Conflicting Needs

Tomorrow I have a small post-Christmas party scheduled and need to prepare for. I have the list, I have most of the food, I have my presents wrapped. I need to house cleaning.

What I am missing is motivation!

What I want to do is go into my new created craft room and cast on 2 or 3 new knitted projects. I want to just sit and knit.

But the day ahead is filled with to-dos. So here I sit,

blogging!!

*sigh*

Talk again on Sunday!

Joy Filled Blossoms

We are in a wedding count down my son, Matt and his fiancee, Maureen.

The wedding is in May.

I am sure that as we move through the next few months,

postings about our preparations will become more frequent.

This first posting on the wedding is the creation of flower table center pieces.

Back in December Maureen walked a few of the wedding party through the process of making the paper flowers for the table center pieces.

Initially I think it was daunting for those present.

So many flowers were needed,

the process felt foreign to those in attendance,

and it seemed like maybe this idea would not be do-able.

Ha!

That is not my style.

"Not do-able" is like waving a red flag in front of my face

- and the bull in me shows its ugly and persistent face

when the words, even the thoughts,

of "not possible" hang in the air.

I was not going to be conquered by some simple paper flowers.

In fact, if she decided at some future date that she didn't really want to use these flowers,

that she had a new exciting idea for table decorations ...

these flowers and I would know

who was boss before we parted company

and I set down my glue gun!

(You know, it could be said that I lose objectivity,

that they are only paper flowers after all,

and that I needed to get a grip on this!)

Balderdash

What I discovered in trying to master this new craft

is that I really liked doing it.

I am excited to be working on this project for my son and daughter-in-law-to-be ..

but I would not be surprised to find more paper flowers showing up in my home

after I have made the wedding flowers ...

new flower types,

new colors,

new papers.

... yes ...

We are not done with this just yet!!!

:-)

The white flowers with the print are made from paper that has the story

of Matt and Maureen's meeting,

growing relationship

and finally their engagement.

The story begins with "Once upon a time ..."

and, of course finishes with

"The End"!

Outlander

Late in 2011 I launched on "reading" the series Outlander by Diana Gabladon. I have the word "reading" in quotes because I am primarily an audio book listener.

For those not familiar with this series, Outlander is the story of nurse called Claire at the close of World War II, who accidentally time travels back to the 1700's and falls in love with a Scottish Highlander called Jamie Fraser. And thus begins an engrossing story that is both a love story, an adventure, and a historical study of life during that time - with a little bit of fantasy and sexy love scenes thrown in for good measure. (and, oh my, the love scenes are so juicy! My daughter, if she is reading this post is probably rolling her eyes right now ... but her mom is just as human as she is ... so there!!)

The series is currently at 6 very large books with the first book titled Outlander. A 7th book is promised for 2013 - and it is also promised to not be the last book! (Yeah!! - Thank you Ms. Gabaldon). If you love massive family sagas, epic love stories, swash buckling adventure, and peeks into the way people lived during the 1700s, then this is a story for you.

With the largeness of this story, I was very encouraged by the author's ability to introduce new characters at a pace that is easy to follow. So often the author feels compelled to throw all the characters into the first few chapters, leaving me with a dizzy feeling of wondering who is who well into the body of the work. To compensate for that, I often write down a list of characters and relationships so that I can keep track as the story evolves. Ms. Gabaldon paces these introductions so well that I never seem to loose track of the characters.

The unabridged recordings are massive, as you would expect from the physical size of the books. I am listening to Book 4 right now - The Drums of Autumn. It is approximately 44 hours long. All the books fall in that range of listening time - so based on the 6 books currently released, there is about 260 glorious hours of listening. The series is worth every minute - filled with wonderful detail, well constructed characters, and exciting adventure. You will be glad the story doesn't seem to end!

The narrator for the audio version is voice artist, Davina Porter. She is excellent - handles the variety of voices and accents with ease. As with most audio books, the narrator is very important to the success of the recording. And successful she is, because she is almost invisible to the listener who is focused on the story telling rather than the narrator.

So this is a Thumbs Up from me for this wonderful series.

Note: for more information about this series - including all book titles and summaries, follow the link at the beginning of this post.

Short moment of Joy

I get as much out of reading blogs as I get from writing blog posts.

And on some days, I get more from the reading

than the writing.

Today was one of those days!

Thanks, Chatty Crone.

It takes just a moment - please click here!

You won't be sorry.

The first week ...

This first week of January is always a weird week for me. While the rest of the world slips out of the holiday mode and sheds their festive garb, I am still keeping up my decorations for one more week.

Every year we have a Christmas Party at our house with a gaming group we see monthly during the year. My preference is to squeeze the festivities into a period prior to January 1st, but those weeks are so busy that getting a date that works for all is pretty hard. So for years we have celebrated this party on the first weekend after the New Years!

Thankfully this party is pretty easy to pull off. We typically have a spiral cut ham and roast beef for those who aren't ham eaters, store bought salads, I make stuffed mushrooms and a few other easy dishes and someone brings dessert. And we exchange gifts. It is a fun and relaxing time for all because we aren't competing with all the other seasonal commitments.

Next week the tree comes down and the decorations get packed away - at least the ones that survive the yearly purge.

I am busy with what is best described as "puttering" - and it is making the house feel a little more organized and settled - especially after the last few unsettled months. I blogged about some of the changes a few days ago - and they continue. I still have a list of things I would like to complete, but for now I am happy to just take my time doing little stuff. It fits in with my winter mojo - staying focused on the home and scaling down expectations. I just love January ... I love the winter ... I love the fact that weather forces you to focus on the space within your four walls.

And the birds have returned to my deck with gusto - actually, it is fair to say that the Cardinals have returned in mass. I am always amazed at the number of Cardinals I have - it is nothing for me to see 4 or 5 males and an equal number of females every single morning. They far outnumber the other birds. It helps that I put out seed they like ... :-) I am pretty sure that they aren't showing up because of my sparkling personality.

And I am walking ... woohoo!! The little person on the top of my blog shows 4 miles towards my 1000 mile goals. Please, please! Keep down the applause. :-) I am just glad I figured out how to work the little person so it shows the correct total. My knees seem to be unhappy with this new push to be more active. Little do they know that I plan to pick up Tai Chi again come this spring ... and maybe yoga.

Visits to assisted living continue to go pretty well. Mom seems to have moved passed her moody stage. I have noticed she is moving things around in her room now ... sort of doing her own version of "settling." Last week I talked with her about getting her hair washed and cut this week ... which she promptly forgot, until the hair dresser stuck her head in the door this morning (while I was there thankfully) and said she planned to take mom (take her upstairs - not far) to do the cut today. Of course, mom put up a small resistance, but I just barreled on saying that we talked about this last week, and she agreed, and she always says how much better she feels after it is done, etc. etc. etc. By the time I was done talking, she was done complaining ... :-) Works well for both of us.

So the first week of January is pretty uneventful ... I am loving 2012 so far!

Oh, that's right, it is only January 3 - the year is very young, so much can go wrong!!

Milo a regular Assisted Living visitor

Mom may not live with me any longer, but she is a regular presence in my life - because I visit her about 4 times a week. Usually Milo makes the trip with me. And he is now totally comfortable in this new location.

From the moment he gets out of the car, he walks directly up to the Assisted Living door, he struts with confidence into the living room checking left and right as he walks just incase he can spread alittle of his charm around to the residents.

He knows my mom resides in room #10 - he makes a straight shot to that room and then begins to settle in!

He has a bed there ... and a water dish!

He has a bone there! Sometime he rests his chin on it.

But where does he sleep?

On my mom's bed, of course.

Only "dogs" sleep on the floor! He is a valued family member, and he sleeps on the bed!

And the people keep busy as well. Mom watches TV.

I usually knit.

And Milo, he usually does this!

Christmas Eve and Gifts I Love

We took mom out to a restaurant for Christmas Eve lunch. It was a lot of fun. Not as good as having her at our house for dinner, but the next best thing.

This year I got several Christmas gifts that I just loved and wanted to share with you.

My son has started doing leather working and has made some beautiful things. It is a new hobby for him and his work can be found at his new Etsy Store Marrotte Leather.

But his gift to me was a total surprise.

I have had an iPad for about 2 years and the case I have used for it was pretty generic: black, plastic and ugly.

He made me my own iPad case (actually an iPaws case). It is pretty amazing. The pictures tell the story better than I can.

He found these cute magnets on Etsy. Recognize the dogs? If you don't, you need to spend a little more time reading my blog!!

Also got a bottle of nice wine and a gift certificate to a local restaurant. Always welcome stuff.

And my daughter checked out my Amazon Wish list. Thank God for Amazon Wish lists.

I recently discovered the Mark Bittman cook books (How to Cook Everything and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian) and I am now a total fan now. I bought the Vegetarian one before Christmas and my daughter got me the original book.

Now I know you are thinking - I thought you hate to cook! I do, but I have to cook and I am always looking for cook books that are good references. These two books are phenomenal.

They are the kind of books that you could almost sit down and read, except that they are hugely thick - over a thousand pages each. But I have read full sections of them and found them very helpful.

Also the focus of his cook books patterns my approach to cooking - keep it simple! I totally love that.

And I know that these kinds of books might not work for everyone. They a absent of the typical color photography - the illustrations are line drawings. But I can assure you that my own cooking seldom looks like the color photo. If you really need a glossy color picture, the bookstores are filled with books like that. In fact I have quite a few myself. But when I have a question I always turn to books like The Joy of Cooking or the Betty Crocker Cookbook - and now the Mark Bittman's books.

The books are really exceptionally well done, well presented and entirely useful for the novice and the expert cook. You have a question about something and it is covered (even popping pop corn - he isn't a fan of microwave popcorn!).

She also got me some fun books to read - books with a knitting theme.

It was a fun Christmas ... everyone spent the night in a big sleep over! It was a wonderful way to spend Christmas Eve.