Happy Holidays!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Mine was great! Santa was very good to me this year, I must have been a very good girl!

We started off our morning opening our gifts at home for the three of us. Winston's newest acquisition that Santa left for him was a Manta Ray:
Isn't he a cutie posing with his new toy. What he really likes to do with it though is chew and make it squeak!

Look at him go!

Later we headed over to my folks house where we did gifts with my parents, my sister, and my twin nephews. Here's my dad opening one of his gifts:

It's a t-shirt that says "Democat" that I got for him at the Dogs 4 Democrats website. It was a plain white shirt so I tie-dyed it for him to make it more colorful. He seemed to dig it, he's a hip and groovy kind of guy.

Here's K-man opening one of his presents with enthusiasm!

One of A-star's favorite gifts was a Harry Potter wand with a lighted tip! You flick it while saying your incantation and the light turns on, flick it again and the light turns off. He walked around shouting "Abracadabra!", "Alohamora!" and "Expelliramus!" at us.

Here's A-star doing one of his mandatory poses for auntie. He's wearing his Tasseled Fez Sans Tassels that I knit for him and holding up his annual tie-dye shirt. I didn't tie-dye this shirt, I bought from some very talented dyers from Hope.

Here's K-man with his Tasseled Fez Sans Tassels that I knit for him and his annual tie-dye shirt. This shirt also dyed by the fabulous folks in Hope.

One of the other gifts that DH and I got the boys was a lighted globe. It is really cool because it is a political map but is also has the texture for the physical land formations and then it lights up and glows like a giant night light. A-star is giving me the cheezy smile to go with it.

Finally here are the boys again posing in one of the mandatory auntie pictures. They are wearing their hats and holding their big gift from DH and I, cross country skis. Since everyone on their mother's side of the family pretty much skis we thought it was time the boys join us.

I didn't get any pictures of my mom opening gifts or my sister opening gifts or DH and I opening gifts. Somehow all the photos are of Winston, my dad, and the boys. Oh well, we all had a really nice Christmas holiday and the best gift of all was getting to spend time with family. After opening gifts we had one of my dad's fabulous turkey dinners! And for dessert we had three types of pie! Hope you all had a great holiday!

The Pledge

First, I hope that everyone had a great Christmas. Mine was wonderful! I'll post more on holiday bliss later.

My recent crazy sock yarn purchase has really gotten me thinking. I've looked around my house at the various locations I have yarn stored. And I've decided to make a pledge. I bought that huge sock yarn purchase on November 30, 2008 - I am pledging here and now that I will not purchase more yarn again until November 30, 2009. I have plenty of yarn for plenty of projects to keep me busy for a calendar year. I have yarn for two sweaters. I have yarn for a number of scarves. I have yarn for countless socks. In the yarn department I'm doing fine. I also have yarn to crochet a baby blanket, aside from the one I've already started and need to finish. I don't knit that fast, I'm sure I won't get through it all in a year anyway.

Now, how hard will it be to keep this pledge, I don't know. I see two major challenges on the horizon: 1. Madrona - I'm headed again to Madrona in February with my good friend Arctic Knitter. There is a fabulous yarn market there. But, my DH had a good point for me, I'm pledging to not buy yarn, that doesn't mean I can't purchase other knitting related things like needles, sock blockers, stitch markers, or patterns and books. And since Madrona is so close to the holidays, when I always suffer from shopping fatigue, I think I'll be okay. 2. Sock Summit in August - I have plans to try to attend the Sock Summit in Portland in August. This will be much further from the holidays and will be more of a challenge for me, I just know it. But, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it!

So - here it is in writing - I, Winston's Mom, pledge to not buy any more yarn between now and November 30, 2009. Wish me luck!

P.S. - I'm still allowed to receive yarn as a gift, but my birthday isn't until July. ;0)

Sad Winston

Winston had surgery on Wednesday, December 17th. As you can see it was on both of his front paws. This was taken after he got home that day, he was still really drugged up and not feeling well at all. What happened is that Winston has a lot of allergies. I call him my high maintenance puppy for a reason! Anyway, his allergies led to the growth of cysts between his toes on both front paws and we've spent the last eight months trying to get the cysts to go away using any method besides surgery. In November it became clear that we were going to have to use surgery because nothing else had worked. We scheduled it for the day closest to the holiday break that we could. His surgery was Wednesday, I stayed home with him on Thursday and Dave stayed home with him on Friday. The first 24 hours or so after surgery were really tough, involved a lot of pain and a lot of crying...for both Winston and me. The front paws are the weight bearing paws and so everything except laying down puts pressure on his wounds.

By Friday evening Winston was doing a lot better. He'd been to the vet for a bandage change and things were looking pretty good. He's got a little more of his spunk back. I'm just glad that I was able to plan it so that I could have all this time off with him as he recovers. There are some BIG advantages to working in education!

Baby It's Cold Outside!

So, we've been having some really chilly weather in Anchorage. Not below zero chilly, which can certainly happen, and does happen, but still chilly. We've been getting stuck with these high pressure systems that push all the snow south, which is how the Pacific Northwest is getting snow. We've been having ice fog. Which has created a lot of beautiful frost on the trees, but it is chilly for walking a dog. But, Winston needs his exercise so we bundle up and go.

Here's Dave headed down our street. You can see the cold fog in the air. The temperatures are single digits, maybe as high as 10 F.

Here Dave has caught up with Winston and they both look back at me to smile pretty for the picture.

Here's some more of that frost on the trees. It sure is pretty and sparkles in both the sunlight and the moonlight.
This is the fence at the neighborhood school's playground.


And a close up. That's a lot of frost!
Here's another shot that shows the fog. Are you getting the sense yet that it's cold?!
Even a short walk through the neighborhood puts the frost on my hair and my hat! With that hair color I look like I'm sixty!
Winston got some frost on his face too, but that is partly because he likes to roll in the snow. He's wearing booties for two reasons: one because it's cold and two because he's going to have surgery this week and he's going to have to wear booties outside so we figured he should start getting used to it. He doesn't like the booties and spent most of the walk trying to get rid of them. The video below shows some of this, just ignore my silly commentary, it is totally meant to get Winston's attention while I film him.


I hope everyone is enjoying this winter weather! Despite the fact that it is cold out, we are making the most of it and having fun!

Happy Christmas!

This is our Christmas tree! We got it today. It is the first Christmas tree that we've had in 5 years, I'm so excited to have a tree again! It is Winston's first real tree! The first two Christmases that Winston was with us he was a little guy and we were concerned about how he'd do with a real tree so we got a little artificial tree that we used. The past two Christmases we've been out of town so we didn't get a tree. This year we're staying home and so we decided to get the real deal and I'm so glad we did! This tree is a Noble Fir and it is from Mulino, Oregon. We know exactly where Mulino is because it is just down the road from Molalla, Oregon where Dave's uncle Dave, aunt Linda and family live. We've spent the past two New Year's with them. When we saw the tree was from Mulino we knew it was meant to be.
Getting a real tree for the first time in years meant that we pulled out ornaments for the first time in years. This proved to be more emotional than we expected. The ball ornament in the picture above was made for us by our niece Jasmine. We had forgotten all about this treasure. Jasmine passed away 2-1/2 years ago, so it has made this simple ornament even more precious to us. A few tears were shed while decorating the tree, but we also were reminded of many fond memories of past Christmases we've shared.
We even hung our stockings. We don't have a stocking for Winston yet, that can be one of his gifts this year.
Winston celebrated the tree by playing with his Michael Vick football. It cracks me up that he has a Michael Vick football, I don't know where we found it. But Winston loves to chew on it and jump on it and throw it around. When he does this we just encourage him by saying things like, "That's right Winston, you show that Michael Vick what it feels like!'. We're goofy, I know.
Our neighbor has a different kind of tree in his yard. I thought it was worthy of a picture.
Here's a picture of the tree all lit up at night. We got some of those new LED Christmas lights. It is hard to take a good photo of sparkling lights in the dark and I'm an impatient photographer. Dave's the real shutterbug in our house! Happy Holidays everyone!

I have a problem...

Some people have problems with alcohol, some with cigarettes, some with other drugs, some with chocolate (I'm working on a pretty unhealthy relationship here too), mine is yarn. And not just any kind of yarn, particularly sock yarn. The above photo illustrates what happens when Blue Moon offers a 10% off coupon to someone like me. That there my friends is $45 of savings in yarn. And its all sock yarn. And its not like I don't already have an overflowing storage area filled with sock yarn, because I do. The only meager defense I have for myself, and this is pretty poor, is the two hanks of pink yarn on the top aren't mine. They are Arctic Knitter's, she forgot to include them when she used her 10% off coupon. And its not like Blue Moon doesn't offer other yarns besides sock yarns, because they do. They have many varieties of gorgeous wonderful yarns in amazing colors! What happened is this, I got overwhelmed. I spent days, literally, trying to figure out how and on what to use my 10% off coupon. I was down to the wire using this thing. I looked at all kinds of patterns, I have a couple ideas floating around in my head of sweaters I'd like to knit. But then I couldn't decide and I couldn't decide and then I started to panic because the expiration of the coupon was near. So, in a flurry on the last day I pulled out all my sock books, of which I have many, and looked to see how much yarn would be needed to knit particular pairs and then just went crazy with colorways and ended up with $45 dollars in savings on sock yarn and only sock yarn. I wonder if AA has a program for folks like me...

P.S. Dave took the "Which European City Do You Belong In" quiz and he belongs in Paris. He'll be able to hang out with our friend Wade who belongs there too. But, Dave likes Dublin and I like Paris so we've decided that if we aren't meant to live in the same city we can at least visit each other.

This is Too Funny!

You Belong in Dublin

Friendly and down to earth, you want to enjoy Europe without snobbery or pretensions. You're the perfect person to go wild on a pub crawl... or enjoy a quiet bike ride through the old part of town.

What European City Do You Belong In?

Okay, this is frickin' hilarious because my dad is from Ireland. I have a bunch of family in Ireland, and I've been to Ireland four times. I LOVE Ireland! I would love to live there for a little while. I don't know if I'd want to live in Dublin particularly, but I would love to live in the country. I saw this on Arctic Knitter's blog and had to try it and out of all the cities in Europe I end up best suited for Dublin! HA!