Christmas is Over

Christmas has come and gone for another year. I've been spending lots of time with the family and the kids have gotten lots and lots of gifts from everyone. I have been reading lots. Almost finished the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series and will be starting a series from Patricia Briggs soon. I'm trying to get finished knitting the gifts that I wanted done for Christmas but ran out of time. There are only 3 projects left. Will be leaving the Mr Roger's sweater for my FIL birthday so that gives me 4 months to work on it.

What, 22 days till Christmas. Auuugggghhh!

I can't believe that their is only 22 days till Christmas. I have been putting everything off until I am finished school. I wrote my final exam on Monday so now I can concentrate on getting ready for the holidays. My DH and I have decided to keep things really low key this year, making is special for the boys but not over doing the extended family things like we have in other years. Now if we could only get the extended family to agree to this. Going to have start making my list soon though and hit the malls soon. I will not be one of those people shopping on the 24th, I hope!

Favortie Fall Food

I just love a good and hearty beef stew. The way I make it, I buy a couple good quality steaks and cut them up myself. I find that the stewing meat that we have in our stores isn't the greatest quality. I careful brown the meat and add onions and a bit of garlic. I add beef stock and let it slow simmer for a couple hours. Later I add chunks of potato and turnip, then a little later carrots and some other veggies depending on what I have on hand. For the gravy, I usually use a little bit of arrowroot flour and some gravy mix. MMMmmm. So, now I'm thinking all about stew, think I will go whip up some.

True Blood and other dissappoints

I find myself totally hooked on HBO's new series True Blood. It's based on Charlaine Harris's Southern Mystery Series or Southern Vampire Series depending on who you talk to. I have read all eight books and am eagerly waiting for the ninth book which will be a long 6 months. Auugggghhh. Now I have discovered that show will also be ending it's season this Sunday after only 12 episodes making me wait till next season which will begin in September 09. Double Auugggghhh. To bide my time, I have started reading Ms. Harris' other series but I'm still not as hooked as I am on the Sookie Stackhouse books.
I am also interested in reading the Twilight series and have begun the first book but haven't really got into enough to see if I will like.

No Time

It's been awhile since I have written, getting too caught up in my real life. Going to school, work and my family has been quite time consuming. Hopefully with the upcoming holidays (two weeks at Christmas) I will have a chance to slow down and enjoy things more. I don't even have time to knit. I have been reading when I can squeeze it in.

2 Days to Halloween Eeeek!

Normally, I love Halloween but this year I'm having trouble getting into the spooky spirit of Halloween. I had the good intentions of making my oldest son's costume (natuarally, he wanted a dinosaur outfit, again) and I did try, even to the point of having all the pieces cut out and ready to sew but alas, I ran out of time as his daycare party was on Monday. I ended up putting the little one in a dinosaur costume that I made two years ago and Mr G, the oldest wore his costume from last year, a lion. Unlike last year, he was loving the lion costume, wouldn't take it off. I was extremely relieved but as I have found in other years, when your kids are this young (1&3) Halloween is for the parents and adults and not so much for the kids. We will be taking them trick or treating early but just to a couple neighbours who just want to see the boys and then spend the rest of the evening winding them down off the sugar high (since they don't have sugar often, one piece of candy sends them zooming) and distributing goodies to all the other ghouls and ghosts in the neighbourhood. So I guess all in all this Halloween won't be so bad but I still feel lacking in spirit about it. Here's to next year.

Lace Sucks!

I have given up on my attempts at lace work for the moment. I tried knitting the Moonlight Sonata Shawl in Diamond Baby Alpaca Lace and frogged it 4 times before I was even finished the collar. Then I decided that I was using the wrong yarn for the project as the pattern is written for a fingerweight rather than a lace weight. I switched to a fingering weight from Yarn Treehouse. Only had to frog this twice on the collar but it went much better than the alpaca. Then the fun began as I started the body of the shawl. Frogged back to the collar 4 times before deciding that lace is not something that I can do right now. I do not have the ability to concentrate or the patience to do lace with two toddlers running around. Thus goes my first attempt at lace. I will try again when life is not so hectic.