it's a new year...

holy moly do the holidays just suck the life out of me! i have finally recovered from my cold which is really nice. i was worried i would go back to work still sick. but i have recovered nicely. although i am still not ready to go back to work. i am a librarian in a k-5 school. i thought this would be like the best job in the whole wide world for me. boy was i wrong. don't get me wrong. i love books. i need to work in a bookstore to help me save money buying them. and i really do love the students. but i am the worst librarian ever. math teachers have guides to teach them, social studies teachers have social studies books. librarians have...nothing! i have no idea what i'm doing (if you're one of my students parents, don't worry, i'm doing the best i can!) it's just aweful. even after a year and a half i am just horrified at my lack of understanding of a library curriculum. so to make a long story short, i don't want to go back to work. i'm having a really really hard time dealing with knowing i have to go back. and to make matters worse, my best friend (also my sister) moved from me this week. she's down to gillette to work in a coal mine doing hydrology stuff (i don't exactly know what). so i'm really sad about that. i have to stop typing about it so i can stop crying.

so before lexie moved this week, we got pedicures (seriously, the best indulgence ever!), we went out to the bar one last time, we slept in our butte house one last time, and we went sledding down broadway. for any of you buttians out there, you'll know it's the best street in butte to sled. we had gotten really great snow that night and decided it would be best to sled in the street. and by sled i mean we used a saucer and an old water ski with grip tape on it. it was fantastic! we made some chicken curry. and last but not least, we hit discovery one last time. they had gotten 15 (YES! 15 inches of snow two nights before) so we headed up for what can only be described as a dream ski day. we got to the bottom of the hill and the temp was hovering around 6 below. but by the end of the day, it was 20 degrees. there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the conditions were great. the back side--not even groomed yet. yep, 15 inches of fresh powder. and moguls too (which i am terrible at. i'm embarrassed for myself). but it was great. the pictures don't even do it justice. and yes, the sky really was this blue! the last picture is my ski pole. i stopped to take a picture of lex, and i stuck my pole in, yes, it did sink the 15 inches to the base :)





christmas was great. i got everything i wanted and more--stitchinary, new needles, gilmore girls on dvd (the first three seasons), some new boots, a new pi(e) plate, socks, cooking mama (a nintendo DS game) and some other really fun things. it was nice.



and not to forget the knitting. i sat down and knit another hat. i finished it today and felted it this afternoon. it's not as cute as the first, but it is still cute. now i just need to find a perfect pin for it.
prefelted: post felted:


happy new year to everyone. may it be fun, pleasant, and everything you hoped :)

merry christmas

have a merry merry christmas!

christmas time is here...

well, i was out galavanting to my parents house for the past three days. bob and i got to go "home" for a few days with my family. wednesday night we got in at 8, had dinner and exchanged presents. the pears were a hit. as was the giant school photo of myself (oh gosh, who doesn't love giving their little sister a huge framed photo?) we laughed pretty hard at that. then thursday we did some shopping, and just hanging out. baby sisters christmas pagent was thursday night, so we went to that. it's very different going to a cathlic school program instead of a public school. for those of you not from montana, it is a rare child who doesn't go to public school. up until a few years ago only a few students in the flathead area attended private school, so thursday was different. especially since our family doesn't attend church. but it was a very wonderful program and a lot of fun. then we had a late dinner of okay food at a new restaraunt in kalispell. friday was spent baking, running pizza to school for a christmas party, and in the evening a wonderful cocktail party with friends from high school. my sister and i are close in age, and in the past five years have become friends with each others high school friends, so now we get to go to shindigs together. a friend came home from venezuela, another from great falls, hawaii, and some friends i haven't see in two or three years. we were up late laughing and eating cookings. it was really wonderful! today we got up early, hit costco and then drove home. i promptly unpacked and fell asleep for three hours. it was excellent.

tomorrow pictures from the last week and other great stuff!


oooooh, and my 6 weird things.
1. i read the last page of a magazine first.
2. my favorite page in a book is the copyright page. especially when they include the font and how the illustrations were created!
3. i worry that when i cook for other people, i am not following health codes well enough and people will know.
4. i feel people look at me oddly with painted fingernails.
5. i rarely remembre what a book is about, even if i just finished it.
6. i don't hug people often because i'm worried they'll be uncomfortable--when really i am the uncomfortable one :)

mom, close your eyes

ohhhhhhhhhhh christmas knitting-DONE!!!! AND I'M SO EXCITED! rarely do i knit things that i really truely love how they turned out. okay i can't think of one. but this years christmas presents are so superb!!! far better than last years huge poinsetta pins. ahhhhhhh i am so excited. i have to share!

don't mind the mess. 5 knitted pears from interweave knits! i do have three more to felt that i made this weekend. i love them. i have students asking me to make pears for them! and teachers asking me if i can make all fruit. so my thinking process is on. and if that wasn't enough...check this out!


more felting. i love this hat. it's from here i love it so much, i'm giving it away.(added later after erased post, sorry to get your hopes up, but i'm not randomly giving it away. that's right, it's for my one skein secret pal. ha! i had to knit something i felt comfortable giving way, much better than those pesky fingerless gloves) and i'm going to make one for me. in red. to go with my new pea coat. that's blue.
seriously. so excited!

yeah, the mittens, i still haven't gotten my needle, so no mittens for lexie, just a top secret present.

other than that, it's been a really exciting week. we got a new chair for our living room (photo's tomorrow), we got an automatic cat box (jury is still out on that), and i'm healthy again! life is good. my school has its christmas program on wednesday, and then it's up to kalispell to see my family. ohhhh and my sister got engaged this weekend. way to go nick and lexie! so we get to celebrate that! i had my cooking exchange with teachers tonight and we had a lot of fun. i'm too full though. and the cookies are brilliant, life is good. our house is all ready for st. nick!


ps, i love that recover post button. i swear i erase every damn post before i get it done.

when it rains, it pours

so my husband has a degree in english. you would think that if i married an english major, i would be better with grammar, spelling, and other language things. but i'm not. i was rereading my posts from the past few weeks and man are there a lot of typos in it. so i'm sorry, but i try my best. perhaps it's just a problem with being me.

so the damage to my car is worth $2100. woohoo, it's really great. but the parts are on order so hopefully i'll get it fixed soon.

anyways onto knitting and other crafting content.

so my felted pears are knitted and partially sewn. so after book club tonight i'll stuff them and sew them up and start the felting process. it says that they need to be washed 8 times. that seems some what crazy to me. so i'm going to give it a try with just a couple of times.

the mittens: still on a stand still due to the fact that i lost a stupid needle. idiot...

did i tell you about the gumdrop wreath? the stupid gumdrops keep falling out. so i need to do some amending with that. so no pictures yet. and we put our tree up on sunday. it looks really nice actually. i love it. so we're almost ready for the holiday. did i mention i need to buy presents still? oh well.

and in other news, i worked on some record bowls. i have this friend whose grandmother recently died, so she keeps giving me records, i really want to perfect this art, so i worked on it tonight. is it a totally lame gift to give to my book club friends? i hope not, because i'm going to! but i want to come up with a way to make slightly more regular bowls. i know i should just embrace the varied nature of the art, but i'm slightly anal, and i want them to be perfect. i'm also thinking of spray painting a few of them. so any suggestions would be really great. it sort of stresses me out. and i only have about 300 records to practice on eheheheh

i feel bad that my blog is horrible ramblings, but this is honestly the way i think in my head. it's like one big run on sentence! but i try to break it up on here with some pictures. but let me know if you want the content or make up of this blog to go in a different direction. i'm open to recommendations!


right, so i had some pictures to add and i spent the time doing it, but they never uploaded, so instead this is a pictureless entry written like three days ago. i have some really cute finished projects that i'll post pictures of when i'm feeling better. i think strep has finally made it to our house and now i have been sidelined by it.

alas...

right, so in the grand scheme of things, this is not the worst thing in the world that could happen:


but it did. it was a hit and run. i was waiting to go see the clumsy lovers and sometime while i was at my house, someone came around the corner and slid right into my car. and slid right away. so i don't know who did it or anything. it's rather depressing. this car has some bad carma. i think it's because i was complaining too much about work. so i've tried to adapt a positive attitude. so my car will go to the body shop this week and we'll get an estimate for it.

knitting is going grand. might be going to the griz game tomorrow. but we'll see. i had to order size 6 needles...again because i lost one. i'm so bad at that. but it's time to floss and brush my teeth and sleep. it's friday! half day tomorrow because i get to go hang out with the other librarians and see what is up with them. yay!

sunday, fun sunday

like i said, i love sundays! today my sister came from butte. we had such a wonderful time making christmas goodies. we made peppermint bark, chocolate covered pretzels drizzled with white chocolate, truffles of three varieties (okay only one, but rolled in three different things!) and a horribly botched attempt at meringue. we boxed them up into different boxes and delivered them. here, let's look at a photo montage:



these are the chocolate covered pretzels we made, sans white chocolate.

this is lex and i while dipping chocolate




the finished bark:


the botched meringue (over cooked, tasteless, icky!):


and my new black hair:




knitting tomorrow. or the cute candy wreath. something needs to get one!so i have had to edit this post like three times to get the photos right, so hopefully everything is better now.

since i've been gone...

new snow. eight inches. in the valley. 14ish in the mountains. SKI TIME!

blue ribbon ceramony. my school won a really great NATIONAL award. one of three hundred in the nation (considering there is 160,000ish schools---pretty cool!)

thanksgiving at my parents house. nice and relaxing. only gained 1.2 pounds. shopped. knitted. gave my mom her birthday present. first pair of knitted mittens (i forgot to take pictures, but i will!) hung out with the sisters.

started a new crafty project---gum drop wreath. yay so cute! found here

decorated for christmas. we got our tree permit today. i'm one of those freaky people who is compelled to go out and cut down your own tree. there is something about the stress of finding a perfect tree, fighting with your significant other, and fearing the tree is going to blow off the roof of your car. i love it. so this weekend i think we'll go out and cut down a tree. hehehe i'm so excited. you know you're not supposed to cut down trees over 12 feet tall? who knew?

and...that could be all. oh i've made a huge dent in the christmas projects. okay so i haven't gotten any done. shit. i need to get on that. ehehehehe


here is my favorite road in the world: I-15 moose creek (once, on my way to my parents house, i saw a dead moose here. someone had hit it!)