Not What I Pictured

Sorry I’ve been quiet, but there hasn’t been much to say.

I was so excited to have two weeks off and to have my mom visiting for one of those weeks. I should have known not to get excited!!!

It has been either snowing or -15 for the past two weeks. My mom and I couldn’t even do anything fun:(. She couldn’t even come over to my house and just hang out:(. What a waste of a holiday!

It has led to a lot of crafting time and I will be going into the new year with a lot less projects.

3 project bags were made- two were gifted to the ladies I knit with and I kept one. I really love the fabric that it is made of!

2 advent cowls were completed with my Wool Interrupted advent calendar. I really wasn’t sure about this calendar and yet it turned out to be my favourite. I love how it created a rainbow so the colours go together. I am finding the advent calendars that seem completely random to be difficult to knit up. I have enough yarn leftover that both of my sisters in law will get a cowl for their birthdays this year, though I think I’ll leave the white stripes out.

A cowl that I am not super happy with, but that will go into the gift basket. I just don’t love how it fits on me. I like them more drapey than this!

I redid my nephew’s Musselburgh hat for his Christmas present and hope that I now have it the right size. After knitting this toque three times, I’m done with it!

My oldest nephew has requested a scarf in his school colours. He went to the store and picked the yarn with me and he was amazed when he had a scarf for Christmas less than a week later. I didn’t enlighten him that with worsted weight yarn, it really doesn’t take long to finish a simple scarf!

The final project that had to be knitted got finished today. This is an Afghan for my close friend. It is meant to be her housewarming, birthday and Christmas presents. It was super simple to make, but absolutely ate yarn!

This was the end of my gift knitting and I have to admit I’m sitting here happily imagining all the things I am going to knit for me😀

I will have one more big finish to show for this holiday, but it won’t be done until tomorrow.

There you have my holiday!

Have fun!

AJ

SAL Update

Wow three weeks can go quickly! At least I once again feel like I have made visible progress on this project. I’m not sure if I will be done by the end of the year, but I will certainly be close. I definitely won’t be done the back stitching so that doesn’t even count!

Here’s where I was last time:

And here is where I am this time:

The pattern in the hoop is seriously messed up. There are so many mistakes it probably doesn’t even look like it should, but oh well is my attitude towards this right now. I know that there are also mistakes towards the left side under the hoop so I think I’ll start with the right side where it was all correct and work my way left.

Here’s hoping I get lots of stitching time!!

Oh and just to share another type of stitching I did today:

Make sure you check out everyone else’s progress. There are many remarkable projects and stitchers in this group!

Avis, Claire, Gun, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, AJ, Cathie, Linda, Helen

Vacation Day 1

I had all these plans for my day, but nothing went as planned.

It was pouring rain so I had no ambition to go running since my running buddy is out of commission.

I decided to head to Michaels to get more yarn for my friend’s afghan, but though they said they had some, they didn’t:(. The store also didn’t have any pompoms or even pompom makers:(

I went into Pomme instead and spent way too much money. I was looking for some appetizers, but didn’t find any:( I guess I’ll have to add those to my list to make over the holidays.

The best part of my day was when my nephew texted me to go for lunch. I grabbed him and we went to Red Robin. I had the Tuscan salmon burger with fries and it was wonderful! I rarely get to have fries so this was a nice treat.

We then carried along to two different ice cream stores to get the ice cream for Christmas dinner. I spent way too much on ice cream and now really want to try making eggnog ice cream!

We also stopped at Michaels on the way home so I could get some red, white and black yarn to make G a scarf for Christmas. I’m glad he finally wanted something!

I came home and made myself go for a run! I really didn’t want to and probably shouldn’t have gone as running on burger and ice cream didn’t feel very good:(. It got done though!

I finally got my advent knitting done. I have been opening and knitting the advent from Wool Interrupted into the Land of Sweets cowl. I didn’t realize until today that I had opened and knit the wrong day yesterday so today I had to take yesterday’s knitting out and redo it with today’s. I am finally caught up.

I really need to get going on sewing a bag for my friend. I’d better get off the couch and get going.

Have fun!

AJ

quiet Quiet Quiet

It’s been a quiet week!

Saturday I went for lunch with two of my oldest friends and then to the park so the boys could play. It was great to catch up!

Sunday I went for a walk and then was home knitting. It was a very quiet birthday for me. Usually it’s the difference between my expectations and reality that give me trouble, but this year I didn’t mind the quietness of the day. Perhaps too quiet for a birthday, but rather quiet over crazy!

The most exciting thing about Monday was that my principal provided treats for the staff meeting and she actually found chips and chocolate I could eat. It was great to not have to watch others eat. The treats also made the meeting more bearable. I did a workout when I got home to make up for all those treats.

Tuesday we got almost everyone done their parent Christmas card. my running buddy cancelled so I did another Nourish Move Love workout.

Hopefully this quietness continues- as I’d rather have quiet than drama!

Have fun!

AJ

A Moment

It has been a crazy busy day!

It started off great with opening my advent calendars. We won’t talk about how many yarn advent calendars I have🤣

It continued to be great when my behavior student was away- the tension in the room instantly melts away! It was also a lovely morning as we started the day making cards for seniors with our buddies. My students love their buddies!!

My lunch break was improved By my tea advent calendar. I splurged and shared a bird and blend tea advent with my teaching buddy. It was super expensive but the first two days have been wonderful- Christmas cranberry pie and mulled cider.

I got my report card final changes made during my prep. We finished the book Stuart Little and so began watching the movie with our lunch and ended the day doing gym with the other grade 1/2 class.

The best moment came after school though! I had Bookclub with the grade 3/4/5 students. We had 22 kids show up today which was wonderful! As we went around the circle letting kids give their opinion of the book, one kid I taught in grade one (I’ve taught 90% of these kids at some point) said that he remembered my talking about how when I read a book, I see it like a movie in my head and that’s what the book was like for him. Awww a kid actually remembered something I said!!! It was such a great moment as most of the time it feels like the kids forget all about grade one and two when they get to higher grades.

After that I dropped some books off that I had sold, went for a short run (finally!), had my eyebrows and eyelashes dyed and picked up groceries.

I finally got my advent knitting done. I am only knitting using one yarn calendar right now. I am knitting the Land of Sweets cowl with my Wool Interrupted advent, however, I am knitting two of them concurrently- one for me and one for my mom. Even with knitting two, I still have yarn left over🙄

I’m going to need to come up with another plan, but right now, I need sleep.

Have fun!

AJ