21st Birthday Party

Today is my very good friend's 21st birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Here's how the evening is going to unfold (well, as far I know at this point). She is having a bunch of friends over for a catered dinner from a WONDERFUL restaurant around here. YUMMY!!!!! Then folks who are not 21 years of age are heading home while a caravan of us who are older than 21 are headed out to the bars. I know we are going out to ride a mechanical bull. She is so excited about that part of the night. I told her I would do it, but public humiliation is not something that I get too excited about. Here's what one looks like:

I don't know about that part of the night! I was going to wear a skirt out, but if I'm going on that, hummm... not a good idea. I do know that after that we are going DANCING!!!! My favorite part! I LOVE dancing but I'm not a good dancer, but I don't care! I know that we are going out most of the night and I plan on dancing for most of it. I know she wants to drink because it's her 21st, but I'll only have 1 or 2 and I'm done. It should be a good time. I plan to take my camera so if I do ride the bull we can capture that Kodak moment forever. Awwwwwwwwww...

Good Book

Well I got distracted by a great book today instead of knitting all day. I got this book at the outlet mall and I loved it! I read the first two chapters last night and then I read the rest of it today. It's a great love story about a high school girl who falls in love with a vampire. It was great! I also sat around in read in my new bunny slippers that I got at the oulet too! Aren't they cute??

Catching Up!

I know that I have about 5 knitting projects going right now. I am trying today to work on one that I had started in October but put aside for Christmas knitting. Now that Christmas is over, I can get back to some of the things I had started. Today I picked up my poncho that I have one half done. I had started the other half, but never quite made all of it. There was a major mistake in it, so the half I had started had to come out. Oh well, I am already back to where I was on it, so maybe I can get it done before my vacation is over. I also have a sock to finish, a scarf that is almost done, a shawl, and a hat to do before I can say I am all caught up! Here is the poncho that I'm working on today!

Amazing Christmas

My hubby and I drove home to our hometown on Christmas Eve (in the daytime). There was no snow and it was kind of warm for this time of year. We packed up all the gifts for our families and headed to my parents' home. My brother was there too. It was really nice to have a quiet dinner together. My mom made ham and sweet potatoes. Everything was so good. After dinner my mom, my brother and me went off to church for Christmas service. We use to all sing "Joy to the World" as the last song of service with lit candles. Not anymore... the new sanctuary has some high tech fire alarm system and just blowing out a match will set it off (they found that out the first week the new part was open!). Imagine 500 people blowing out candles at the same time! My hubby went to visit his parents while we were at church. After we came home my brother went out to a party and mom, hubby and I sat playing UNO until about 11 pm. The next morning we all got up and opened gifts. Here is my parents Christmas tree before we opened all the gifts. On Christmas day after we opened gifts at my 'rents house we drove across town to open gifts at Hubby's 'rents house. I was shocked to see that they got my the vaccum I had mentioned over the summer that "someday" I would like it. I got it for Christmas from my wonderful in-laws.
It was great to share Christmas day with both families and then after our second gift giving time, both families came together for Christmas dinner at his parents house. It was a nice time to get together with family. Lots of EATING and DRINKING was had by all!
The next day, mom and I went shopping! I found some great deals on perfumes and lotions. Mom got some too. After shopping, Hubby and I went out to lunch with his dad and then drove home. He had to work.
Yesterday, I went shopping again with my friend and her sister at an outlet mall. I think my hubby has cut me off from shopping for a while. All the Christmas stuff was on sale up to 75% off!!! How could I resist??? Oh well, it was a great holiday! ^_^

VACATION!

Done with school! Done with school! Done with school! See, teachers love vacation just as much as the students, maybe more! In class yesterday, we just had fun! All the other teachers in the building were showing movies, but since I'm there in the afternoons all the VCRs and TVs were signed out! I had them play M.A.S.H. My kiddos really love fortune telling so they loved this game. The class time surprisingly went really fast!
Last night was our last dance class of the year! It was really fun and fast moving. We were bouncing around with our zills and trying to move and zill is harder than it looks!!! I have a hard time with it, but it was fun anyway! After class my friend and I were going to hang out. I had told her a while ago that I wanted to get my left ear pierced again. She had e-mailed me on Wednesday asking if we were going to go after class. I was going to wuss out last night but then she surprised me by telling me that if I was on the fence that she was thinking of getting pierced too. She said that she wanted to get pierced since July, but she hadn't said anything about it to me. I was trying to guess what she wanted done, but she wouldn't tell me at first.
Well, after class off we went to check out the place that her friend had recommended for piercings. It was a cool shop and there were pictures of all kinds of people who got all kinds of piercings. So, the guy asked what we wanted and she told him she wanted her...... nipple done. OUCH! She has been researching it since July and she knew what she wanted. This was the first time I knew about it and so she picked out her ring and I held her hand. She is so happy about it and I admit it looks really cool. I, however, will not be getting that done. I got my left tragus pierced. I had the right one done about a year ago, so it was time to get the left done. I'm very happy with it and this guy is amazing! Much, much, much better than the place we went last year!
After our self inflicted flesh wounds, we went out for food at our favorite dinner. Yummy! Then we headed over to her house to exchange Christmas gifts. I gave her lotions (yeah for Victoria's Secret) and she gave me a knifty knitter. It's so sweet and I can't wait to try it out!
Yeah for VACATION!!!!!!!

Knitting Masters

I taught my students to knit and it was successful! They are learning to knit a hat. One of them had knit before, so that was very helpful. One of them was slow to get it the hang of holding the needles, but once she got it she took off! It was very fun and it was a great language activity. They definitely had lots of chances to use natural language today! All in all, I would teach my class to knit again!

Must Have Lost My Mind

Two teaching days left before Christmas and I think I have lost my mind! I have been working on a restaurant unit with my students and tomorrow I was going to have them make an appetizer in class. However, my co-worker and my students have been begging me to teach them to knit. I swore I wouldn't give in.... I did. Tomorrow we are scrapping my restaurant unit for knitting time. It is something that they can use and it is a whole language rich activity. I do see a lot of value in teaching them this. I hope that they love it as much as I do. I think it could also help them make friends with the after-school student knitting club. I am trying to get them involved in a whole slew of activities so that they have lots of chances to use their English skills.
Then as I was driving home I hear Christmas music that had an accordion in it. I thought to my self "wow, it would be cool to learn to play the squeeze box." My grandfather did. Then I thought "I already have too many projects to do, so I can't take on another new hobby now." I guess it's part of my nature as I am a Sagittarius.

The Amazing Spinning Guild Meetings

Yesterday was my second guild meeting. I cannot say enough nice things about the members!! I took my drop spindle with me to show off my very small progress. My friend that I learned wheel with brought two wheels with her so I could spin on one yesterday. Then, the woman who taught me drop spindle brought me one of her personal spindles to borrow and try out for the next month!!! As if that wasn't exciting enough for me, my spinning wheel friend invited me over to her home after the meeting to borrow her small wheel. I love how friendly this group is. It's nice to go and know that everyone there is so helpful and nice. It's very exciting for me to learn a craft that is thousands of years old and have the kind of support that these guild meetings provide!
Yesterday they did their Christmas fiber exchange. I don't have any fibers to exchange, so I just watched. Maybe next year I can get in on that. However, people gave me fibers to try on my borrowed wheel! I also had to buy a pair of fingerless gloves that are half angora (bunny fur!) and half alpaca. They are sooooo nice and warm! Being that they are fingerless I can wear them and still knit with them on! Here's a photo of the gloves:


Here is the small wheel that I have on loan from my friend:

Finally, here are the fibers that were given to me to try:

Finished Felt Bag!

I did it! I made my first felted project! I'm pretty proud of how it came out. Here's how it looked when I started knitting it:

Here's how it looked after I sewed it all together:

And finally, here's how it looks now that it's been felted and the handles have been sewed on!

Bad Day

I feel really crappy today. I'm not going to belly dance tonight, I'm just going to chill at home. I couldn't sleep last night, so I think that has a lot to do with my mood today. At knitting club last night they found out that I have put in my 30 days to work. I found a new job and I am very very excited about it! I can't wait to start but my boss now is going to hold me to the 30 days. Oh well. I happy that it's Friday. I almost never order out for dinner but due to my mood today, I did. Yummy chicken wings for me! After I eat, I think I'll play some Final Fantasy and then some Dance Dance Revolution. My hubby got me DDR Supernova for my birthday last week. I've only played it once, so skipping class tonight and do DDR I think will still count as a work out. Besides, dance class is only 1 hour, I can play DDR for several hours! I already feel better thinking about DDR! ^_^

My Felting Mess

So after ripping all the stitches out of the bag I was making I noticed that in my zeal to rip out I accidentally cut some of the knitting too! SHOOT! Now as I sew it back together I have to make sure that I sew the cut stitches or the whole thing is going to come undone! I don't know if I would make this bag again, it will all depend on the finished product! Here's how it looks right now. The sides are stitched back on to the bottom and I was going to sew the back onto the bottom when I took the pict. It looks like some kind of monster right now!
Of course this is the last thing in the world that I should be working on right now. I have to wrap my Christmas gifts, send gifts to my friends in Japan, clean my house, and prepare for this week's lessons. Oh well, the other things will get done soon enough (I hope!!!) ^_^

Felting

Today I went back to work on the bag that I was going to felt forever and a day ago. I stopped working on it as I sewed it together wrong and that would mean ripping it all out. Several months later, I finally ripped it out and started to restitch it. I took all the ripped out stitches and felted them into a ball in my bathroom sink. Here's what it looks like so far: I just made it so, it's a little wet and it has to dry. When I finish the bag I'll put this on it as decoration. ^_^

Spinning!

I did it!!! I tried a spinning wheel today! It was everything that I thought it would be! I had a great time tonight! ^_^ At first I had to show my skills on the drop spindle, and then my friend explained the differences between fibers. She's a weaver and a spinner. It was really amazing! She set me up on her Lendum wheel, which was great. The she had me try her Louret. I didn't care for the feel of that wheel at all. The first wheel I tried I totally loved! I was so happy to learn and today at school was great! ^_^

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

Today I spent the whole day cleaning my house up so I could get my Christmas stuff out. Normally, we wait to put the tree up after my birthday (this coming week), however, I felt the need to put it up today. First thing I did was clean the beams off. Here is how they look all year.

I have a tin can collection on the one side and a bottle collection on the other side of the room. For Christmas my tins come down and my nutcrackers go up. It's become a tradition in my family that I get one nutcracker a year. My mom started it about 12 years go now. I have only 10 in the picture... it took me a while to find number 11. After that ( yes, it took a while!) I had to get the spot for our tree ready. Here's the corner where it will go before I cleaned it. Here's the tree in it's box. This is the first year we have used this tree.

Here the tree standing. I just finished trimming it, but this pict I took before I trimmed it! Looks pretty good!

Diamonds

Last night I finished the diamond shawl I had been working on. It was a bit of a bear at the end! I had to pull out the last three rows 3 or 4 times. I bound it off last night but since I was at dance class and had no scissors, the final stitch fell off the needle and started to come apart. I fixed it after a fit of anger at it. I did this one on round needles, so I tied my needles in a knot to hold the final stitch until I could get home and cut the yarn and bind it off all the way.