They must not've had lookouts

One of my all-time favorite things about growing up in Tesno was that I lived across from Standpipe Hill. That place was like a second home for those who lived in our neighborhood. In the summer we would build hideouts and pick wild low bush blueberries. The lower portion that was directly in front of our house was over taken by an invasive weed common to our area, but commonly known in my household as "bamboo". We used to sword fight with that stuff and make our own little "crop circle" rooms in our make believe house or palace or ship or what-have-you. In the winter it became our winter wonderland full of various paths and trails in which we would spend umpteen hours sledding our lives away. One winter I lost a pair of glasses while sledding and found them smooshed into the ground several years later during one of the warm months. I know they were mine because they were this hideous brown plastic in a classically awful 80's shape.

Today, I brought the kids out to play where they sledded in our side yard making do with what is left for snow... and it reminded me of when we didn't care how little snow there was, we were going to sled! We would use our sleds and "truck in" tidbits of snow form various areas on the hill to the "main path" (as we called it), and we would strategically place them to try and cover the entire thing to get a smooth run. We never seemed to mind or complain about it either. Sometimes we would try and surf down- of course this was before snowboards- and fall on our faces.


One of the most fun place to sled on Standpipe, though, was the Big Hill... it was tall, it was steep and there was *maybe* 5 ft of grass before you touched pavement, just to be caught by the concrete posts with wires as a fence to catch you before you ended up swimming after the run. The trick to this hill was that you could not sled this hill safely unless there were atleast 3 of you. The unwritten rule in the 'hood was that there HAD to be 2 lookouts- 1 looking left down E. Central and the other at the other corner were Main Ave (not pictured) comes in over the bridge as well as keeping an eye on the traffic coming in from East blvd. Then after you flew down the hill you had to hurry and get out of the street (if you didn't roll out while still in the grass) all the while laughing and and looking up and the daunting task of getting up the hill. It didn't matter that the top edge of the hill was slanted in such that it made a ramp- you could go that way, but it took a while to walk up, most of the time we tried to climb the steep side usually failing and losing our footing and sliding down several times before we would cave in and walk up the long way.

While at my sister's recently visiting with her family and mom and Jess and her kids, we were talking about the hill and Mom commented that it was in the police log that someone called the cops because kids were sledding into traffic. My sister and I at the same time said, "They must not've had lookouts" and we laughed and laughed... 

Surely I am surprised

that my sister nor my mom blogged about this weekend! (oh, and don't call me Shirley) Myself and the wee ones ventured down to 13th street for some family fun & debauchery. Friday night we arrived and the boys had a blast playing. On saturday we ventured out in the sunny and windy outdoors, to let the kids run amok at Hammond and expel some energy. Went fairly well. one child was cranky because he wanted to be pushed on the swings. but all in all it was a fun but chilly time.

we then prepared our family favorite Christmas cookies with halloween themed cookie cutters, and continued to get ready for a night of fun. which it was. the house was full of children, moms, & Pizza.. and briefly Scott was there begging for his brother to rescue him- he couldn't arrive fast enough! We hung out had a little wine, and even got mom to play guitar impromptu with a kid size piece. she tuned it and was good to go.. we got her to play rickety tickety tin, and then puff the magic dragon. Why is it that our kids weren't phased by the creepy song rickety tickety tin, which was a girl scout campfire favorite back in the day? They kids loved it! after a few hours people had to leave as the kiddos were up way past their bed times- well not mine.. mine are night owls and are up to 9-9:3 on a normal basis.

I've been crafty

The last couple weeks or so I've been busy making these such items:

Latest item: the hat with a pom pom in a basketweave crochet stitch.. it's super warm as it's part wool. I finished the hat earlier today, and took me no time to do. Last week was the scarf which is long enough that it can wrap around my head and wrap my neck keeping me toasty warm on the days I can't seem to find my hat.. last week I also finally finsihed Evan's earflap hat, which he loves, and  because I had some spare yarn I made a head band too. lol.. then New years weekend was consumed by an impromtu quilting project of our own original design, which is nearly done now.. it's been sitting in a near complete stage the past week or so.. just some finishing touches on lettering and it's done.

What do you think?? I know not spending enough time watching the kids, but it's good to keep busy with all this cold. The husband is working on an afghan which we will be raffling off later this year. I have also become quite good at taking self portraits with my cell phone :)

Thus ends the reading...

but really the year, no reading.. that is just a line from church which may be said after the person reading one of the readings finishes. It seemed fitting as this is the last day of 2009. I have been practicing saying 2010 as twenty-ten as I like the sound of it better than saying two thousand ten. History prevails as all other years are referred to as 2 double digits, with the exception of the last decade as people fumbled with saying the year in a way that was comfortable. twenty-ten. I like it. Imaging saying out 1999 or something it seems rather ridiculous. to cumbersome.
2009 certainly wasn't a banner year for awesomeness, (is any one year ever really better than the next for the average person?) but there are some things  that happened for for me that I'm glad about.
-I managed to keep my job when other people haven't been so lucky. I have been trying diligently to not complain, about the bad days (of course there have been some days where it was just so bad I had to complain) because every time I do, I feel lucky to just have a job. I have also done my best to correct the things that the boss yelled at me for, and even had some stuff added to my plate voluntarily. At my work there are no evaluations. You can only assume you are doing things okay when the boss doesn't yell at you for something stupid.

-last year I taught myself to crochet and this year I managed to get others at church to make a bunch of baby hats and blankets for the new little babies at the hospital. I have found a thrill in yarn shopping. (it's so old lady, I know) I have perfected the hat pattern on one of my favorite blogs. I have made all kids of different sizes with all kinds of different yarn for tons of different people. for grown up I make skull caps and for kids I've been known to add on ear flaps with ties.

Here is my hat in a super alpaca yarn. I also just made a little protective sock thing using cotton yarn for my new GPS which the husband got for me for Christmas.

ok. so due to children now being awake I have lost my train of thought and need to find a new one.uh.. ah ha!
I got one. yesterday afternoon I had a persistent dull headache. not a migraine, but tylenol and ibuprofen doesn't touch it. I have learned over the last couple years this is due to low body temperature. like 95 degrees low.. it's odd. at one point I scoured the internet on why this would happen and the only thing I came up with with is hypothermia.... that is not the case in my case. It is not very regular so I can't attribute it to a new pms symptom, but it happens enough that when I get this headache I take my temp and it's low. weird. speaking of which I am still adjusting to pms symptoms after having my second child.. I never had any until some time after Liam was born.  Insta-bitch catches me off-guard almost every time... and watch out when it hits, it hits with a vengence, and I feel bad about it, but my tolerance for annoying family members disappears, and I am miserable for about 1.5-2 days... the cramps catch me off guard too.. it is always a full day of being uncomfortable before I realize I can take some tylenol, in true blonde fashion.. a little slow to the punch I guess.. lol this has been happeneing for less then 2 years.. oh the joys of getting old..

oh! Evan has lost to 2 upper front teeth!!

it is hard to get a decent picture of this kid, so you better appreciate this picture! I have also misplaced my regular camera.. can't seem to find it, so I'm back to using my cell phone cam.. Thus I was unable to take any pictures at Christmas.

Oh yeah.. I have started to think bout other careers. I even took some classes as pre-req for the elementart education program at umass, but didn't take classes this semester as they weren't offering the ones I needed. In the meantime, I have also considered going into Middle school science, which I think I would really enjoy, but I need to take soem refresher courses to pass the test, and those classes weren't being offered either. unless I wanted to take them MWF at 1:25. can't do that, sorry... and with all the recent budget cuts to towns and schools having to lay off teachers, it may not be the wisest field to get into at this very moment. I have also toyed with the idea of going to photography school, which we have in the next town over.. It's very good and only a 10 month intensive program. so the down side is that I can't work while going there oh, and the tuition is $50,000.. yeah.. but you get some pretty awesome stuff once you walk in the door with that tuition being paid. including industry stand camera and all your books and stuff paid... but I bet I would really dig it, I just can't to that until liam is in "free school" aka kindergarten, most likely.

that is all for now.. I guess. I hope everyone has a great and joyous new year.. Stay Warm. Stay Healthy

I'm not afraid to say it

Merry Christmas!!

You heard me, have a great Christmas.... If you celebrated Hannukah, I hope it went well, and if  you do Kwanzaa, then I hope that goes well too or Yule, Festivus, or celebrating the solstice. I can not stand the generic holiday wish. Has society gotten everyone to the point of saying the word "Christmas" to have the same staggeringa nd frighening effect as saying "Voldemort"? It seems so, but I am the new Harry Potter, so to speak, Christmas, Christmas, CHRISTMAS!! mwa ha ha ha.... giggle

I'm enjoying my Christmas cookies that I made last night, and Liam helped decorate, and soon enough I will be Christmas shopping.. yes on Christmas eve.. (stupid bi-weekly pay schedule). Then tomorrow, I will be opening Christmas presents, and none of that generic "holiday" bullshit either.  It is all to celebrate Christmas.

I hope everyone enjoys their day in whichever way they choose, stays warm, and gets drunk!

Operation: Getting Old

Yesterday was the hubster's 30th Birthday. I could tell for days that he was disappointed that I didn't have any fantastic plans to celebrate.. then the other day one of his friends happens to call and suggest he and another pal take him out to play pool and have some drinks later today... *evil grin* he asks me if I was up to this business and I denied it... so while he is out later I will finish tidying up and put out some snacks, and then hopefully by the time they all return We will have a house decently full people, food and decorations.

on another note I finally updated photos around the house with prints that I just had printed. :) some of the boys and some taken of the crappy tree in the back yard.

shit it's cold!

Here in western New England where all the residents have the mantra of "Don't like the weather: wait 30 minutes, it'll change", really did it to themselves this time. On Thanksgiving it was t-shirt wearing weather outside, and the next week it feels as though we have all been living in Canada. God damn it it's cold! right now my stick on temp thingy on the window is telling me it's barely 20 degrees, and my accu-weather Firefox add-on on the bottom of the window tells me 13 degrees... I like the winter, really I do, I like the snow and welcome the cold.. it's when it becomes frigid that I don't like. too flippin' cold! Can't we just build a huge wall along the border with Canada and expect that it will keep out the cold?? If I liked Canadian weather patterns, I'D LIVE IN CANADA!! Living in a 100 year old house that has mediocre insulation (at best) is not the most fun place to live in the winter. We have quite the chill going on here. We need to shrink wrap the windows on the doors... the bak room where our computer is located is often particularly chilly compared to the rest of the house..

Christmas is coming up! can you believe this year is coming to a close already?! Crap, where did it go?