Looking Back and Looking Forward

Since it is New Year's Eve I decided to take a look back at the To Do's/To Do Not's (first entry at bottom of the page) from last year. I am actually impressed with how many of the things on that list I was able to accomplish. I made Clapotis (May 6th entry), I go to knit night pretty much every week, I cook at home a lot more often, I have put some money away in my savings and my 401K along with a few others. I think I have made many positive changes in 2006 and I am hoping to make even more in 2007. Without further ado we now have .......

Kristy's 2007 To Do and To Do Not Lists

Personal To Do's
1) Put even more money into savings each month
2) Figure out what I want to be when I grow up and work towards making it happen
3) Pay off those damn credit cards
4) Either buy a house or find a bigger apartment once our lease ends in September
5) Bite the bullet and get pregnant already!
6) Remember that just because someone chooses to be miserable you do not have to let that effect you
7) Get new contacts because the ones I have are older than dirt
8) Continue to drink more tea and water
9) Remember that my job is just my way of paying the bills and does not define me
10) Become much better about cleaning the house - begin working on the closet of doom ASAP

Knitting To Do's
1) Join the KAL and learn socks
2) Make poor Jerry's hat that has been languishing for almost a year
3) Do a knitting project for charity at least once a quarter
4) Make a sweater for myself
5) Finish projects faster than my current rate of once every 6 months (except dishcloths of course)
6) Make Birch
7) Continue to not buy yarn if I have no idea what I am going to do with it

To Do Not's
1) Do not compare myself to other people because they rarely have it as together as I think they do
2) Do not allow your boss to ruin your day/week/month/year
3) Do not buy stuff out of the machines at work
4) Do not allow work to pile up (if you can help it)
5) Do not waste money on stupid things you do not need

Well I will try my best to stick by these. Jerry and I are off later to my brother and SIL's house for their annual party. We will stay at my dad's and have our traditional New Years Day quiche (Yum-o!) tomorrow. I hope you all have a safe evening and a happy 2007. Until next time ....

Presents, Presents, Presents

I hope everybody out there who celebrates Christmas got everything they wanted. I did not get everything on my list but I did get quite a bit. I did not receive much knitting stuff this year but I am still happy with my haul. I got several novels (The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, An Innocent Man by John Grishom and After This by Alice McDermott) that I can not wait to start reading and the Rachael Ray Express Lane Meals cookbook. I also got several CDs - the new Keith Urban, Tim McGraw's Greatest Hits Vol 2, Reba McEntire's #1s and Josh Groban's new one. I also got the Talladega Nights DVD, new sheets, a Peanuts desk calendar, some heat proof spatulas, a Steve Yzerman tribute book and new pjs. However, the only knitting gifts I received were the best. My hubby actually went into a yarn store (Have You Any Wool if you're curious) and ordered me a ball and and swift. I can not wait to bust it out and start winding but that may have to wait until the weekend. At least I only have to work two days this week so I am hoping to get my fuzzy foot finished and felt the pair. I hope you all are having a great time with your new toys. Until next time ....

Merry Holiday of your choice

Just a quick note before we leave to wish everyone a happy holiday of their choice. We will be leaving a little later this afternoon to go to my dad's house for Christmas eve and morning. I do have a finished dishcloth for you before I go.

This is the December Mid Month dishcloth KAL. It was a nice lace pattern that was fairly easy. I only screwed it up a couple of time at knit night when I was talking to much and not paying enough attention.




Well I better go. Hubby is cleaning because his parents are coming over tomorrow and I should probably help him. I wish you peace, love, good food and great gifts this holiday season. Until next time ....

Knitting .... There's Suppose to be Knitting?

So you should be clued in by the title that there is no knitting to be seen here. I will be filling this blog entry with the following holiday meme fluff since I am so excited my shopping is done and the cookies are baked! I have seen this several places but I can not remember most of them right now. I remember it at Needleplay so I am giving her all the credit.

1. Eggnog or hot chocolate? Both

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? He wraps - if they are to big to wrap they go in bags (even it it takes 2 taped together to cover it)

3. Fake tree or real? I would love to have a real one but our lease prohibits it so it is fake for us. My family always had a real tree when I was growing up though.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? Nope

5. When do you put up your decorations? The first weekend in December

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Cookies!

7. Favorite Christmas memory as a child? Waking everyone up at 6am to open presents.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? What are you talking about? Santa's real!

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas eve? Nope. We did open my grandparents gifts on Christmas Even when I was a real little kid before they moved in with us. I think my parents did that because Christmas morning was always about 3-4 hours of opening and they did not want to sit there any longer than necessary. Of course after they moved in with us it would be 4-5 hours of opening. My family goes way overboard!

10. How do you decorate your tree? White lights and the hodge podge of ornaments we have collected in the last 3 years.

11. Snow! Love it or dread it? I would be happy if it snowed only on Christmas Eve and day and never snowed again the rest of the winter.

12. Can you ice skate? Oh hell no!

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? When I was 3 I got a stretchy Incredible Hulk doll that I loved until he ripped and goo started oozing out of him.

14. What's the most important thing about Christmas to you? Being with my family

15. What is your favorite holiday desert? Cookies!

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? We go to my dad's house on Christmas eve and go to church with my family. Afterwards we go to his house and have snacks. Then we get up on Christmas morning and open gifts. After the gifts are opened we have Pannu Kakku (Finnish pancakes) before we open our stockings.

17. What tops your tree? An angel

18. What do you prefer, giving or receiving? I love giving and watching people open my gifts.

19. What is your favorite Christmas song? My favorite religious song is O Holy Night. My favorite non-religous song is Blue Christmas but only the Elvis version.

20. Do you like candy canes? Traditional red and white ones only please.

I am adding a question because I want to

21. What is your favorite Chirstmas special or movie? My all-time favorite is the original animated How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I also love Rudolph, Frosty, Christmas Vacation and A Christmas Story.

Maybe there will be knitting in my next post. Umtil next time ....

Upgrade and a FO

So I have upgraded to the new and improved version of Blogger. The cool thing about this is the cool little labels you can use to categorize each post. I love filing and organizing stuff so this is right up my alley. I have already labeled everything in my other blogs because they were pretty easy. However, labeling everything on this blog is going to be harder since I have to go into every post and read them to know what I wrote about. I will keep plugging away at it though and eventually everything will be nice and neat in its own categories.


I also have a FO to show off. This is the December KAL. If you can't tell it is a rocking horse. The details are located here.






Finally, the Winter Knitty is up and there are a couple of cute things I like in there. I like calorimentry, argosy, rolling thunder, venezia and brown bag. Some of these will be on my to knit list. Now i am going to grab my Irish Hiking scarf, a cup of cocoa and watch the special 2 hour Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Until next time ....

No knitting but here's a meme

So since I have no knitting to show you (but maybe another completed dishcloth on Thursday - yipee!)here is a meme. I saw this over at Sherry's blog and thought it was interesting. So here I present the list of celebrities - male and female - I think are hot.

- Antonio Banderas (even with the being married to Melanie Griffith thing)
- Colin Farrell (gotta love those bad boys)
- Taye Diggs
- Jennifer Aniston (I love her nose)
- Jamie Foxx (why does blogger spellcheck want to change this to Jaime?)
- Heath Ledger
- Jensen Ackles (Dean on CW's Supernatural)
- Josh Lucas
- Reese Witherspoon
- Matthew Fox (especially all hot and sweaty on Lost)
- Nicole Kidman (us pasty white girls have to stick together)
- Keith Urban (Nicole is so lucky)
- David Beckam
- Tim McGraw
- Will Smith

There are also several people I could put on a "Celebrities Everyone Else Thinks Are Hot but I don't Get it" list but I will leave you with two.

- Angelina Jolie (she is just plain skanky and weird!)
- Johnny Depp (he just seems so dirty to me)

Feel free to answer - I would be interested to see what other people think. Until next time ....

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I will apologize up front to all of you on dial up because there are a ton of pictures in this post. So I put up our Christmas decorations this afternoon and I am very happy with them. Here are a few pictures.


Here is our tree. It's a fake one but I still like it. It fits perfectly in front of out window. I also love the fact that I got it last year at Wal-Mart for $20! Most of our ornaments came from the Salvation Army but there are three that have a special place in my heart.








This ornament is very special because it was the first one we received together. My family all went to Florida the week after our wedding and my dad bought this for us there. It is a groom Mickey and bride Minnie and says Just Married.



This is the cruise ship we took our honeymoon on. It was the Carnival Imagination. I bought this and Jerry thought I was crazy but it is a nice memory to have.






This is one from my childhood. My mom got this for me. It has my name on one side and the year (1984 - I was 8 years old) on the other side.







This is the collection of snowmen, a bear and the Grinch that sits on top of our secretary.








This is our Red Wings snowman and his tree. My dad's fiance bought this for us last year for Christmas. I think it says a lot about how far I have come personally that I have put our something she bought me!


Finally one of my favorite decorations. My Nonnie made me this ceramic manger set before she had her stroke. She also made a church for me but that is still at my dad's house.



Finally I have been doing some knitting. Here is my completed mid November KAL. As always the details are located here. So that's all I have for now. Until next time ....