One Little Word 2009

Ali Edwards has done this little challenge for two years now, and it has taken me this long to finally jump on board. My word this year is OUTSIDE. Why? Several reasons:

1. I want to focus on getting outside my own head. I want to be more aware and alert to things that go on around me, and the only way I can do that is to get outside this squishy little square foot or so between my ears.

2. I want to go physically outside more this year, to explore with the kids, to work in the garden, to ride my bike, to go for walks, to go camping, to go hiking, to Dunbar Cave (which is kind of inside, but in an outside kind of way), to see the local parks, to go to LBL, to the zoo, to state parks - wherever! Just outside of the walls of 195 Maplemere.

3. I want to work on my physical outside, my body. I gave up completely on exercise this year and I can feel it. Time to give myself some love and attention and coax myself back into health.

Not a bad little word, outside. I think it will do just fine.

Horror of horrors!

Timothy has figured out the Santa thing this year, and though I am glad we were able to prolong the magic 10 whole years, it is kind of nice to see his reaction to the other side of things. Chris had him read "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus," and he GETS it. And we've spent the past two nights watching "It's a Wonderful Life" with him, so he's seeing his Daddy and me at our mushy worst. Chris cries in about 4 places in the film, and I cry watching Chris. I married George Bailey folks, and I know how lucky I am. :)

The ONLY thing I don't like about this movie is when George gets his wish of seeing what life would have been like without him and discovers - HORRORS! - that Mary is a spinster LIBRARIAN. Oh no! What a terrible fate!

I am affronted!

Public Service Announcement

In an effort to be greener this Christmas, when we realized that all but two of our strands of Christmas lights had burned out, I sent Chris to the store to buy some of those new fangled LED lights for the tree. $33 later, he had 4 sets on the tree in hopes that the extra cost would be worth it in a reduced power bill.

Then we turned them on. After we had all the decorations and tinsel on the tree.

They are HIDEOUS. UGLY. AWFUL.

DO NOT BUY THE LED LIGHTS!!!!! Unless you intentionally want your Christmas tree to look cold and weird and blue and odd, in which case, buy away. But if you like your Christmas tree warm and cozy and sparkly and capable of inspiring fond, fuzzy memories for generations to come, stick with the old power guzzling variety. They may burn out fast, but at least they don't look like evil robots decorated your tree.

I realize this post is useless without pictures, but pictures don't capture this correctly. You'll just have to come by for a demonstration.

Happy Day After Thanksgiving!

I was cooking and cooking and cooking yesterday - had a wonderful time doing it, too. My family was here (minus my brother in law, who was out hunting deer - we missed him!) and Chris' dad and stepmom brought Grandmother and the twins, so we had a houseful! Everyone talked and talked and ate and ate and would wander in and out of the kitchen while I was cooking. Lovely.

Chris is back at work today and I gave the kids the day off from school since we have Girl Scout cookie baking this afternoon anyway. My Brownies said they wanted to bake cookies for the Room in the Inn program at church, so that's what we're doing. Ten little girls in a kitchen with sugar and flour and hot ovens - I hope I come home sane! Actually, my girls are astoundingly good and sooo enthusiastic and fun that I'm sure we'll have a blast. I'll have a mess to clean up, but it will have been fun making the mess.

Now to focus on the Wine and Cheese party preparations. Whew!

When I am Empress........

there shall be no viruses. They will be exiled to lifeless planets far, far away.

So last week I was voiceless and squeaking, but felt fine otherwise. That cold travelled into my chest, where it still didn't harass me much but allowed me to share it with Lillie. Then it made me and Lillie cough and cough and cough yesterday, which made us both MISERABLE. Today the cough is gone, but I'm sore as all get out and now my throat hurts. UGH. Meanwhile, Meg has fallen asleep on the sofa, which has happened about NEVER, so I suspect Teflon Girl is fighting off her share of the bug. Isn't this a great way to prepare for Thanksgiving?

I love all the ideas for my pretty fabric! I think I'll be making some napkins in the near future with other fabric (I'm up for a fabric store trip, Christina!), but will probably make that sling purse with the prettiness I have now. Yaay! Thank you, ladies!

Okey doke, time for more tea.

Teach me something!

I have two pieces of lovely pink patterned fabric that Karen gave me to make into a skirt last year - remember that skirt project we were going to make that I got everyone all excited about and then I didn't get to do it? Yeah, that one - and I'm itching to make something for myself out of them. Each piece is about a yard, so I can do something but not clothes. So, crafty friends, what should I do? It needs to be easy 'cause I'm dumb at sewing. I would love a personal tutorial. We do NOT have to do it this weekend. :)

So give me your ideas. The winner gets to claim "I taught Kate how to sew."

Squeak squeak

If you know me, you know I like to talk. A lot. And it SUCKS having this cold because I can't talk for long without it either hurting or losing my voice. So I'm trying to be more particular about what I'm saying, especially to the kids. Yelling just isn't working or even possible, so I have to THINK about what I say before I say it. Which is what I ought to do a lot more of anyway. My dad's mantra when I was growing up was "Think before you speak." I hate it when I realize my dad was always right.

The lovely Karen made the best Indian dinner for us all last night and now all I can think about is Saturday night at Tandoor with Charly and eating more jasmine rice and naan and prawn pasanda and a mango lassi. Drool drool drool. My girlfriends are all excellent cooks, which makes me very happy to think about our future commune and all the good eating I'm going to do when we all move there!

One last thing: Why don't children understand when you say "NO roughhousing" that yanking on each other and pulling arms and sitting on each other IS roughhousing? Someone always gets hurt. (I seem to remember my mom saying that all the time too............)