Calm before the storm...

No, not another wind storm. It's the calm before our daughter gets here to visit.

Since we knew she was coming down the first week of January, we decided to wait on our big holiday meal until she got here. It was only 3 of us, I figured we'd have lots of leftovers so why not wait for her to be here to help. ;o)

She should make it to the house about 10 pm Sunday night. I'm looking forward to spending some "Mom and me" time with her. She'll help with the cooking and we always have fun with that.

We have her Christmas gifts here for her to open too.

Sadly, she leaves on Friday. But, it's better to see her for a few days rather than not at all. Having been a military family for over 24 years we roll with the punches. We also learned that you can celebrate on different days too. It won't be the first time we've done Christmas at another time of the year.

Windy days...

As you can see by the photos we had some high winds here! I have no idea when the tree went since I did not hear it. Looked out the window, saw it and hollered something about holey excrement. ;o) No wonder we had weather alerts.

I have actually taken time to spin some the past few days and I enjoy that time! Will take photos to share soon. I've been spinning some alpaca and some merino cross breed wool.

I'm really excited to have some merino roving on the way to me from Paradise Fibers. I'm not sure how long the sale price will last, but if you buy 16 oz or more of the undyed merino it is only 90 cents and ounce!!!! Snapped up 2 pounds for myself.

Now I have colors dancing around in my head. I also have to decide if I want to dye it as roving or spin it and then dye. I have one colorway in mind that I hope I can pull it off as nice as it looks in my head. I want to do a light, light ice blue and some silver. I'm looking for that impression of a cold, snowy day. (can you tell I miss Maine?!)

Spinning will go on the waiting list though now. We have company coming in tomorrow, they leave on Sunday morning and Sunday night our daughter comes in to visit! It's been a long time since we've seen Mandi. I haven't seen her since April '08 and my husband hasn't seen her since Nov '07. We held off on the big holiday dinner since it was just 3 of us here. While Mandi is here we will be doing the big dinner and it sounds like she can't wait to have all that home cooking too.

Here's to the New Year being wonderful for each and every one of you!

End of the year...

So this is when folks normally make some nice philosophic post about what their life has meant the past year, what they are looking forward to in the New Year, blah, blah, blah. LOL Obviously I'm in a Bah Humbug mood and really don't have the time to make a post like that.

Gotta say Life is Good though. The past year was nice and we're still adjusting to my husband's retirement from the Navy. If he had still be in he would not have been here for the holidays this year. It was a bit odd to have him home for 2 Christmases in a row!

Things have been hectic and crazy through the year too. I never thought I would be busier once the kids were grown. I always (stupidly) thought things would settle down some.

I'm looking forward to 2009. I'm hoping to find a bit more time for some things I love to do. I'm also hoping to get back to regularly updating my blog. We'll see if that happens or not! Life has a way of "happening" and getting in the way sometimes.

Wishing all of you the best in the coming year!

Happy Holidays!

Wishing everyone the best of the season!

Life gets in the way...

So, I haven't forgotten about my blog. Life has just been busy, hectic, and at times annoying. I will try to update and post some pictures soon!

Knit One Save One

These are just a few of the hats I'm donating to Save the Children's Knit One Save One program. I currently have 30 done and am continuing to work on more. I'm getting close to running out of scraps though! Darn it. It's a little tight, so when I run out of yarn I may be done for the year. I'm trying to run down some yarn donations to continue making them. If you would like to donate yarn or know someone who will donate please have them email me at cleedesigns@gmail.com .

Color Guard again...

So I got a panicked phone call from our daughter the other week. The place she ordered the top for the one girl in her color guard called to say that since it was a special order it would not be delivered for 6 weeks. ugh They wait this long to get back to her on that?! Of course that meant mom had to come to the rescue.

The top needed to go along with the one I made for Allen. (see Poet's top) So I came up with this one. The red portion is made of the same red used in Allen's top. It is also cut from the pattern piece for the heart portion in the closer flags. I also used lace around the bottom of the top like that lace used on the opener flags. The red is sewn along the top and into the side seam, but the rounded side of it is loose for movement on the field.