Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas! We sure got a nice white Christmas this year! A lot of the precip. came down as rain though, so it's not as much as it could have been. :) It is still coming down. Big huge flakes. Yay.

Getting ready for Christmas.

Cargo Scarf. Inspired by this:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Cargo-Scarf%3a-Free-your-hands%2c-and-your-mind-will-f/





Candied nuts. They're so good! I need to package them up so I don't eat them all!
Russian Teacakes. I love these cookies. I ground the nuts in these. But, my sister made some yesterday and she just chopped them up a little. I kind of liked hers better.

No, I did not do all of this in one day. I am not a super woman. :)

Decorating for Christmas.

Christmas decorating is something kind of new to me. But, I figure that now I am married and have a step-son I should maybe quit being such a Scrooge. Besides, I have some really neat Santa(even though I don't believe in him) ornaments that a friend of mine made for me. I love them.
Anyway, the tree is up after some issues with making it actually stand up. And while we were under the stairs finding the tree we found a tote with various things including a stocking that L had made. We never did stockings when I was little but I think that it will be fun to do.

Dave and I went to town last night and I mentioned that I wanted some lights and ornaments to go on the tree....

For our 3' tree he bought a 96' string of lights. I'll post a photo went we get them on. His idea is "if we have enough lights we don't need no stinkin' ornaments."

So, I went back to town today without him to look for the rest of what I wanted. I didn't get any ornaments but, I did get a tree skirt, 3 stockings, and some tins for packing cookies for gifts. I looked for stocking holders but, holy cats! There is no way I'm spending that much on them! I'm using those hooks that stick to the wall.

I also got a bunch of my gifts wrapped today. Boo yah! :)

Back to posting, maybe?

Wow, it was a busy summer. No excuse, I know. But, here I am, laid off and with time on my hands. Might as well start keeping this blog up to date. :)
All in all it was has been a pretty good year. Work went well.

I got my official Black Belt in June. Now, I'm thinking about testing in January for my stripe. (There are 2 before I can test for my 2nd dan.)

Our reception in August went well. Hot, but it was August.

Competed in St. Louis MO. in September. I got 1st in forms.

Work occupied October and most of November.

Thanksgiving went well. No shopping the day after(that's just crazy).
I put up a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. It was Dave's Grandma's tree. No ornaments yet. Just a couple of paper garlands that L helped make. I'll put a picture up sometime. After it is fully decorated.

Spring!

So, it's been awhile since I've posted anything. My excuse is that I've been really busy at work and I was training to test for my Blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do. I do have some nice pictures to show you if I can figure out how to up load them.
See? We are ready for spring, are you?

This year we have changed where and how we do all of our planting. This is in the green house we used to use for perennial planting. Look at what happens as soon as you don't have people in the area all the time.
This is the most recent one. I'm going to try to take a picture every week to track the progress.

Time, where does it go?

One minute I'm laid off and the next I'm back to work. Now, I'm not complaining
but they called me back a week earlier then expected and now I don't have time to get anything done! Now that I'm living farther away I find myself staying in town the nights that I have class. Which means I don't get home until 8:30. And then I still have to eat and shower. I supposed that means I'll have to learn how to budget my time better. :)
One thing I did accomplish was getting my name change done. I kept my full name and added his last name on the end. I still get people calling me' Miss My Name, Mrs. His Name, Mrs. My Name and Whatever Your Name is Now.
Anyway, got to get to work. We are really going to plant today. Yay!

Stupid snow.

So, where I work does snow removal in the winter and this winter we got a contract with a bank to do removal for their 4 locations in town. Usually its the guys that do it but they asked if I would be backup help and I said yes. I was really hoping they would never need me but Travis called me Friday about helping on Saturday. We were supposed to start at 2am Saturday. So I got about 1 hour of sleep Friday night. My brother works there too and he is on the same crew so I rode with him. We started at 2 and got done with our 3rd pass at noon. I'm sooooo happy the snow was fluffy and not wet. I would swear that there was already at least 2 1/2 inches when we started and it kept coming until mid morning. Then we had to go back after the banks closed to clean up the edges. So I did about 12 hours of snow work yesterday. It sucked but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.
I was also supposed to have my post-wedding bridal shower yesterday morning. That got canceled because of the weather. We are hoping to reschedule but I don't know how that will work out.

Valentine's Day Weekend

Just got back from a busy weekend of running around like crazy. It was fun though. Saturday morning I woke up to my husband holding a bouquet of flowers in front of me. Very nice of him.He even remembered to get the ones I said I liked and he got me a beautiful card. But, he told me that we were not going to do anything for V-day because he had to work so I feel pretty insensitive because I didn't get him anything yet. I did plan on giving him a present, and I will! I just don't have a printer to print it off. My sister Linda let me use their printer so I'm giving it to him tomorrow morning. I'll post a photo when I get the camera charged. I found this really neat site that lets you upload your photos and then tells you haw to fold them to make a box with pictures on it.
I stayed Saturday night at Linda's. Dave had to work so I figure it would be a fun shopping trip. We went to Kohls and found some good deals. I picked up some outfits for my step-son. I hope I got the size right. I'm a little new to this.
I got to see my friend Jami for the first time in a long time too. That was fun. She had her daughter for the weekend. She's so much fun.We played soccer with a balloon for a little while. I can't wait until they can come down to visit me at my new place.
My friend Becky is in town. I'm going to meet up with her tomorrow. That'll be nice too. I still have her Christmas present. :)

I tried radicchio for the first time tonight. Now, I'm not a very picky eater and I am open to the idea that it is the cook and not the vegetable, but I don't think I care for it. I still have half a head left so I can try a different recipe and see if it is better.I watch the Food Network and I'm always seeing the cooks on there saying wonderful thing about the bitterness and how it is a wonderful contrast and so on. My dad used to tell me about how people used to use dandelion leaves in salad and that radicchio tasted just like mature dandelion leaves. Wow. Anyone have any good recipes?

Sled Ride

It was so nice outside yesterday. The last couple of days it has been above freezing and sunny! Beautiful! Saturday I was inside most of the day because I had TKD and then we went grocery shopping. But, yesterday my sister R said her husband was going to get the horses ready for a sled ride after church. So, my friend S and her two kids and my step-son and I went out to R's. None of us had had a sled ride before. It was really nice to have that chance while S was here. She moved quite a ways away last fall and its been hard to get together. The ride was nice. There were a bunch of kids there and J, my sister's husband, let them take turns driving the sled. After the sled ride was done he got Duke out and let the kids ride him for a little bit.

Going to town.

Isn't it weird that just moving 10 miles away can make such a difference on how often you can justify going to town? It kind of drives me crazy. I'm used to living in a small town but I was close enough before that if I wanted to get out of the house and didn't have reason to I would go to town and just walk around stores, browsing, or go to the library or something. Now it just seems wasteful to drive all that way for nothing. It's only 5 extra miles! The library here really isn't much to get excited over. So,I guess I'm either going to have to just get over it or stay home. And I really can't see the second one happening. :)

First Post!!

Soo, I have decided to start a blog. I'm starting a new phase in my life and I thought it would be fun to keep track of how thing go. I've also realized how much I enjoy reading other peoples blogs so I am jumping on the bandwagon.
The postings here will probably jump all over from family to hobbies to work.
I guess the biggest event in my life lately is that I got married 8 day ago. Now we are trying to figure out how to fit both of our stuff into the same place. It's tough! I have so MUCH stuff and I haven't had time to go through and see what I really need to keep and what can go say hi to the S.A. .