Okay, I'm totally overdue for a family update — it's been ... [looking it up] ... five months since the last official one, three months since I really posted anything worth counting. Guess I'll start with our Thanksgiving travels and work backwards.
As I have often done, I took some vacation time for the front half of Thanksgiving week — nine days out of the office for the price of three, can't beat that with a stick! We decided to visit Jan, and Amy, Mark and Willa first, so Friday evening we packed up the kids and the car and headed north. Got in to the hotel about 1:00 a.m. — whenever possible of late we've been making longer drives at night, when the girls will sleep.
Saturday was lovely, for the most part. Amy offered to watch the girls while we took care of some Christmas shopping, and Chris and I jumped at the opportunity. For possibly (probably) the first time in my life, I have the majority of my Christmas shopping done before December! Chris and I also enjoyed a midday meal without children, a rare treat. The girls had great fun with Aunt Amy and Willa, so it was a good day for all. In the evening we had dinner at Amy's house.
Unfortunately, that evening I started showing signs of having caught the cold Chris was just getting over. Yes, lucky me, I got to spend my vacation sick. *shrug & grin* I'm still getting over it, but the worst was Saturday night (aches and chills) and Sunday (general tiredness). And here I was hoping that by going to T.C. on the front end of the vacation I wouldn't be worn out when we visited Chris's family. I tried, really I did!
Anyway, Sunday Amy and Willa came over for a swim at the hotel pool, which was lovely timing — we had the place to ourselves! Later we all had dinner together, again at Amy and Mark's apartment. Monday we were able to meet Jan at the hospital for lunch before we headed for da Soo at Nora's naptime.
The visit to Sault Ste. Marie was lovely, despite my illness and the girls' — yep, they caught the cold, too. We stayed with my folks but were able to spend a fair amount of time out at Dad and Janet's house as well. Paul and Em got in Wednesday and left Friday, but it was wonderful to be able to spend any time with them. Less wonderful was the fact that my cold had progressed to a point where I had no voice from Wednesday morning until Saturday. Em and I seem fated not to be able to chat with each other right now. *grin*
Dad and Janet invited my family to have Thanksgiving dinner at the cabin again and much good food and good fun was had by all. We took a hike a few miles west of the cabin (part of the Hiawatha National Forest, I can't remember the trail name at the moment) which was wonderful. The weather was insanely warm for Thanksgiving.
The rest of the week went far too quickly, as vacations tend to do. We Drove back on Saturday, stopping in Gaylord for dinner with my aunt Paula and her family. Got back to South Bend about 2:00 a.m. (see earlier comment about driving when the girls sleep). Would've been a great trip if Mairi hadn't woken up about five miles north of Niles, said "I think I'm going to throw up!" and then promptly done so. Chris stopped the car quickly and we got her out on the grass before she made too much of a mess. *sigh* Thankfully, she only got sick the once.
If I get a chance, I'll post some pix tomorrow, along with a more general update on how we're all doing. Hopefully you and yours had a wonderful Thanksgiving too, however and whenever you celebrated it!
27 November 2006
03 November 2006
UFOs
Greetings and Salamanders, my loyal readers.
{pause to listen to the echoes and sigh}
UFO. To most people this signifies flying saucers and little green men, or perhaps large gray ones. Unidentified Flying Objects. Everyone knows that (thank you X Files). However, to the quilter, the crocheter, the knitter — any person who makes stuff, really — this acronym has another, more sinister meaning: UnFinished Objects.
Like any good needleworker, I have my share of these things. By comparison, it's a small number of projects, really. They doesn't spill out of storage, threatening to bury unwary family members. Mostly they sit quietly in the corner of this room or that closet, nagging me with their unfinishedness (it's a word now).
The "Angel of Love" cross stitch I started before Mairi was born I don't worry about much. I have no delusions that I will be doing counted cross stitch any time soon. It requires (for me at least) a level of sustained concentration I find utterly incompatible with sharing a house with small children.
I work sporadically on the "Blanket of Snow" afghan that I started when I found out that my friend Amy was engaged, but given that she and Alex have been married ... I think it will be ten years on their next anniversary. In any case, long enough that it feels silly to still be working on the afghan. Besides, I have come to loath motif afghans (for those of you not in the know, that means an afghan make in smaller pieces and then sewn together). Still, it is a beautiful afghan, and I hope to finish it someday.
The motif sampler baby blank suffers from both the aforementioned loathing and the fact that I thought, "Oh, I can just figure out a way to stitch them all together later." Yes, that's right, it's free-form crochet, no pattern anywhere in sight. I pick it up occasionally, lay all the unattached bits out (trying to determine a good arrangement), and then either stuff it back in a bag or, at best, attach one or two motifs to the all-too-small center and then stuff it back in its bag.
Then there's the mosaic afghan I started several years back, working in gray and green and thinking I would give it to my cousin when she graduated from MSU. You work into previous rows to create the pattern and texture, and it's beautiful, but so time consuming! Erin graduated several years ago (four maybe?), but the afghan languishes.
There are others, too. A couple more motif afghans that were in progress when my abhorrence of such things arrived full formed. The tank top from cotton yarn which I loved (both the yarn and the pattern) but which fell prey to my usual inability to work to gauge. And don't ask about the sewing projects, please!
In my own defense, I have finished many projects — at least four or five baby blankets, a poncho, two shawls, and a couple hats in the last, say, five years, and that's just what I can think of immediately. And every time I finish something, I try to then finish a UFO, really I do...
{pause to listen to the echoes and sigh}
UFO. To most people this signifies flying saucers and little green men, or perhaps large gray ones. Unidentified Flying Objects. Everyone knows that (thank you X Files). However, to the quilter, the crocheter, the knitter — any person who makes stuff, really — this acronym has another, more sinister meaning: UnFinished Objects.
Like any good needleworker, I have my share of these things. By comparison, it's a small number of projects, really. They doesn't spill out of storage, threatening to bury unwary family members. Mostly they sit quietly in the corner of this room or that closet, nagging me with their unfinishedness (it's a word now).
The "Angel of Love" cross stitch I started before Mairi was born I don't worry about much. I have no delusions that I will be doing counted cross stitch any time soon. It requires (for me at least) a level of sustained concentration I find utterly incompatible with sharing a house with small children.
I work sporadically on the "Blanket of Snow" afghan that I started when I found out that my friend Amy was engaged, but given that she and Alex have been married ... I think it will be ten years on their next anniversary. In any case, long enough that it feels silly to still be working on the afghan. Besides, I have come to loath motif afghans (for those of you not in the know, that means an afghan make in smaller pieces and then sewn together). Still, it is a beautiful afghan, and I hope to finish it someday.
The motif sampler baby blank suffers from both the aforementioned loathing and the fact that I thought, "Oh, I can just figure out a way to stitch them all together later." Yes, that's right, it's free-form crochet, no pattern anywhere in sight. I pick it up occasionally, lay all the unattached bits out (trying to determine a good arrangement), and then either stuff it back in a bag or, at best, attach one or two motifs to the all-too-small center and then stuff it back in its bag.
Then there's the mosaic afghan I started several years back, working in gray and green and thinking I would give it to my cousin when she graduated from MSU. You work into previous rows to create the pattern and texture, and it's beautiful, but so time consuming! Erin graduated several years ago (four maybe?), but the afghan languishes.
There are others, too. A couple more motif afghans that were in progress when my abhorrence of such things arrived full formed. The tank top from cotton yarn which I loved (both the yarn and the pattern) but which fell prey to my usual inability to work to gauge. And don't ask about the sewing projects, please!
In my own defense, I have finished many projects — at least four or five baby blankets, a poncho, two shawls, and a couple hats in the last, say, five years, and that's just what I can think of immediately. And every time I finish something, I try to then finish a UFO, really I do...
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