Blog Contest

Here it is, the 7th day of January, 2009, and we're home with kids, cozy on this day of snow, sleet, and freezing rain (a "wintry mix", the paper says). We have hot chocolate ready to go, in a few minutes we'll put in a movie ("Spiderwick", which we got for Christmas and have watched once already) and put away Christmas decorations. Last night as we were thinking about the possibility of no school today, and thinking of what would need to be done to the cars to get them ready to take DH and DD to their jobs, I told DH I was all set . . .I have chocolates to eat and mysteries to read, and a cat to cozy up to! This is, of course, once the kitchen is clean, the laundry is done, the house has its January decorations instead of Christmas things out, the give-away clothes are bagged up and ready to take tomorrow, and so forth. Thankfully, this job of Homemaking is not boring, and I never run out of things to do. So, I just may take a cocoa and mystery break at some point, knit a row or two, and feel no remorse at all!

Jane is hosting a New Year's Blog Contest, and I think what she has come up with is a wonderful idea. Instead of talking about the wonderful things we hope to accomplish in 2009, we look back on 2008 and talk about things we did right. At first I couldn't think of things, really. Nothing that is done, anyway. My New Year's Goal list for 2008 is simply being resurrected in 2009, and I'll keep trying. However, the more I thought, and read all of the wonderful comments in her blog, I was better able to come up with a few of my own: we have done some financial figuring, after reading some of Dave Ramsey's books, and paid off our house! I finished knitting a Swallowtail Shawl, also a Blower Basket Lace Shawl (pictures to come, when they are blocked), and I think I have this lace thing figured out, and I really, really like it! (Which is good, considering the size of the stash of lace-weight and fingering-weight yarn I have and the patterns I've been gathering.) I have also exercised almost every day, which sounds like I have great self-discipline, but it is actually enforced, because I deliver newspapers and it's a walking route, and takes me about 25 minutes every morning (before 6am). The only days I missed were when we went on vacation and I had DD#1 deliver the papers, and a couple of holidays when the paper wasn't published. But still. That's walking, almost every day. Exercise, also a good time for solitude, meditation, and prayer.

I like to post a picture when I post a blog entry. Here's today's:

It is a Christmas sock, and if you look closely, you will see candy canes on the leg. These were fun to knit, and are too heavy to wear with shoes, really, but they are great to wear to bed, and around the house.

*******************************************

Things I have done in which I am well-pleased: updated my blog again, finally, had some knitting finishes recently (an afghan, two hats, three scarves, and a partridge in a pear tree--just kidding on that last one!), made some progress in the seemingly eternal quest to clean the basement.

Things that make me happy: a fire in the fireplace on a cold and snowy day, electrical power in spite of an ice storm! (we were without power except for a generator for four days in December), herbal tea and mysteries.