It has been really cold here. Hasn’t been above freezing in days and seems to hover around 20 degrees F, which means it takes a lot of effort (attention and frequent thawing) to keep the hummingbirds fed and happy.

Shortly before this big freeze, the pump on my goldfish pond stopped working, so there’s been a solid sheet of ice on it for days. I can see something reflective that looks like it’s laying on the bottom of the pond. I’m hoping it’s not a casualty, but I can’t imagine what else it would be. That makes me sad. I wonder who it is.

I’ve had somewhere to be every day this week, (which makes me grumpy), so we’ve had to go out and brave the weather. This has given me an excellent opportunity to use the lovely blanket Carol crocheted for Max. Isn’t it cool?

Despite the weather, I haven’t been cold. Everyone else I’ve talked to is freezing their tails off, so I feel like a bit of a freak.

Nate and I are celebrating our 16th wedding anniversary today. I love seeing the years pass by. Life gets so much better with age. It’s bittersweet with the kids because they’re passing through ages and stages they’ll never be in again, and though it’s great to see them grow into fine young people, there’s a sense of loss for their “little-ness” as well. Fortunately, marriage is the opposite. I wouldn’t go back to the “young married” days for nuthin’! They were certainly great in their own way, and we were happy.

But this is so much better.

Happy anniversary, love! Being a deadline day, I hope you’re able to come home tonight.

I am half way done with the last bar on the Log Cabin quilt. My mother-in-law’s next chemo session is tomorrow, and I was really hoping to have it done by then but this week has been SO busy! Running errands takes a phenomenal amount of time. There’s a reason I don’t make a habit of it, I’d never get anything done! So, I’m still aiming to have the blanket done by tomorrow afternoon, but it won’t be blocked ’til later.

It doesn’t lay completely flat without a little coaxing. It’s not bad, but if I were to do it again, I’d pick up 9 stitches along the short side of the perpendicular bars instead of 8.

I couldn’t come up with one.

Last night, the girls decorated Grandma’s christmas tree. It’s become a tradition that we all love. I guess I should say the kids decorated her tree, as Clark participates now, too. It started out being just the girls, when they were quite little. They usually do it while Nate and I are out for our anniversary, but things got switched around a bit this year, so Nate and I were there and I was able to take pictures and play Christmas songs on my guitar.

In that last picture, you can see a little of Abby’s brioche hat. Here’s another shot that my internet shy friend took at school last week.

Our tree is up, but not decorated yet.

My list of things to do is humungous. I’m chipping away at it. Don’t know when we’ll get to the tree. Max doesn’t want me to do anything but hold him today.

This is a picture I took of Clark yesterday when he was supposed to be napping.

He has a screwdriver and a 2 inch screw that he’s drilling into the wall. I should probably have been upset, but I was really amused.

My house is messy, and I haven’t been able to do much beyond dishes. It’s driving me crazy. My brain doesn’t work when things are this cluttered. Yesterday, I left the house at 11:45 and didn’t stop running around, in and out, here and there, ’til 8:45 at night. Bah! My poor little baby. Both the boys tolerated it beautifully, but still.

This morning after taking the girls to school, I have to run to the store (in my pajamas, I’ll tell you) for diapers. Then I can come home for half an hour or so before having to go back to school for Veronica’s play performance. (Hopefully, I’ll be dressed by then, but I’m not counting on it). THEN, I’m coming home and so help me, I’m not leaving again unless it catches FIRE!

I want to get things straightened up around here so we can spend the weekend decorating for Christmas. I don’t know how that’s going to be possible at this point, with the whole week shot.

I finished the brioche hat for Abby a couple days ago. I wanted to take a picture, but didn’t get to before she was off to band this morning. I haven’t touched the Log Cabin in days. I was able to spend an hour from 10-11 pm last night relaxing with my guitar. That was nice. I was playing “Last Christmas” by Wham. It’s an easy song to play, but I don’t know the verses really well yet. The Christmas Song is another story. I can sing the whole thing, of course, but It’s pretty much all barre chords. The weird ones. Major 7s, Major 6s, 13ths…

I’m still bemoaning the fact that despite my goal every day this week to get things cleaned up, it’s Friday and I’m surrounded by mess.

Talk about feeling powerless.

Right now, Clark is throwing a bit of a tantrum in his room. He’s been at it for 20 minutes or so. Know why? Because Nate told him he couldn’t have the pen I was using to write my grocery list with this morning. I’m hearing “I WANNA PEN!!!!” over and over again. I have gone in and said, “If you want a pen, come out and get one.”

It’s had no effect.

The brioche decreases, as I suspected, aren’t as difficult as they look written out. But I find that’s true for most things.

I don’t think these are written particularly well, which may mean that I’m doing them wrong but it’s working out anyway. Whatever the case may be, I’m getting a good result, and I think I understand the concept well enough to adapt it to the hat I intend to design for my mother-in-law.

Here’s an amusing picture that clearly shows how long it took me to figure out how to do the transition from round to round.

Liv had an orchestra concert last night. She got to play the triangle in one of the songs. Bad mom, when I heard about it some time ago, I assumed that meant she was really struggling with that song and they “put her on triangle” for the sake of the performance. Come to find out, she’s doing really well, and had the sense of timing necessary to play the triangle accurately. Yay, Liv!

That is definitely a mark of improvement on her part. Timing wasn’t a strength of hers going in to music lessons, but (again, bad mom) having the subject brought up recently, I suddenly realized she’s doing significantly better in her guitar strumming now too, and that’s certainly about timing. Another bonus to her playing the triangle is that she stood up, so I could actually SEE her enough to get a picture.

Here’s a picture of Max I snapped this morning as the sun hit the back of the hood of his swing creating some neat light.

Clark is rummaging through our pen drawer now. He hasn’t thrown a tantrum in quite awhile. I think he needs some protein.