NICU Charity Challenge 2015

An email popped into my mail this morning announcing this year’s Christmas Charity Challenge. This is the sixth year for the challenge, and will be my second year participating.

The challenge is to knit or crochet 12 hats for your local NICU unit in 12 days. The yarn police do not knock on your door if you only finish one or two. I know you are busy. Tomorrow is December 1st and you have at least 3 months of things to do in the next 3 weeks. But think about this. I completed 2 NICU hats today on my break & the last 1/2 of my lunch at work. While watching a bit of TV yesterday, I finished 5 of them. They are tiny and work up quick.

Last year when I decided to do this challenge, I contacted 3 local hospital in my area, and neither one even answered me. Then I remembered my best friend’s sister is a nurse in a NICU unit! Duh – I attribute my airheadedness to the Christmas season of craziness, but it was probably just an every day airhead moment. She quickly responded that they would LOVE to take them, and I’ve been making  hats for them all year.

I always use acrylic yarn because it is easily washed and dried. There are no strings or buttons that might fall off or get in the way of treatments or cause a choking hazard. This is a great way to use bits of yarn you have left from other projects.

If you are interested and want to know more, please go to Sunset Family Living’s blog. http://www.sunsetfamilyliving.com/christmas-charity-challenge-2015/ . As an extra bonus, when you sign up for the challenge, you will receive a free pattern for an adorable baby hat in you email each day. If you really want to warm your heart, once you go to the website, you can follow the link to her Facebook page to see all of the hats current and former participants have donated. 

 

Oh Christmas Tree

Friday before our youngest son and wife left for home we went to Kuiper’s Farm to get our Christmas tree. Since it had been raining all day. we decided a pre-cut tree was our best bet. That way no one had to get soaking wet laying in the ground cutting our own.

They were not as happy to pose for a picture, but indulged me anyway.

Due to the rain, it stayed in the back of our truck until today. The good news was it was nice and dry. The bad news was all of the boys were home so the hubby had to haul it to the patio and cut off the end by himself. Lucky for him Mea was there to make sure nothing was hiding inside the branches.

It is in the house, but decorations won’t be added until this week.

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for any day I get to spend with family and friends. Today was a perfect day. We shared food and fun, shared memories and made a few more.

Tomorrow I’ll share pictures of the Christmas Craft. For now here is the picture of my original blog post idea – the roaster that was my grandma & grandpa’s from the early 1950’s. The first pic is my aunt watching my grandpa check on the bird in 1955 (the date on the side is 1956 – but the film must have sat in the camera a while. The back has the date my grandma wrote when she gave it to me).

When we plugged the roaster in this year, only one side heated up and when it clicked on our lights dimmed. So we decided to put the bird in the oven instead and throw out the roaster that cooked our family so many delicious dinners, it warms my heart to think of them.

Ahhh Monday

Mondays are mostly stinky. I stay up too late on Sundays, usually reading just “one more chapter” for an hour after a sensible person would be asleep. The alarm at 5:30 is abrasive and unforgiving no matter how late I’ve stayed up, so most Mondays are not fun at all.

But today was awesome. My youngest son and daughter-in-law arrived for a visit, which is enough to make me very happy. I am lucky enough to talk to them a lot on the phone, but only get to see them a couple of times a year. We have all kinds of things to do while they are here. That is just icing on the cake for me. Anytime I can spend with our kids makes me very happy.

We had a great dinner with them and our oldest son tonight (the middle son had to work – we missed him but will see him on Thursday and hopefully Friday).

So even though I got up at the crack of dawn. N0- before the crack of dawn, it looked dark as midnight. I finished what had to be done at work until next Monday. Our family will be together at Thanksgiving and lots of other times this week. And I can sleep in the rest of the week. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but it is the little things I like. Sleeping until 7 tomorrow and dinner with the kids tonight. It was a great Monday.

 

Snow!

IT IS COMING! I’VE HEARD ALL THE REPORTS!!!!

If you live in the Midwest, you have to have heard about the SNOW. Not just snow; SNOW. The weather people on the news and internet and the amateur meteorologists around the water cooler have been bemoaning the upcoming snow storm for the last week.

I got a “breaking news” alert in my email today that said – if you are faint of heart you may want to sit down – it COULD be a bigger storm than we got in 1940!

All I have to say is really? We live in Northern Illinois. It is November. More than likely there will be snow.

Do I like driving in it? Nope. Do I like shoveling it? Nope. Do I like looking at it? You betcha. It is beautiful. I have a love/hate relationship with snow.

The hubby worked for 35 years plowing snow. He was gone for days when we had storms like all of the other guys in the department. Plans during snow season were unheard of. But now he is retired, so the snow I hated that took him away on weekends and nights is getting more like the snow I loved as a kid. Until I have to drive in it. 🙂

Even though we are only having flurries right now, the experts and amateurs agree that by tomorrow at this time we’ll have to pull out the snow blowers and put bells on the dogs to find them in the drifts.

Welcome winter, I hope you are kind to us this year.

 

 

 

Where’s George? I dunno – I cannot tell the lie to find out

Did you ever get one of the dollar bills with this stamp on it? I have, and it is fun to see how many miles, states and countries it may have traveled to, but I haven’t gone to the website in ages.

One of our friends sent me a picture of this bill that he found last week in some change at work. He suggested I blog about it. Great idea, because it is day 18 of Nablopomo and the ideas after a day at work aren’t always easy to come by.

Besides, it is interesting to go to the website and poke around. There are tabs with links like cool facts about money as well as blog forums. Some people must be more than a little interested in these bills. Obsession might be creeping in on some of the posts. But hey, it is a harmless hobby so go for it!

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to track this one and let you all know about it. Nope, not happening, no way. If you don’t have it in your possession, you can’t track it.

It appears to be a default to immediately time stamp and zip code registration of the entry so if you tell the truth and tell them you don’t have it, then it says HALT! (ok, a bit nicer) and you can’t go further. The site doesn’t want to mess up the time/place integrity of the bill.

Kinda cool but creepy at the same time. So now I’m on the hunt for one that will actually be in my possession so I can crack the security and enter the number to play the game of where the bill has been. Since I didn’t want the dollar police to give me any guff, I blacked out the serial number on this bill so that no one is tempted to cheat the system.

Per the “No Possession Notice”  it states: “Also, please do not enter bills you may have seen in advertisements or other websites. The purpose of this site is to track the natural circulation of real currency; the purpose is NOT to enter every serial number you may find on bills that you do not actually possess.”

I’ll let you know if and when that happens. Although since I rarely pay with cash, it may take a year or so.

 

 

Paramount Theater in Aurora, IL Never Disappoints

We went with our best friends to the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas concert at the Paramount Theater in Aurora, IL last Saturday. If you read yesterday’s post I talked a bit about it, but was so focused on the sock incident I decided to wait until today to talk about the actual event.

Let me say first of all that I love Mannheim Steamroller Christmas songs. The band meets orchestra sound is very pleasing to me when it is the carols I know and love. But, when it is music from their “Fresh Aire” albums that is a different story. It isn’t rock, it isn’t big band, it isn’t an orchestra and it just isn’t for me. The crowd loved it and that is great. I am thinking the audience on Saturday would have mostly hated the Foo Fighter concert so I can appreciate different strokes (or music) for different folks makes the world go ’round.

What I did  enjoy was spending time in my favorite theater. The Paramount Theater was built in 1931. The Art Deco style has been beautifully refurbished and an addition was completed in 2006.

This is one of the murals on the side walls.

This is one side of the ceiling and part of the balcony.

It always makes me nostalgic to attend events at the Paramount because it is the first theater I remember going to when I was little. My aunt took me to see the new Disney movie “Mary Poppins” there when it was released.

In the early 1980s my middle sons were in a summer theater program and performed “The King and I” before a sold out audience. I worked behind the scenes helping all of the “king’s kids” with make-up, hair and costuming.

So even though the show was not quite what I expected.  the theater was fabulous, the time spent with friends priceless and the evening filled with laughter and song. It was a great way to spend a Saturday night.

 

Saturday – Family , Friends & Fun

Today was chocked full of things to do and things that got done. If you read yesterday’s post I had a long, long, laundry list of things to do this weekend.

So far so good. I did a few of the necessary things to do. The yearly mammogram – done. Bills paid – done. Both necessary evils.

Now for the fun stuff. The hubby and middle son worked on my cousin’s car this morning, so I got to visit with my aunt and cousin. I love just chatting and laughing with my family 🙂 While we chatted, I knitted. So I am 1/2 way done on the last project for a friend of mine. Hope to finish this week.

After they got done we went to lunch with 2 out of 3 sons (the 3rd son lives in Maryland, so he gets a pass on joining us) at the newly opened McAllister’s Grill in Naperville. We loved the one in Missouri so were super excited when this one opened locally.

Since it was so nice out we decided to clean out the flower beds. Our youngest dog, Mea, decide she would rather have us playing with her instead of getting the yard ready for winter. After we ignored her, she finally tossed her Frisbee on the grasses we were cutting down then laid on them to prove how neglected she felt.

Eventually she looked sad enough for my hubby to play a bit of fetch before it got too dark out since daylight savings time rolled in last month.

Tonight we are going to a concert, so the rest of the day will be spent relaxing and enjoying the show and good company of our best friends.

Friday the Gateway to Weekend Fun

Fridays are the springboard to the weekend. I think of all of the things I have to do and want to do over the next two days and the possibilities are endless. Ok, not endless, I have to sleep a bit. And do a few things I really don’t want to do that have to be done. You know, pay a few bills, grocery shopping and perhaps something like routine blood work.

But we try and do some fun and/or relaxing things on the weekend also. We have some friends that we usually see on Saturday nights “date night”. Usually we have dinner and a movie. This weekend we are going to the Paramount in Aurora to see the Christmas Performance of Mannheim Steamroller. I am really looking forward to it even though it is breaking my rule of no Christmas shows before the day after Thanksgiving. Sometimes I need to be flexible, especially where live performances are involved.

This weekend will also include Family Night on Friday. This is dinner with my Dad, Great Aunt, Aunt and Uncle and assorted cousins and sons depending upon who is available. It is the perfect start to the weekend. And tomorrow after some car repairs for my cousin, we plan to have lunch with 2 or our 3 sons.

Sunday we are going to see the newest Bond movie with my Aunt and Uncle. We’ve been to every Bond movie with them since the 70’s. It is a tradition!

Sometime this weekend I have to get my new treadmill hooked to the WiFi and set up. Our old one konked out after a mere 15 years of use. LOL I was impressed we used it enough to wear it out. My key for walking everyday on it is to watch a series that i will not allow myself to watch unless I am walking on the treadmill. I am just starting the third season of Game of Thrones and am totally hooked on it!

I will squeeze some writing time and some knitting it – oh and of course read a bit. I guess that is about 3 & 1/2 days of things to do that will have to be squeezed into the 2. I’ll need a weekend to get over my weekend of fun.

What are your plans?

(all photos found on Google Images – what would I do without Google?!)

WIP Wednesday

Greetings!

This has been a busy week, but it looks like I don’t have much in the way of knitting and crocheting done. I’m completed 1/2 of the 4 Christmas presents I’ve been working on, so that is good. I can’t post pictures of those until after the New Year.

The other project I completed this week is the dinosaur hat for my son’s godson. He hasn’t modeled it yet but i am super excited to see him in it.

I am going to start working on another Christmas present this week, so no pictures of that either.

Tonight is our knitting group, so I’ll have updates and info on any tips that may help you.

Last, but not least, I found a great new blog about sheep and yarn: Wovember.com (http://wovember.com/2015/11/10/many-hands-collaborating-in-wool/). There are great posts and pictures and links to farms to purchase yarn straight from the shepherds. I’ll be sure and post the pictures of the yarn I ordered as soon as it arrives. 🙂