Christmas Wrap-up and Plans for the New Year

Well, I survived Christmas and now to see how things go in the new year. Drove to my sister's lake house in NE Oklahoma ( 4/12 hour drive) on the Saturday the 22nd. Snow was predicted, so our trip was up in the air until that morning when we got up. It was not doing anything, so we were on the road before 8. About an hour from home, it started raining and rained all the rest of the way. Got there about 12:30, in time for lunch with my family and all of my sister's in-laws for a total of around 40. By mid-afternoon, the rain had changed to freezing stuff, etc. The in-laws left to return to their homes 2-3 hours away and it took them 5 hours. We had our gift exchange with my family and had homemade ice cream. Got to see my great-nephew Ethan for the first time. He is 7 months old and weights about 23 pounds. He is a very big boy.

My youngest sister and her family returned to their home in Missouri in early evening and were concerned about the roads. She called back to say that once they got into Missouri the roads were better. However, she did tell us that she had heard on the news that there was a 32 car pile out west of Topeka where I live. I knew then we had been hit with some snow. Heard from Anita from The Sunflower Seed about noon that it was snowing so hard you could not even see 1/2 block. There was a total white out that created the big crash. Found out the next morning we had, at least, 9 inches of snow in Topeka. That concerned us about our trip home. I know to some of you that does not sound like much, but we seldom get that much at one time, so people do not know how to handle it. Coming home was not a problem until we got about 30 minutes from home and there was one stretch of 10 miles that was completely snow-packed. Strange since the county side roads were clear and almost dry. Seems like the state DOT forgot about that stretch of road. It was great to finally be home.

Monday we drove a little over an hour away to pick up a 37-in TV from my niece. They had gotten all new flat screens for their house and no longer were using this one. It is bigger than anything we have so we said we would take it off their hands. Now all we need is a stand for it. Where we thought it would fit, won't work. Getting a stand is on the agenda for tomorrow.

Since it appeared that Morris and I were going to spend Christmas day alone and I found out some other good friends were going to be alone too, I called and invited them to spend it with us. They have been having a rough time in their life with a variety of things, so I thought it would be good to spend some quality time with them. I made an entire dinner with turkey and most of the trimmings without even running out to the store. We both had crisises with elderly father that morning, so getting together was great for all of us. Morris and Corky spent most of the afternoon doing a jigsaw puzzle, Jim took a nap and I attempted to help with the puzzle. I am not very good with them. I could have done some stitching, but that would have put me in another part of the house and that would have been rude.

There is still on Christmas stitching that I have not shown here. It is for my good stitching buddy Sandi. We have not had time to get together between the weather and her family get togethers. We will do that in the next few days. Here is what I have finished for her. It is one of the Krenik's "Remember the Ladies" series. Framed by the local frameshop. This was a project that I had started for Sandi several years ago and decided this was the time to finish it and give it to her.

Blessed Are .....

by Kreinik

25-ct Natural Pearl Linen

Kreinik silk Mori included with the pattern

This puts a wrap on Christmas giving and celebrations.

Many of you have made goals for the new year and ways you want to complete WIPs, etc. Well, I have made a plan on how to complete one WIP that needs to be done in the coming year. It is a wonderful design that I picked to do for my friend Sandi as a retirement gift. It is her colors, etc. She has now been retired 2 years and I cannot seem to get this done. Here is a picture of the design from the January/February1995 issue of CrossStitch and Country Crafts.

It has a lot more specialty stitches than I thought. Each of the letters of the alphabet are done alternating between the Rice Stitch and Eyelet Stitch over 4 threads for each letter. Besides that it eats thread like crazy to do all those stitches. I have decided that I am going to stitch at least 1 hour a week on this project on Tuesdays. That is the day that I am most often at home all day. Here is the progress so far.

Although the new year starts on Tuesday, I will not start my weekly stitching until the following week. There I even putting off the start. Still not sure what we might be doing on New Year's Day so don't want to plan to work on it and then have to change my plans. Wish me luck with the is project. Never tried stitching on a schedule before. We will see how disciplined I can be.

We had a few more inches of snow last night. That is the 3rd snow in 6 days. Feel like we are in the mountains of Colorado. That almost never happens here. Just gives me more stitching time. I don't like to drive in the stuff and our driveway can be a real mess.

Muffin Update: It has been 10 days of crating and anti-inflammatory meds and I took her back to the vet yesterday. He said there is some improvement, but he would have liked to see more. Gave her another steroid shot and said make sure she stays in the crate as much as possible. When she is out keep her on a leash so we can keep her from jumping around. She has not learned very well that she needs to eat when she is out. He says she will if we keep her in there all but the 3-20 minute sessions out. We go back again in 10 days. This crating is killing me.

Visit From Santa and Christmas Stitching

Celebration of Christmas has started early. Today I had a little Christmas party/exchange with my stitching sisters. Reina, Mary, Anita and I gathered at the LNS-The Sunflower Seed for lunch from Panera's and exchange Christmas presents.

These shots were taken as we were opening presents. In this one Anita is demonstrating how her new stay-at-home socks can also be used for hand warmers or hand puppets. Shop dog Betsy is in the foreground. Mary, (Anita's real sister) is in the red shirt inspecting a little suitcase type box she just opened from Reina.

Here Mary is talking to Reina and I think Reina is saying don't take that picture.
We always have such a great time when we get together whether it is Christmas, a birthday or just sitting and stitching.

I have to tell you that I really cleaned up. Thank you so much to my sisters. Below is the stitchy-type gift I received. Tin topper stitched in my favorite color purple. I think Anita said it was Caron Collection Amethyst. Also you see The Victoria Sampler's "Heirloom Nativity Sampler" with called for 28-ct Smokey Pearl Cashel and Embellishment Pact. In the little mesh bag was another Whitman Sampler Tin, still with the chocolates in it, along with fabric and Crescent Colours Belle Soie-Elegant Eggplant to stitch up a design that Anita had done for us. Design name is Celtic Tin Topper. Not sure whether it will ever be released to the public, since not sure how available the long skinny tins will be available. She gave us 40-ct fabric. I really want to see if I can handle the 40-ct stuff.

Some more of my gifts took on a theme. Many of you may have figured out that I am a big Kansas State fan, these gifts followed that theme. A light similar to an Ott-Light with the KSU logo on it. Also, a KSU wallet/coin purse, KSU key chain(the purple had almost worn off the one I had), KSU stickers and address return labels. The black and white thing is a little suitcase-type box with wooden-like handle. I love these. The make wonder project totes for travel or back and forth to the shop with Anita's design models for approval.

Even with all that I have mentioned above, that does not include it all. There was also a recipe book that had recipes for foods served in all kinds of restaurants from Applebee's to Olive Garden to Margareitaville. Some wonderful sounding recipes. They are expecting me to test them out on the girls. Then there was a gift card to Barnes and Noble. Love that place. Forgive me sisters, if I have left off anything. It was not intentional. I feel so blessed to have these three as my stitching sisters. Thanks sisters for everything and for the fun times we have together.

For several weeks I have been talking about the secret stitching that I have been doing for Christmas. Now I can show you the results of my labors that I gave to Mary, Reina and Anita in the order that the designs appear.

My Needle and My Floss

by Waxing Moon

28-ct R&R Creek Bed Brown

Recommended Threads-GAST, Weeks and DMC

Liberty Sampler

by Lizzie Kate

28-ct R&R Creek Bed Brown

Recommended Thread-GAST & Weeks

The Sampler Sampler

by Brightneedle

28-ct R&R Creek Bed Brown

Recommended Thread-Anchor & DMC

On this last design I used 3 of the 9 motifs from the pattern. I pulled all the ones that had houses on them with the middle one that said "Home". They were all framed at our local frame shop, that always does a fantastic job. The Sampler Sampler I just picked up on my way to pick up lunch and then to the shop. Did not have time to wrap and we had previously had a discussion about putting it in a plain brown wrapper. So I used some of the shop's brown sacks and made wrapping paper for it.

This might be my last post before Christmas, so I would like to take this time to wish all my blogging friends a "Very Merry Christmas and a Happy Stitching New Year". Tomorrow I have to pick up 2 gift cards and a few groceries. Then home to make noodles, mashed potatoes and homemade ice cream to take to my sister's lake house for our family Christmas on Saturday. It is about a 4 hour drive away, then return home on Sunday. We will be at home on Christmas Day with just Morris and I and little Muffin in her crate. That just means more stitching time for me.

Merry Christmas to you all !!!!!!!

Stitch Therapy Christmas Party

I stitch with a group of gals at the LNS -The Sunflower Seed every Monday night. We all call it our therapy session. The size of the group varies from as few as 6 to as many as 12. When we have 12, we almost have to sit on top of each other.

It is our tradition to have some kind of Christmas party and it was held last night at the the shop. We had to postpone it from last week when we in the beginnings of a big ice and snow event. Therefore we were all anxious to get together and have our party. This year we ordered in pizza and Reina baked a dark chocolate cake. Mmmmm!!! Also several a variety of cookies and chocolates. Stitchers love their chocolate. There is a story behind the cake. She had baked and decorated cupcakes for us for last week when we had to cancel. They were decorated to look like reindeer. Her husband is a police officer so they got the cupcakes instead of us. Sorry we had to miss the reindeer, Reina.

Several years ago, the owner/designer at The Sunflower Seed, Anita, started a Friendship Series of Samplers. Most years she unveils the design at our Christmas party and gives a copy of the design to the person that is being honored that year. This year the honor went to our dear Joann. Anita names the sampler for the person using their maiden name. Here is Joann with the stitched design model for the "Joann Fleischer Sampler'. She was very surprised and pleased to be honored in this way. The sampler incorporates a lot of purple, Joann's favorite color.

We struggled trying to find out Joann's maiden name. Anita had the design done, but we did not have the name to put on it. So one night, she and I were both early to stitching and I just started talking to her about her family and steered the conversation to her mother and her name. Her mother had a rather unusual first name so I had her spell everything for me. Viola!!!, we had the name we needed. Anita was amazed at how I accomplished it. Joann even mentioned last night about how we even got the last name spelled correctly since it was always being spelled wrong. I reminded her of the time I got it from her I had her spell it for me. We did not want to spell it wrong on the pattern. Before we left for the evening, Joann had all the supplies to stitch her sampler.

Here is Anita with Joann. On the dedication on the pattern mentioned that Joann always had a smile on her face and a purple thread in her needle. We always know if we find a stray purple thread on the floor it belongs to Joann.
I have included a close up view of the sampler. This was one of my secret stitching designs I mentioned in previous posts. We made several changes as I stitched it, including totally redesigning the flowers. Purple is a favorite of mine too, so it was a fun stitch. Also, helped knowing who I was stitching it for. I knew that she would love it.

Joann Fleischer Sampler

28-ct Pink Whisper Linen

Thread Gatherer Silk 'n Colors

Crescent Colours Belle Soie

DMC

The design will become available at the Nashville Market in February.

We all had a fun evening together, but I am not sure how much stitching we got done. I heard a couple of people say, "I put in 6 stitches and promptly took those 6 stitches out". I know I had to do some ripping myself. The down side of things was that we will miss 2 weeks of stitching for the holidays coming up and The Sunflower Seed being closed between Christmas and New Years. We left saying we would see each other next year.

Update on Muffin. --- We made it through the night and all day with her crated up. She did fairly well until this evening. Then we decided she was hungry. Fed her and she seemed a little more satisfied. She is not used having to eat at specific times. Even though she does not eat all day, it is always available. So now when she has limited freedom, she will have to learn to eat when she is out of the crate. Only 5 weeks and 5 days to go. Ugh!!! Will we survive?

Off to put in a couple of stitches and then to bed.

Dog Health Issues

It has been a stressful day or two. As you know from previous posts, I have a 10 1/2 year old Boston Terrier Muffin. Here is photo taken a few months ago when things were green and not white and icy like they have been the last week or so.. After being out most of the day on Saturday, we came home and let her out of the crate she stays in whenever we are gone. I noticed that her left back leg was not working very good. Actually, part of the time it did not work or support her body. Thought maybe she had been laying wrong in her crate, but it did not get any better over the evening. Then on Sunday morning she was laying in the sun and I reached down to pet her on her back and she let out a very loud sharp yelp. Then I started getting concerned. This along with the leg problem bothered me. Almost decided to take her to the local emergency vet on Sunday. She also seemed to have problems going up and down stairs part of the time. Decided to just wait until morning and call our vet. Called 5 minutes after they opened this morning. The long time vet tech said bring her right in. We were the first ones that Dr. Connor saw this morning. He almost immediately knew what the problem was. He pulled her back legs out and said it appeared to be a back and spinal cord issue. Took several x-rays. With a dog her size it was like a full body x-ray. Very interesting to see the inside of your dog. One thing he was trying to rule out was a tumor.

In the end it appears that she has at least one and maybe 2-3 slipped discs in her back. We have no idea what she did that might have caused this to happen. She is a very active dog, playing and jumping, etc. So it could have happened any number of ways. He said when this happens the middle part of the disk is a jello like substance and as we age it turns to more like cottage cheese. This substance acts as shock absorbers for the vertebrae. Whatever she did caused the disks to move and some of the substance was pushed out and touched the spinal cord. The spinal cord does not like to have anything touching it. It then became inflamed. Over time the disk will heal itself with some fibrous substance kinda similar to when disks are fused on humans.

The treatment for her is some pain meds for a few days, some steroids for inflammation, some other meds for inflammation and to be confined in a very small crate for 6 weeks, 24 hours a day. She can only get out of the crate, 20 minutes at a time, 3 times a day. It has to be a small crate that she can only turn around in and basically lay straight and not move around in. She has always been crated when we leave, but beyond that she has the run of everything. I had to go out and buy a much smaller crate than she is used to. Basically is is for cats or dogs somewhat smaller than her. The first time I put her in it, was a struggle, but I managed. Then she has to stay in it while I am stitching, etc. and it breaks my heart because she does not understand why she has to be in there. The vet said this would be harder on us than on her. This is going to be a very long 6 weeks, especially since it broke my heart to put her in there the first time and I have to do that 2-3 times a day for 6 weeks. Morris just keeps telling me we have to do it or she will not recover and could become paralyzed. That would be harder to handle. So I guess I need to pull up my big girl panties and deal with it. LOL!!!

She goes back to see the vet in 10 days. Hope she will have made great progress and we can adapt her treatment.

Have some stitching news to post, but need to take some pictures and get some pictures from a friend that were taken tonight at our Monday night Stitch Therapy Christmas Party.

Off to put Muffin out before going to bed. It is not going to be the same without her there to keep me warm.

Decorated Tree

On Thursday we started getting snow, sleet and freezing rain. Now things are beginning to look more like Christmas. More of the stuff is predicted for Saturday, Sunday and possibly Monday. It will not be all the time, but off and on. Usually when they predict it, we don't get it or get very little. I am a big chicken about driving in or on it. So, if it does happen, most of the time you will find me at home curled up with my stitching.

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent decorating my Christmas tree. The tree is a little smaller than usual and I did not use near all of the ornaments that I have. These pictures are taken from each side because there is not enough room to get back far enough to get the entire tree in the picture. The first picture is looking off towards the entryway and the other is taken from the entryway back the other way. The unfortunate part of that one is that is shows my refrigerator with my magnet collection on it.

My ornaments range from Hallmark collectibles including lots of Mickey Mouse, Patriotic Santas and snowmen to handmade ornaments made by myself, my mother and Morris's mother. Also I buy an ornament almost every place I have ever traveled to.
Here is my favorite and most cherished Christmas decoration. It is a hardanger Christmas tree from Cross 'n Patch by Emie Bishop. There is quite a story behind this piece. I had seen it at several Cross Stitch Festivals and fell in love with it, but I don't do hardanger. I have tried and just cannot do anything beyond kloster blocks. This was stitched for me by one of my best friends, Sandi.
As she tells the story, it was in one of her weaker moments. We were having a local stitch-in overnighter at the Kansas Museum of History. (Those were such fun. We don't do them anymore.) I was late arriving at the stitch-in because I had attended the KSU-NU football game in the rain. Sandi is a NU graduate. KSU had lost. She said I looked so bedraggled, wet and cold when I arrived at the stitch-in she took pity and stitched the hardanger Christmas Tree for me. I bought all the supplies and by the following year's Christmas, I had this wonderful piece to display in my entryway. It always the first thing I put our at Christmas time. I will never be able to thank Sandi enough for stitching this piece for me. Later, she stitched it for a friend of mine, but has never stitched it for herself. I think I have bought her the supplies to do it for herself, but it has not gotten to the top of her list.

Along with the decorating of my tree, etc., I have been doing some stitching on Block 3 of my Village. Here is my progress. Not much, but I have also been stitching on a Sunflower Seed design model. There has been a flag added, the beginnings of the sign and background and the roof of City Hall. If I could I think that I would stitch on this all the time, it is so much fun. However, I think I would burn myself out on it if I stitched it exclusively. My adult attention deficit probably would kick in. LOL.

The project that I have been working on during my stitch therapy sessions at the Sunflower Seed is the Not Forgotten Farms-Giving Sisters. Sometimes the light is not right to see the Village with my cheaters, so I do something else. Cannot stitch on a design model with all my therapy mates around. Don't you just love the green face on this lovely witch?

Tuesday morning I took time out to do a little online stashing. Here in Kansas we have a company that does overdyeing of fabric. Picture This Plus is located in Junction City, Kansas and they have developed a dyeing process that allows the fabric to be colorfast. The Sunflower Seed has used a lot of this fabric in her designs. Therefore, I have stitched on a lot of it. When they have pieces that do not come out quite right they end up with what they call "orphans". A couple of years ago they sold orphans every Wednesday. Recently I found out from their Yahoo group that the orphans were back. They went on sale at 10:00AM Central Time on Tuesday on the Internet only. By some minor miracle, I remembered what day it was and signed on and adopted the following pieces.

They even name their orphans. The ones I adopted are named Hope, Miles, Gianni and Gisella. Not sure which is which in the picture. Two of the pieces look like about the same color until you open one up and it has several light to medium brown splotches to give it some character. Don't have any projects in mind just had to give these pieces a new home. It is my understanding that they will continue the adoption process with new orphans every Tuesday at 10:00AM central time until all the orphans are adopted. Usually there are about 40 pieces each week ranging from 14-ct Aida to 28-ct Cashel to 32-ct Belfast in plain and opalescence. There are also a few pieces of Lugana. Size is usually 18x26. Check it out you might find an orphan that calls to you.

Late this afternoon, I finally got my blog reading caught up. WOOHOO!!!! It has taken me almost 2 weeks to get my Google Reader caught up from being gone from the computer for a week. I hope to never go down that road again. Almost felt like I was drowning. About the time I thought I was getting the numbers down, then all my stitching friends would decide to post at the same time. LOL. I probably did not do as much commenting while catching up as I usually do. Sorry!! I will do better now that things are caught. Want to thank all those that visit and comment. It is always fun to hear from you.

WOW!! This one turned into a long one again. Sorry!! Off to bed with me. I am working at the Sunflower Seed tomorrow. Hopefully, the yucky weather doesn't get too bad.

Happy Stitching to All.

O Christmas Tree, Friends and Village Update

Working very hard at being in the Christmas mood. This morning was "hanging of the greens" at church, but I was ushering so really did not get to see much of what went on, other than the lighting of the tree, wreaths and garland. This this afternoon, on probably the coldest afternoon we have had so far, we went to a Christmas Tree farm about 8-10 miles from our house to pick and cut our tree. I think the temp was around freezing with a 20 mile an hour wind. BRRRR!!! Here is a photo of the tree farm.

The temp being what it was did not take me long to find a tree. Not the best we have ever had. We have been going to this place for several years. Had been reading in the newspaper that 6-7 foot trees were going to be in short supply this year. There had been a couple of years that they lost trees due to disease, drought and hot weather. We could tell they were a little short in that size. Here is a picture of the one that we picked out before the chain saw hit it.

Here the tree is in the corner of our dining room. Waiting for Morris to put the lights on and then I put the ornaments, etc. on it. Over the years I have collected ornaments from various places we have visited. Also, I am a Hallmark ornament collector. I have one small tote full of nothing but Mickey Mouse ornaments. If I wanted to be really ambitious I could make one tree with nothing but Mickey Mouse. I bet I don't even put half of the armaments that I have on the tree. Probably could do several themed trees. They look nice and I would enjoy them, but the problem is all the time it takes to put them up for a couple of weeks and then the time to take them down and box everything up again. I just sometimes rotate the ornaments that I put on the tree.

I have several Christmas cross stitch pieces to get out and we have an icicle and snowflake arrangement that we hang in the front picture window. Will have more pictures when everything gets done.

Yesterday I had the most wonderful day. I spent it with 5 of my long time friends from college in a neighboring city. We have been attempting to have little mini-reunions over the last couple of years. Of those that we have been trying to get together, at least 2 were missing. One met with us last time, and the other has not made it yet, but we expect her to sometime soon. We all lived together in a scholarship house of 64 at Kansas State more years ago than any of us want to admit. Basically, the group us were together from 2 -4 years. One left after 2 years to finish up her nursing degree at another university.

Of the 6 of us, 4 are retired and 2 of them have gone back to work. One does long-term substitute teaching and the other one does contract work for a consulting firm that works for her former employer. One of the other recent retirees is planning to babysit her new grandson and then there is me. You all know what I do-------CROSS STITCH!!!!!!!!! The two that are still working are an elementary school principal and an assistant US Attorney. It was so great to spend time with everyone. We were never at a lose for words.

The reason we picked this date and city was they were having an Old Fashioned Christmas parade where all the entrants had be horses and horse drawn wagons and such. Nothing motorized. It lasted about an hour with 80 entrants. It was lots of fun. I did not get any pictures because it was raining and we found a place to watch the parade from inside. After walking around the downtown area before the parade, we found a little restaurant/coffee shop to stop in. Found a little counter-type area at the front that looked out on the parade route so we just pulled up chairs and our cappuccinos and lattes and watched the parade. That was only the beginning of our restaurant tour. After the parade was over, stopped in a shop that someone needed to pick a Christmas present in and dropped it and our rain gear by the car and went to a small art show in the local arts center. Right across the street from the arts center was a little restaurant with made to order wraps, salads and Philly Sandwiches. So guess where we had lunch. We were waiting on a call from one person. She called as we were starting lunch and she was on her way to meet us. We waited on her, which was not a problem. Gave us more time to visit. Then we talked some more while she ate her lunch when she got there. After about 2 hours for lunch, we moved on to a little ice cream shop that makes their ice cream right there with many, many flavors. Let's see, I think we had Snickers, Kansas Twister, Cappuccino Chip. Those are the ones that I can remember.

Again, we had lots of time to talk. We spent another hour there. One had to go rescue her husband that was watching the new grandson, so we took her to her car. We went into our hostess's home and looked at her pictures of her recent trip to Italy. One other of us had been to some of the same places and her and husband are taking some college students to that same area this spring. Then around 8 we decide we needed to do dinner, so off to an Italian restaurant close by. Time to eat again. We sort of blamed all the eating on to one of the gals because when we lived in the scholarship house she was kitchen manager at least one semester. Don't you like our logic.

Way too soon it was time to say good bye, but with big plans to meet again. Plans were made to meet again in early summer to attend "Symphony in the Flint Hills". It is an event that has been held twice now and sold out where the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra does an open air concert in the wide open spaces of the Kansas Flint Hills. In 2008, it will be in the county where one of the group lives. From what we all have heard it is an event not to be missed. I did look up last night after I got home to see what the date is. It is to be held June 14, 2008, so I will be letting everyone know. I know everyone is looking forward to us getting together again. We had such a great time getting caught up with everyone and say "do you remember this person or when we did this?", which was usually followed with a great deal of laughter. When we lived together we always had a great time and our time together yesterday was no different.

Since I was gone all day yesterday, there has not been a great deal of stitching progress done on any one thing. I have stitched on the Sunflower Seed design model, my Giving Sisters from Notforgotten Farms and I did start Block 3 of Village of Hawk Run Hollow. I tried to wait until Friday night or December 1st, but just could not do that. When I realized I probably would not get much stitching done on the lst because of going to the reunion, I started some on the border on Thursday night. Below is my progress as of an hour or so ago. It is a little difficult to see. I was working all on one side and I also did not press it very good from where I had it rolled on the outside edge when I was working on the other blocks. Not much planned for the coming week. Need to spend time decorating my tree and the rest of the house. There still is Christmas shopping to do. Also, this morning the filling in my tooth that was going to be repaired in a couple of weeks fell out. So will need to call the dentist tomorrow. They may need to work me in sooner. In talking to my niece about our family Christmas, I ended up volunteering to bring noodles and mashed potatoes for our dinner. That means I need to make more noodles. Morris wants me to make sugar cookies for his barber. They are his favorite. Now I have listed several things that I can do this week. Of course, there will always be too much cross stitch that needs to be done. Friday night is one of the few Christmas dinner that we attend. That should be fun.

Oh, and I am still trying to get caught up on the blog reading. I have been averaging almost 25 read per day out of my Google reader and I cannot get caught up. Many of you are getting comments on blogs that are several day old. Hope you don't mind. That does not even include the blogs that I just have bookmarked and are not in my Google Reader. Man you people are busy, busy.

Well, it is off to finish up a couple of things and then off to bed. I try to keep my night owlness under control. Sometimes I think I could stay up most of the night and then sleep during the day, but that does work very well to interact with people that aren't night owls. LOL!!