Bad Blogger!

That's me! I've been neglecting my duties here lately. I guess there have just been too many other duties that have gotten in the way! I won't go into that. I've been busy with work/social things so this will be a quick "what's been going on" type of post.

Last Saturday, several things happened that made me very happy. First it snowed.

It was just starting when I took that photo.
I ran out to the grocery store and the snow started falling when I was on my way home. By the evening, the ground was white. I got home to find this:

A fire! We haven't used the wood burning stove in a few years but DH bought some wood. Nothing says "winter" quite like a roaring fire, snow and turkey soup on the stove. That was the third thing that made me happy!

You know it's winter at our house when you see this:

We put our snowguy out in November. Actually we usually put him out on Nov. 11 because that is when we have gotten our earliest blizzard. It was Nov. 11, 1987--Ems' 4th birthday. We got a foot of snow! We went to Chuck E. Cheese that night for her birthday dinner and we were the only people in the place except a handful of vets that were in town for Veteran's Day. So we always put SnowGuy out in hopes that he will bring us another blizzard. He's been slacking the last few years.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here. I found this little tree on Ebay and had to have it.

It's a musical bottle brush tree from the 1950's. It is 12 inches tall and it plays "Silent Night." We had one just like this when we were kids. It sat on the piano. I remember that it was the only thing that I wasn't allowed to play with. Whenever I would go to wind it up, my mom would take it away and wind it for me. I think she was afraid that I would overwind the mechanism and break it. I always loved that little tree. It rotates. My brother has the original one so I found an exact likeness.

I've been working on a few projects which I cannot share at this time. Once Christmas is over, I will share them. I've gotten to the point on Silken Scabbard when I need to try it on. I've gotten to the waist and I need to determine how many increases to do over the hips. I hope to finish it over winter break.

One little project I will share is my new t-shirt! Someone at work ordered staff t-shirts. You could get either a polo shirt or a baseball jersey type shirt. Neither of them appealed to me. I like my skinny fitted tees. I decided that I would create a shirt specific to my being a music teacher so I came up with this:

I have my school initials and the word "staff" right under the music staff. I liked the pun. My students have all commented on it. I've decided that next I will make a Thermofax Silkscreen of the design and use white ink on a green shirt. Fortunately I had the foresight to snag the old Thermofax machine we had at school when we were renovated 12 years ago. The machines had become obsolete as copiers, but someone has devised a way to make silkscreens using them. The refurbished machines are now selling for $900. I haven't checked mine to see if it works, but that will be something I will do over winter break.

The other thing I did last weekend was to tweak my hair color. I get my color professionally done, but it gets dull in between. Ems is able to get the same demi color--Paul Mitchell Shines-- at Davidson's since she is a beautician student. I added a little more red and it is more of an auburn now.


Speaking of Ems--she is certainly her mother's daughter! She's been getting into the Pittsburgh spirit by remaking some thrift store Steelers' sportswear:

How much fun is that!

This week has had its share of social functions. My knitting group had a cookie exchange on Wednesday. There were about 25 of us who each made 7 dozen cookies. We had goodies to eat and our hostess printed up cookie cookbooks containing the recipes of all the cookies that were shared. She also supplied colorful tins for us to take our goodies home in. This is our second annual exchange and it was a great success. Tonight DH and I met up with two other couples at the Ram's Head. It's fun to go out with grownups. That is one of the pleasures of being empty nesters. We've decided to do this on a regular basis and we've already pencilled in a date in January.

We have a winter weather advisory, so I have to go do my snow dance before going to bed.

Bushism of the day:
"The best way to defeat the totalitarian of hate is with an ideology of hope -- an ideology of hate -- excuse me --with an ideology of hope." --George W. Bush, Fort Benning, Ga., Jan. 11, 2007

Kitty Cam: Harley and Mike know how to chill on a cold snowy day.