (knock on wood), just insanely busy.

Hopefully July is a little friendlier than June.

 

So this happened this week

My poor baby broke his arm!

He's being a good sport about it (this pic was taken a few days after it happened) but I feel so badly for him!

 

Minecraft birthday party

C is a huge minecraft fan so he asked if he could have a minecraft themed birthday this year. I agreed but I ran into a problem - the party store doesn't have any minecraft decorations. So I had to come up with my own. Luckily all of the shapes in minecraft are very blocky so they are easy to draw and cut out. Plus others on the internet are full of ideas for inspiration.

I found some cute invitations at Catch My Party (there are other printables available but I didn't use them). For games I found a few websites that had ideas and decided to play two - pin the tail on the pig and creeper bean bag toss.

To make the pig I bought a large sheet of pink poster board. I wanted the head to be square and the body rectangular so I cut a 10" x 10" piece and a 10" by 12" piece. I overlapped the corners and glued together. Then I took a piece of white paper and cut two 1" by 2" pieces and cut 2 1" by 1" squares out of black construction paper. I glued the black squares to the white rectangles then glued the whole piece to the face. I cut a 4" by 5" piece from the pink poster board and glued it on to the face. For the tails I just cut strips of pink paper for the kids to use.

For the bean bag toss I took a cardboard box and cut it open to lay flat. The benefit of using a cardboard box is I was able to take advantage of the existing fold the make it stand up. I painted the box green and then cut the face shapes out. I modified the creeper face slightly - the creepers in the game have their eyes touching the mouth, but that would have left me with one big hole. So I cut out two squares for the eyes and then cut the face out an inch or so lower. I labeled the points with a black marker and the game was ready. This was by far the favorite activity at the party.

I kept the decorations mostly simple, except for the creeper wall. For the table I used a brown table cloth covered with a smaller green one to look like the dirt and grass. I hung green streamers and balloons that had either an animal face or creeper face drawn on them.

The creeper wall was a little more time consuming. I took 20 pieces of green construction paper and glued on 20 faces. Well let me be a little more specific. I had to cut out the eyes separately from the mouth because of the shape of a creeper face and then glue them back the right way.

I'm super pleased with the way it turned out. And it wasn't a waste of my time too badly. We ended up decorating C's room with them after the party!

I was tempted to label the food with minecraft style labels but to be perfectly honest I ran out of time. So decorations for the food ended up being green plates and forks.i did manage to decorate the cupcakes though. I tried to make them look like grass boxes so I made chocolate cupcakes and dyed my buttercream green. Then I piped the frosting to look grass-like.

I think the birthday boy liked his party. Happy birthday C!

 

Christmas

We had a very nice Christmas season full of lots of activities and hanging out with our families. I also managed to get all of my Christmas knitting done, just barely - I finished a little hat ornament for my aunt on Christmas Eve morning.

I went to a cookie exchange early in the month and made chocolate toffee loaves to share. I also made raspberry Brie phyllo cups for my appetizer.

My boys participated in a church Christmas program (J's first program)

They visited Santa

J's preschool had a Christmas program too

We made giant gingerbread men at my mom's house

Everybody also got the presents they wanted.

It's been a great month

 

 

Update

Man, things have been busy around here lately! C started first grade and J started school for the very first time (preschool) a few weeks ago.

My first grader!

My preschooler!

Then we hit another milestone around here, as C lost his first tooth last weekend.

I have also knocked a few things off my resolution list. I just finished my fifth book for the year. I also busted out the sewing machine. I watched a Craftsy that was immensely helpful and then tried to see what I could do.

The results are super rough but I managed to make a shirt for my son's bear. It doesn't look too bad from afar but up close the uneven seams are pretty obvious. My straight seams are not so straight and the zig zags are not evenly spaced. I also didn't hem the neck. But for a first effort, I'm really pleased!

The other thing on my that I accomplished was definitely the most difficult - I've lost 10 pounds. I've been using My Fitness Pal to track what I eat and trying to bike ride more and this week I hit the ten pounds lost mark. I still have more I want to lose but this is a great first step.

And of course I've been working on my knitting. I've become somewhat hooked on sock yarn...

It does all have a purpose though. I bought a bunch of the it on clearance at Hobby Lobby. The bright multicolor pink yarn will be socks for my niece. The blue grey at the bottom and the brown will be a couple of pairs for C. The blue and green ball is a pair for J (I'm also currently working on a dark blue and black pair for him.) The other three are going to be socks for me. I can't remember what brand the blue and green cake is but I got it at one of the local LYSes. The dark blue at the top is a Zauberball (!!) from another local LYS. The last one is Candy Skein's August colorway, Blue Hawaiian. I never realized before how much I gravitate towards blue based yarn - I think my niece's socks are the only ones without at least a little blue.

Boy has it been busy around here!