I'm bad at Secret Santa

I'm part of a Secret Santa with some ladies on a forum I frequent. I got my goodies last week, some delicious cookies and a cookie cookbook. Sadly, I was not able to even start my present until today...3 days after Christmas. Better late than never, right? My Secret Santa is starting to crochet, so I made a hook holder using my sewing machine in my newly cleaned sewing room (finally!!). You can tell it's made by someone new to sewing, but it's the thought that counts most, right? Despite the little errors I'm proud of how it turned out. The errors give it character.

We survived the holidays!

I admit, I'm one of those people that gets stressed out around the holidays. Between all the family activities and us all getting sick, it was a lot to juggle. But it's over and we survived. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of Baby G yet because I left my camera at our house so have to get the pictures from my mom. The only picture I have with me right now is our awesome roasted chicken from Christmas Eve. I made a compound butter with fresh rosemary, sage, and orange and lemon zest and slathered it under and on top of the skin. There's a whole head of garlic, an onion, the lemon and orange, carrots, and celery for aromatics. It was pretty much the best chicken ever!




Baby G wasn't so sure what to think of her first Christmas. She had a lot of fun at Grandma and Grandpa's house (and was absolutely spoiled by them!). By the end of the day at her Great Grandparents' house she was about ready for a meltdown Or two. Or three. There was a lot of action that she's not used to at home. She seemed to calm down a little after her Christmas feast of carrots and rice cereal (yum?). She slept the whole way home then went right to bed like a good girl. We were worried all the action of the day would keep her up all night, but she did great.

I hope everyone out there reading had a wonderful Christmas!

This is embarrassing

I'm still not knitting. I had a few elbow X-rays. Nothing is broken, it's just badly sprained. I'm probably to the point that I could pick things up again, but there's so much going on right now that I haven't had the time. After the holidays I'll get back into it. So much for a Christmas gift for Grandma!

Now the embarrassing part. We have a three bedroom house. The third bedroom has become a catch-all. By catch-all I mean ALL. This is supposed to be my craft room. There's a sewing machine that's been sitting there since LAST Christmas that's still unused. I have so many ideas for it floating around in my head and now I want to use it. So here's the embarrassing part...the mess.



I found things I didn't even know we had. Mostly I found a bunch of junk (to us) that will be donated to Goodwill because someone out there will find it useful or like it. There's still a lot of work to be done. Progress is slow moving in a room that bad.

No knitting for awhile?

Well, I finished my sister's housewarming gift. It turned out pretty cute. The picture doesn't do it justice. I did mess up...at the end I wasn't paying attention to where I was in the pattern and started working the wrong side on the right side. Luckily I was about done anyway so ended it a litte early. She told me that if I hadn't told her about the mistake that she wouldn't have noticed. I think it's really noticeable, but she's happy so I'm happy.


I started a purse for my grandma. She mentioned wanting a felted purse at Thanksgiving, so I'm making one up as I go along. I'm using Cascade 220 in two shades of green. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures because there isn't much progress to report on at this time.

Today was the first real winter weather of the season. Everything was covered in a sheet of ice. When I got out of the car at work this morning I slipped and fell (imagine that, klutzy me took a fall!). I caught myself on my left knee and hand. My knee has a huge bruise and my hand/elbow feel a little like it felt when I broke my right elbow when I was 18. I'm going to wait it out and see how it feels tomorrow. I probably shouldn't even be typing right now, but Baby G is sleeping so I have a free minute for once at night.

You might be wondering how I broke my elbow. I worked as a cook at Pizza Hut in high school. I was working the night a tornado hit town, knocking out power to have the residents. Naturally these people had to go wherever was open to eat supper, so Pizza Hut it was. Another cook had just spilled some pizza sauce on the floor and (kind of) cleaned it up. As I was walking to the oven with a pizza in my hands, I slipped and fell. I caught myself with my right hand and ended up sitting right in the pizza I was carrying. After a trip to the ER on Pizza Hut's buck, they found a fracture in my elbow. I had to wear a sling for a few weeks, go to physical therapy, and explain my embarrassing broken bone to everyone at pretty much every graduation party in town. Fun times!!