plague.

West Coast Daycare Plague: 2
Aunt Luckdragon: 0

Little V gave me the stomach flu for Christmas. I spent all of Christmas Eve being sick, and had to miss the candlelight service at a local church, which has been a family tradition since I was ten, and which I was super excited for, having been out of state the past four years. Fortunately it was over by the next morning, but I still felt terrible, so stayed home by myself and skipped the extended family Christmas too. E surprised me with Vernor's ginger ale, made me soup, and kept me company for a while, which was awesome. The family didn't open presents til Wednesday afternoon, by which time I'd caught Round Two: Upper Respiratory Virus. And I still have it. Blargh.

That Little V is the cutest germ factory you ever saw, lol.

Sickness aside, it was a pretty great Christmas, though. The cake balls did indeed get made, and were greatly enjoyed:

The snowmen were much loved, and everyone gave and received some great presents! My sister, K, got me a pair of orange low-top Converse, and I can't wait to wear them! E got me a small cast-iron skillet, and the cast-iron corn stick pan I wanted...and I got her the small oval cast-iron skillet she wanted (E: "For pancakes!" Me: "Or a fish! It's fish-shaped!"). The first Christmas is cast-iron, right? *wink* And my light-up gingerbread village is growing....

 On Christmas Eve, we got just enough snow to make it a White Christmas, and on Wednesday we got about 5" more. And it stayed! It's still very Christmas-y outside, and we're thinking about going sledding this weekend if it sticks til then.

So. New Year's Eve.

Pretty much everyone I know is staying in this year. E and I are having a couple friends over to her place. I bought a bottle of champagne, and we're just going to watch movies and hang out - and, of course, watch the ball drop on TV.

I can't believe a year went by so fast.

It was wild, rough, beautiful, hard, and shining.

The highlights:

Little V.  Showering at MWMF under a sunny sky. Seeing sea stars for the first time. Maple Bacon Bars. Catching a rainbow at the upper pool of Multnomah Falls. Partly-cloudy hot chocolate. Finding out Salem has a carousel. Growing my own Cherokee Purple tomatoes. E taking me to DLectricity - an art festival in Detroit. Agate hunting on the Oregon coast. Camping en route to MI.

And, of course, reuniting with E. That alone makes 2012 hard to beat! But I know that 2013 has even more amazing things in store: More clients. More debt reduction. Abundance. A trip to Boston. The Warrior Dash. Gardening, loving, yarning, and love, love, love!

Happy Happy Happy New Year!

Done!

Well...almost. The red velvet cakes are cooling, and the cake-ball-making will happen either tonight or tomorrow. But! THE LLAMA IS FINISHED! Woo!

Would you like to see him?

Isn't he cute? He's already wrapped in tissue paper (complete with shiny bow), and ready to go under the tree. And he's perfectly baby-sized. I really like how he turned out!

Did I mention the shopping is done? We're mostly doing stockings this year, but as our family stockings are stretchy, some slightly larger items fit too. And of course we all went a little overboard with things for Little V, haha! I did the very last of my shopping today, and really it was more to pick up cards than anything else. I did get a neat little cookbook for my older niece, who's a freshman at the University of Michigan and keeps complaining that she can't cook - it's geared towards college students (in both skill level and budget), I hope she likes it! I also picked up some onesies for Little V - they're bright and covered in robots and stripes, and decidedly Not Pink, which I think my sister will appreciate. We grew up wearing things of all different colors, I don't understand why absolutely everything for little girls has pink on it now.

And I picked up this:

For myself! I have a yen for all things space-and-galaxy related, so a blown-glass retro rocket ship? Yes please - especially since it was on sale. :o)

Ok, off to shower and start the frosting before I go to E's for the night. Oh, and laundry! Holy cow, I almost forgot!

quickly

I had three clients this morning, and have been occupied with sister/baby fun since getting home - Baby V looks more like a kid than she did two months ago, and she's got all kinds of new tricks up her sleeve: Sitting Up! Motor Skills! Booger Eating! (that last one's pretty gross, but if you want to stop her, you'd better be prepared for the sneeze...that kid is fast!)

Anyway, I have the house to myself for a minute, so just thought I'd do a quickie post. Dinner last night was delicious - i made garlicky sauteed kale, E doctored up a jar of the pasta sauce she canned this fall, and we had it over store-bought mushroom ravioli. We classed it up with taper candles in beer bottles. (Local beer bottles - Atwater Brewery's Vanilla Java Porter. Delicious!)

We wished each other a Happy Solstice, cleaned up, and spent the rest of the evening snuggling on the couch. E fell asleep, and I browsed the Farmers' Almanac. Very low-key and peaceful night.

Ok...off to finally, FINALLY finish the llama. He just needs legs. But before I go, here's a pic of the TinyPants! (sorry for the blur, she wiggles!)

 Happy Saturday!

Light

This morning, I woke up to snow - not much, just enough to cover the ground and make me hunt for my ice scraper, but it was beautiful SNOW and it made me a little giddy! It's been the warmest year on record here in MI, and with all the rain and the temps staying in the 30's and 40's, this winter has so far been more like winter in Oregon. Not a proper midwestern winter at all. But today, there is snow, and it's gorgeous and fluffy and white! Yayayayay!

The snowmen are done! Well, the ones destined for family, anyway. Good thing snowmen are still seasonally appropriate in January, huh? Anyway, E kept me company last night while I embroidered faces and arms. She was sprawled out next to (and partly over) me, and I kept putting scissors and floss on her legs. She makes an excellent work surface. :o)

The llama is NOT done. Hoping to finish the body today, and I should be able to crank the legs out by Christmas morning.

The presents are wrapped, the bills are paid, and all I have left to do is cleaning the bathroom (today, so it's clean when my sister, bro-in-law, and baby niece arrive tomorrow) and making treats for the extended family. I've decided to make red velvet cake balls. I've decided I'm insane. But E's going to be my sous chef, and hasn't even looked at me cross-eyed...well, except to say that we have to dip some of them in regular chocolate coating because she boycotts white chocolate on principle, lolol.

Tonight, I'm celebrating the Winter Solstice for the first time! We've been talking about starting our own holiday traditions lately, and while both of us love Christmas, only one of us is a Christian...and with our combined Scot-Irish heritage and love of introspection and marking the seasons, and since we're doing Christmas Day separately with our families this year, tonight we're going to make a special dinner and eat it by candlelight. There may or may not be hot apple cider and a walk to look at the neighborhood lights as well. :o)

Yay for the days getting longer, for the sun returning, for Jesus, for love, and for friends, family, and all the blessings we have. Happy Solstice!

i can't even.

man.

there's nothing to say. no words for the heartbreak in Connecticut.

spending a quiet afternoon crafting...and praying for those babies, the adults, and their families.

and the shooter. he was a baby once, too.

two jobs, two weeks

with two weeks to go til Christmas Eve, i have about a zillion projects to finish - like embroidering arms on the rest of these snowmen...

(http://www.dappertoad.com/2011/12/free-mini-snowman-crochet-pattern.html)

...and making/stuffing/scarf-ing/finishing roughly 18 more. remind me to start making next year's ornaments in January, lol!

i'm also making a teeny crocheted llama for my niece's first Christmas, to go along with two of the Llama Llama books by Anna Dewdney (Llama Llama Mad at Mama is my favorite!). i've got the head, ears, and neck assembled so far. attaching the neck to the head was tricky, and i don't know how it happened, but now i can pose the little guy's head, which gives him loads of personality!

there has also been some sporadic snowflake-making in preparation for a garland. i wanted to have that done for this year, but couldn't find the right materials. sigh. but that gives me alllllll next year to perfect it, and then it can grace whatever home E and i make for ourselves!

and then there's this:

my Amazing Technicolor Blankie. it's currently sitting very very patiently in the corner, and i can't wait to get everything else done and sit down for some serious blankie time. me, the blankie, some coffee, and a movie. yes. soon...sooooooon...

oh right, and i'm now a massage therapist at two chiropractic offices! both are nearby, thank God, but in opposite directions, and while i'm super-duper excited to have the work (because um, the recent move left me poor and behind on bills), i can't help laughing that it's picked up right in the middle of the Christmas Project Mania. so that's even less time to play with yarn, never mind cleaning and continuing to unpack and sort through all my stuff and split my time between here and E's house as much as i can. which, by the way, has been wonderful, and we are both working so hard towards getting a place together. we have ridiculous amounts of fun - this weekend we started learning Italian (favorite new phrase: "Il toro calcia il uomo" - "The bull kicks the man"), and we made pierogi lasagna - layers of pasta and cheesy, buttery, onion-y mashed potatoes. yummm. E also baked a dark chocolate cake, and it was really something watching her assemble and frost it like it was the easiest thing in the world, lol. they don't call her the butch Betty Crocker for nothing!

ok, ok, back to the yarn. promise i'll surface again soon!