Bits of me.

First things first... Alexis, you are the winner of the painting! I'm sorry about the delayed drawing... but congratulations on the win! I have your address and will get it mailed to you shortly. :)

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A lot has been happening here, and some of that has kept me from posting. It is hard for me to know what I should or shouldn't post sometimes because I'm not sure what you all are looking for when you come to the blog. I don't know how much of the nitty-gritty you all really want to know about me. I would really appreciate it if you would leave a comment and just let me know if you're just visiting for homemaking-related-stuffs or if you are interested in hearing more about the life and times of moi. ;) There is no wrong answer.

So... I'm going to pretend that you want to hear all about my personal life, and give you updates. If you're here just for home-related stuffs, well... hopefully you can glean some goodies out anyway. Here goes.

THE GOOD:

* Anna turned 4 last weekend. I can't believe how quickly she is growing up. She's my youngest little girl and I couldn't be more proud of her and more enamored. She keeps me laughing and keeps my heart young.


* I made new friends from the San Antonio Fiber Arts group at the last knit night, and am so very happy about that. Everyone from the whole group was amazing, and it was so exciting to get to put some faces to the names that I know so well on Ravelry. Lisa and Mariah were both incredibly welcoming to me and have reached out in friendship, which has been wonderful. We all have so many things in common and the friendship is fun and easy. :) They also prepared the amazing birthday feast for Anna that you see in the picture above. Lisa made puppy chow and put it in cupcake holders and put a candle in Anna's. She was overjoyed, and we all had such a great time!

* I updated my stash on Ravelry and whoooo boy do I have a bunch of goodies in my stash. I honestly had no idea what I had on hand, because it had been forever since I had really looked at it all. To give you an idea of how unorganized it had been, I went up to go catalogue it and *found* a 12 lb Romney fleece I didn't know I had. Twelve. Pounds. Yikes. One of my goals for 2010 is going to be to work through all of my fleece and undyed fiber, getting it ready to spin, so that I can just reach in the stash and grab something pretty to work with. I also vow to update my ravelry stash page regularly with new items, so that I can keep better track of them. Whew.

(some of my hand-carded/dyed/spun alpaca)


THE BAD:

* Mom and brother couldn't make it to Thanksgiving. We were so looking forward to them coming and miss them both terribly. I know life circumstances come up, but it was still really hard to have the holiday without them.


* Abbi had to give back her communication device. This has been really really hard, especially for Abbi. She gained dozens of new words both on the device and verbally (after learning them on the device). This jump in language was SO huge, coming from a beautiful little girl who only had a 30 word vocabulary before, at the age of 8. We're hoping to have a loaner to last us until we can order one with the help of the STAP program very soon. Any good thoughts to this end will be much appreciated!



* Our FRG program in the unit has been dismantled and is no more. I understand the reasonings for it, but its still something sad for me and something I have had to take some time to work through emotionally, especially after investing so much time and work into it as the Special Events Chairperson. It is hard being a military family to begin with, but being a military family with special needs requires extra support. Every family in our unit has special needs of some type, so it was very much needed. Change can also be hard when so much else is on everyone's plates. All this together was just a lot to swallow, and while I am supportive of the positive changes that are going on to try to help the unit improve, I am saddened that the FRG is no more.

THE UGLY:

* Abbi hurt her foot really badly on the elliptical machine. She hurt it so badly that we thought it was broken, and had to go get a lot of X-rays and exams done. Thankfully everything is in place, just badly injured. She was hurt so badly that she was unable to go to school because she couldn't wear shoes and it was considered a liability problem. Its been two weeks and the bruise, which stretches from her achiles heel all the way to her toes, is just now starting to fade.

* Our puppy, Sissy, passed away of distemper a week ago. I can't even tell you how sad I am about this. Its been a long time since I cried so hard. She was only 4 months old. We are all heartbroken and miss her so so much.


So... As you can see, a lot has been happening that has basically made it hard for me to do many home-focused things that I felt were worth sharing with you all. I do have a recipe or two coming up that I'd love to share with you for your holiday meals this December.

What more would you like to find here at the blog? What sorts of things do you like to hear about? Crafts? Recipes? Me/the-kids/etc? Thank you in advance for the feedback. Hopefully this will help me to blog more regularly. Hugs to all!