Festive for Friday...Snowfall

Hello friends and welcome to another Festive for Friday. The day where we thank our lucky stars we made it to the end of the week and celebrate all of the festive (and the less-than-festive) happenings of the week. 

Festive!

• I'm on antibiotics! Turns out my whining about being sick wasn't completely unjustified, as I have a sinus infection and an ear infection. My doctor even prescribed my favorite antibiotics! (Yes, I have a favorite. I'm allergic to penicillin so the Zpac and I are best friends when I'm sick.)  

• Antibiotics also mean I'm feeling better, although not 100%. I've been dragging all week, and while I've enjoyed watching a million episodes of Pawn Stars on Netflix, I have other things I'm looking forward to working on this weekend. 
• After missing two and a half days of work, I managed to be SUPER productive today. Which is good because the student's come back next week. 
• My parents got us a programmable thermostat for Christmas, and then I made Daddo install it before they left. So now, when I get up in the morning or come home from work the house is already warm and toasty! 
• I've consumed a copious number of bagels this week. When I'm sick, I don't want to eat anything. This has always been a problem-to the point where they threatened to hospitalize me when I had mono because I lost so much weight. So the rule is, when I'm sick, I get to eat whatever I want as long as I eat something. So bagels it is this week.  (Past favorites have been potato soup, fudgesicles and Chinese food). 

Less-than-Festive

• So that snow that melted away last week...well it's back. I'd guess we're at about 10 inches now with 1-2 more to come overnight. 

• I'm still sick. Yes, I'm feeling better. But I would really just like to be totally healthy. 
• A cat threw up. And I stepped in it. Eww. 

Wishing a festive weekend to all!

Mondays are for Muggles

Mondays are not my friend. Personally, I think anyone who DOES like Mondays need a sharp poke in the side to make them see reason. For me, Monday doesn't only signal the beginning of the work week (highly less-than-festive) but it also reminds me of all the mundane things I need to do. Like pay bills. Wash clothes. Cook food. Blargh, as BabyBrother would say. 

Thus I launch "Mondays are for Muggles" (can you tell I'm in a theme mood lately?). Which is basically where I recap what shit I did manage to get done last week, and what the overly-enthusiastic-and-less-than-realistic plan for this week is. The mundane, the magical, the muggly. Yes, muggly is a word. 

First, brief recap of last week. 

1. Continue working on organizing my studio space.  Pretty much done! Organization FTW!
2. Run 10 miles-- HA! I am STILL sick. I know some people say it's safe (and even good) to exercise when you're sick. But since I'm the biggest whiner and wimp when it comes to being sick, I abstain. Really though, since I have a history of little colds turning to sinus infections or bronchitis, I do try and take it easy when I'm sick.
3. Start book club book 11/22/63--And I finished the book too! When I'm sick, reading helps me rest so I've done a LOT of it in the past week. 
4. Write Grandpa M and Grandma O
5. Paint my nails
6. Post 3x here--Two out of three. I'll count this as half done. 
7. Post one time on Prairie Sewn Companion--Hardcore fail. 
8. Prepare baby quilt for quilting--Ha. But I did find all the pieces for the quilt, which I think should count towards something. 
9. Start knitted dishcloth--Blargh.
10. Prepare business plan with Momcat--So I'm counting this as a finish (and now Mom is reading this and asking herself if she missed something this week). I've written out a bunch of things about this from my perspective. I also managed to get our EIN and sales tax license this week. So I really did make business organization progress. The Momcat arrives back again on the 17th, and I've promised her a fun-filled week of business talk!

FINAL SCORE: 5.5/10 

Ok, so not awful for being deathly ill. Or at least mildly ill. 

This week I wil attempt to:

1. Blog 3 times here.
2. Prep baby quilt for quilting. 
3. Prep Etsy listings for Prairie Sewn Companion.
4. Write Grandpa.
5. Repaint nails.
6. Run. Even just once. 
7. Start quilting baby quilt. 
8. Blog once on Prairie Sewn Companion. 
9. Start knitted dishcloth.
10. GET HEALTHY.  

Festive for Friday

Welcome to Friday! And a new series on the blog where I share some Festive (and ok maybe not-so-fesitve) happenings for the week.

But first...the backstory on the button image. The kitty (grown up cat, I suppose, but he'll always be my kitten) is named Friday. My Brother-in-Law named him that when we adopted him on Black Friday in 2008. He was the last of his litter to be adopted from the shelter because no one wanted a black cat! How silly is that. And he has the cutest little white socks and little white mittens. I digress...And festive is my favorite word EVER! I use it all the time. Seriously all the time. And thus Festive for Friday was born (because I'm clever like that!)

Festive!

• It's Friday! This first week back to work after a week of vacation and a week of holiday was un-festive, so today actually BEING Friday means an extra dose of happiness today. 
• I figured out how to borrow books on my Kindle from our local public library. And the cherry on top is that it was super easy. 
• The snow is melting and it was 48 degrees today. In January. Amazing. 
• We're going to a new restaurant tomorrow night for a double birthday celebration. It's a rib shack, so not only do I get to eat lots of meat, but I also get to cross something off my Accompl.sh list! 
• I made an awesome two page to do list for the weekend. Which is festive since I LOVE making to do lists. 
• Friday the kitten has been snuggling with me on the couch all night. And he's even stayed on his own couch cushion instead of doing his "I think I'm really a dog so I must climb onto your chest and do three full circles before I sit down and impede your typing" schtick. Which sounds cute, that little cat can somehow occupy a lot of space and has very pokey paws. 

Less-than-Festive

• I have a cold. I'm super whiny when I'm sick, so it's probably good that the N-boy is out of the country and doesn't have to put up with me. 
• I've missed out on some fun social activities this week because I've been sick. I have, however, seemed to learn after almost 29 years that the best thing I can do when I'm sick is to rest and take care of myself. I think the Momcat is very happy that I've finally listened to her and learned this lesson. 
• I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to sync contacts from my iphone Audrey to icloud. It is driving me nuts!
• My to do list is two pages long. Yes this is both festive and less-than-festive. I have a tendency to make exceedingly long and ridiculous to do lists and then feeling like a failure when I don't finish everything on it. Oh well. 

Here's to a festive weekend for all!

Oh hai 2012...Oh hai...

I haven't blogged here on almost a whole year. And not really for any good reason, either. But I suppose this is my blog and I can do what I want to!

Some of you (or at least the devoted members of my immediate family and kind and loving friends who visited me at the Craft Fair) know that I'm working on starting an Etsy store with the MomCat: Prairie Sewn Companion. I've blogged a couple of times on our new blog, but I've felt weird talking about the random and yet festive things there, so I'm going to give this one a try too. And use that one for things about our business! Or something like that. It's my Etsy business so I can do what I want to! (Maybe that should be the motto for the year: "It's my life so I can do what I want to." Not an awful motto, actually.

I hate New Year's Eve. Staying up to midnight is never a reason to celebrate in my book. But I LOVE New Year's Day. I love making lists of goals/resolutions/projects/wishful thinking ideas/household chores. Love love love. I ran across this web app a few weeks ago and started building my 2012 list. I've changed things a ton of times on it, but finally settled on the final items last night while I was desperately trying to stay awake until midnight. Now that my list is locked I have 366 days to get everything done. Yes....good realistic plan.

 I have no illusions that anyone else on the inter webs have any interest in reading my list of 101 lofty ambitions, so I'm not going to put the whole list here. But should you REALLY have nothing else to do, it can be seen on my Accompl.sh page.

For your viewing pleasure, here are a few things I'm hoping to accomplish this week:

1. Continue working on organizing my studio space. 
2. Run 10 miles.
3. Start book club book 11/22/63. 
4. Write Grandpa M and Grandma O.
5. Paint my nails.
6. Post 3x here.
7. Post 1x on Prairie Sewn Companion. 
8. Finish prepping baby quilt for quilting. 
9. Start a knitted dishcloth.
10. Write a business plan with Momcat.

Hopefully I'll get other things done this week too. Like eating. An showering. And maybe washing my sheets. But doing some of these would be a good start to my new year. 

And to leave you with a festive picture, taking from my visit with the parentals to our relative in Fort Wayne. 

I call it "And the Adults are more Fascinated that the Children by the new Cotton Candy Maker."

Snow!

We made it back from our New Year's trip to Germany and Austria in the nick of time, pulling into town right as the lake effect storm was starting to let loose on our area. The N-boy took some pictures on Saturday, I think about half way through the storm. 

Looking out our kitchen window.

Looking out the front door.

Total snowfall for the storm was over 33 inches! With the record for most snow in a 24 hour period being broken with 25 inches! Thankfully the streets were mostly clear today when I headed back to work after a glorious two week vacation! 

Up this week, some pictures from the trip!

Christmas 2010

The Momcat, Daddo and BabyBrother all came to our house again for Christmas again this year. Everyone had a great time and lots of good presents, family time and Christmas cheer all around. 

One of our big family traditions is decorating sugar cookies on Christmas Eve day. Mom is in charge of supervising the cut out and baking process, 

and Daddo get stuck with the frosting-sprinkle-sugarfest. 

Baby Brother is in charge of, well, Baby Brother is simply required to be there. And must be frosting cookies. He's gotten sneakier about this as he's gotten older; my favorite line this year was when he put two dabs of frosting on a soldier cookie and then declared, "The art is in the negative spaces." Sigh. 

The goal now is to make as the most obnoxious cookies as possible. Last year, we had axe murdering snowmen and incandescent light bulbs. Previous years have included the "PBR express" train engine (chug chug chug). The Momcat found that one less than amusing, since Baby Brother was a bit underage.

My favorite from this year-the dead butterfly. I promise I don't actually have a dead butterfly cookie cutter; the N-boy mutated a sweet little Christmas Angel for this one. 

Christmas morning I get everyone up at 7:00 a.m. That is 7:00 a.m. in the current time zone. Yes, we have to have that exact information as part of the rule in our family. Mostly because otherwise I'd still be getting everyone up before dawn because I'm so excited I can't sleep. 

Oh how they love me.

Christmas Mug Rug

Can it really be almost three months since I have posted a blog entry? Yes. Sad. 

Have I been busy? Well, somewhat. I've been continuing to work on the Paducah Challenge Quilt, which incidentally is due on Saturday. I'm almost finished, but not quite.So I haven't been able to post pictures of what I've been working on given that it's a secret challenge with the Momcat. Still, no excuse. 

I have, however, just discovered an app that will let me upload photos from Audrey (my iphone) directly to my Picasa album, from which I can pull photos into this blog. Are they the bestest quality of photos? Well, no. On the other hand my photos with my camera are not the best of quality. Although is due large in part to my lack of skill as a photographer, and is no fault of the cute little canon camera.

I do think this will help me be less lazy. I rarely have my camera with me, but always have my phone. I hate dragging out my camera cord to connect to my computer. Yes, I really am that lazy. 

So without further ado, here's the little package I made up for our office coordinator. He just started with us this last May, and has been a SUPER person to have in our office. 

I made the little rug mug from scraps I made; log cabin pattern. He really like it, and even took it home to show his wife!

Here's to being less lazy!