National Secular Society - Sharia Law and Middle Class Feminism

National Secular Society - Sharia Law and Middle Class Feminism  Nail on the head folks.

John Bolton: Israel, Get Ready For More Obama Leaks

John Bolton: Israel, Get Ready For More Obama Leaks

Oh wow this looks so good.  We just bought this exact kind of couscous at Costco for about $7 or $8 dollars (huge bag).  Now I have something to make with it. 

Birthday Party

Today is son's birthday party.  Pray for me.  ha ha  The one thing that made me nervous about parenting was the thought of having to plan birthday parties.  Oi vey. I grew up in a rather solitary family.  My parents never had friends over or even family more than a couple times.  Socializing is just something I never learned.

Anyway, that's the genesis of my stress today.  We're heading over to an indoor pool for several hours and then back here for an ill advised (chuckle) sleepover. 

Our tree is decorated now. All these decorations have special meaning. The angel is from before I was born.  My parents bought it at Target for $2.39 I think.  So much has changed since 1969.  Not only in my life but also in the world.  Oh well.  I don't want to get going on that right now. 

Check out the balloons from the party:
Aren't they cute?  $30 worth and we had to tape them to keep the forward facing.  lol
I'd better go curl my hair for the party.  We only have an hour until they arrive.  Yikes.  ;-)

A Happy Thanksgiving!

Action shot




Ok!  We had a great turkey day over here.   First, it was gorgeous mid 60's weather, or maybe mid 50's, it really doesn't matter at this point in Minnesota.  Second, we had people other than ourselves over!  lol  We had Zach and his mother in from Chicago, not to mention our own new grandbaby Jackson.



A game of Cranium after dinner.  l-r: Eric, Amanda, Zach, Linda



Then on Friday we got up at 12:30 A.M. to head over to Target.  The lines were so long in the dept. we needed to be in that we just got some other junk and went home.  For the record: this was my husband's idea.  I wanted to stay in bed.  Later that day we ended up at Best Buy and got what we'd been wanting with a much better deal on it too.  Love when that happens.  Saturday I scrapped all day with Amanda and later on at 6:30 Linda, Zach's mom, and her sister Cindy came to Archivers and joined in.  We stayed til closing.  FUN!  I only got 5 pages done.  They're posted on my Scrapbook page here  While I was there having fun, hubby was home with the carpet shampooer.  It's an environmentally friendly company.  They did a great job.  I think they're at http://www.oxifresh.com/  Two rooms, 13 stairs, hallway upstairs for only $127.  Nice. 

Our son slept over at a birthday party so after we picked him up Sunday morning, we went to Home Depot and bought our Christmas tree!  YAY!  A real one.  The first time in two years.  Last year we had a little fake one.  It was nice, but too short.  This one is a Scotch pine and is full and fluffy and smells divine. 



Before it warmed up and 'calmed down'. 

Scotch pines are good for anyone who enjoys balance.  They have the perfect combination of long and short needles.  Not so long, like White pines, that you can't hang much on them, but not so short that you can see through them. 

Later that day we decided to go to MOA.  In my mind it's always cozy there while we sit at Caribou (just down from Bubba Gump) looking out from that balcony.  To make a long story shorter, we ended up picking up daughter and grandson and made it a big family event.


Eating dinner at Ikea first



Once at MOA, Amanda and Eric took off with the baby and left Curt and me to sit at Caribou and knit and read.  Perfect. Of course they stopped by to get us to buy them a Caribou too.  ;-)



Jackson was conversing with grandpa @ Caribou MOA





On the way home we were all cozy in the car listening to Christmas carols.  So far, this has been a fun season.  Some years I'm just not excited for it; not true this time. 

We're almost done with the shopping, and wrapping, for that matter.  We just leave the bows and tags til Christmas Eve.  That's an incredible feeling.  My parents always did all the wrapping on Christmas Eve so that's how I used to do it.  It just doesn't make a lot of sense.  This way they can't sneak a peek either.

Now, on Monday we got the lights put up then realized we don't have garland left!  I've already put the car in the garage and I'm done running around for the night.  So we're stuck with finishing up tomorrow.

Here's our mantel that I decorated last night.  Still not finished with that of course, but I'm definitely ahead of schedule.



A little skimpy on the left eh? 



Here's Curt not wanting his pic taken.  

I'm so sensitive, aren't I?  ha ha

 

I bought an apothecary jar at Michael's last night for only $10 w/coupon. I went to the dollar store for garland and ornament balls. It's not very intricate, but I like it.

Well, I'm off.  Gonna go work some more on my unfinished sock.
 
Thanks as always for stopping by. 
 
Erika

Wow!  I had no idea Brokaw asked such a heinous, not to mention incredibly stupid, question.  Great article making some wonderful points though.  Brokaw's Douchery

A Whole Month!?

Sometimes, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to force one's self to blog even when not feeling like doing such.  So it is that I am here.  Blogging.  Sigh. 

It's not that I don't like blogging, but there are so many things that have happened, it feels overwhelming to try to put them all down.  Then I remember that it's my blog and I can put down or keep out whatever I feel like.  :-)

To start with: my birthday was in October.  It was a perfect day.  I took Daisy dog for a long walk, then I worked with hubby and son in the garage putting up sheet rock.  There were a few close calls (sheet rock falling very near son) but we all made it out alive.  That's always a good thing.  We also went shopping that day - kickin' back at Caribou Coffee.  Then at 2 I had my first sock class.  Very fun.  It was at a local yarn shop.  There were only 3 students total and I did really well.  We only got to the 'divide for heel' part by the end of that day.  (Two day class) 

The product of day 1 - worsted wt sock class



Here we are about to order: Me? I always get
the veggie stir fry with the spicy Thai peanut sauce.



When I got home, son, hubby and I went to pick up daughter and grandson and we went out to dinner at Big Bowl in Rosedale.  Going there for my birthday is becoming a tradition.  Great atmosphere and food and as a bonus I get to use chopsticks.  :-)  I got some awesome presents.  Eric bought me a book I'd been wanting: Killing Lincoln.  Very cool.  And then Curt, who always thinks he has to outspend himself every year bought me an i-pod Touch along with a dock to play it on.   I haven't uploaded any songs yet, but have a blast being able to go online without needing a laptop everywhere I go.   Hey!  Be sure to check out grandson's cool new shoes...lol  They were so funny/cute looking on him.

Ahhh, let's see, what else has been happening?  Well I finished the socks and wear them quite a bit.  They're a tad large, but they stay on and they're very warm.  I wear them out with sandals so I a) look like an old retired man in Miami and b) can show them off.  See?  There's a method to my madness.  Seriously though, I had it stuck in my head that I couldn't do socks.  That they were just for those really advanced knitters so it's been exciting that I can do it.  They're really quite easy to knit.  I get giddy thinking about it sometimes.  Here are some other socks I've made or are making: 

The baby blue baby booties were actually the first pair I finished.  After that first class I was so psyched to keep going and not wait for the second class that I decided to try to make a quick pair instead of messing with my actual class socks.  I ended up with the baby booties.  I did the Kitchener stitch and all!  Very fun.  Only problem is that since they were just a practice pair, I used Red Heart Super Saver.  It's a rough textured yarn/plastic.  I'd like to make J some nicer ones.  The red shoe looking things are from a book I've got.  They're so cute and the pattern's genius but they looked so funny on J that I couldn't quit laughing.  Very girlish.  The striped middle pair I'm still working on.  It's really quite fun working with toothpick sized needles.  I like the way the sock folds up on the needles when I want to put it away.  I can see why everyone loves sock knitting.



Isn't my grandson beautiful (in a manly way of course)? He's wearing his aviator hat here.



I also knitted J an Aviatrix Baby Hat (see above)  It uses all short rows, ya don't even join in the round.  I'm astonished (no hyperbole) at people who come up with these patterns.  I really think they're geniuses. 

In other news, son finished his autumn soccer season.  They won the championships and had an almost flawless record of all wins but one tie.  I think it was 11-1-0!  Nice going guys and gals. I'm so happy for him.  He's been thrown on some seriously shite teams in the past.  It's cool to watch how success breeds more success.  Our belief systems are so tied to what we've learned in the past...for obvious reasons, but it's kinda scary.  Luckily, we humans are also quite resilient.  I digress...I'm very happy for E.  Here's a scrapbook page I did about it.  Nothing fancy but gets the point across.

Son had birthday.  He's a teenager now!  His party's going to be at a local community center with an awesome tropical indoor pool.  I'm so glad we've got his party planned.  That's been the worst part of being a parent for me.  lol--not kidding. Of course hubby's on call that weekend!  Oh man.  This could head south fast!  We'll persevere. 

We bought son an acoustic guitar for his b-day.  It sounds so beautiful.  I've always loved the acoustic guitar.  That along with the violin and piano are the most beautiful musical sounds there are IMO.  I should have him teach me some more of the guitar. 

We're getting ready for Thanksgiving. We're having daughter, son-in-law Zach, and his mother, Linda, over.  I'm looking forward to it.   The Saturday after Tday, Linda, dd, and I are going scrapping so I've been trying to get prepared for it.  So often I've spent 5 hours 'scrapping' but only have 1 or 2 pages to show for it.  This time I'm making a list of the pages I want to accomplish, a rough idea of the papers and extras I want to use and have all the pics printed off before hand.  I actually did that soccer page while I was organizing my ideas.  (I love simple pages.)

Better get going for now.  That way I can more quickly remember what I forgot to post about. ha ha

SEE?  It worked! Only ten minutes after I posted this, I remembered our winter themed puzzles we've been doing.  Only two so far, but they're so dang cute I'm going to share them with ya'll.

This is the fourth puzzle - a surprise find one day last week.  :-)

I loveth these.  Only a dollar at The Dollar Store too!  Ok-- I'm off.  Ta-ta!