Good News

Heidi and Eric and Aedyn welcomed Justice River into the world on Saturday. 30+ hours of labor and then he appeared on his due date.

I can't wait to visit him (and the rest of his family).

Soon.

This is what I get

For being sick yesterday. Apparently, because there was a snowstorm last night, the school decided to just shut down for the rest of the time before Christmas. I didn't get the emails because I didn't check my school email. And there was a phone call which I don't think I got either. So I didn't know and came in anyways. But, we do have a full house, moreso than we had Wednesday. Isn't that weird?

Pictures are from the snowstorm Tuesday, not to be confused with the snowstorm Thursday. Or the one tonight and tomorrow. And here I was, hoping that it wouldn't be such a long winter...

Random thoughts for today

1) My hair has officially hit boring. How I know? Today, just for kicks, I parted it on the opposite side. The part shows much more white hair than my normal one.

2) I really like watching the creamer swirl underneath the surface of my coffee in the morning with all the currents. Better still to have it in a glass mug so you can watch more than the surface.

Hooray!

The calendars came! I feel like such an attention whore. I want to run up to everyone in my office and say "See! Look! Isn't it awesome?!?" They have no choice but to say that they are very nice.

I've tried to show some restraint - only two people so far.

But hey, since this in my blog, I can do it here, right?

My calendars came! And they look pretty good. I'm excited!

It's a big deal in some places

Happy Feast Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe!

I find her utterly fascinating.

Looking for Holiday Cheer?

Amazon is giving away a free Christmas song every day for 25 days. Some BNL, some Sixpence, some Manheim Steamrollers. So go get you some.

Crafty

There has been very little holiday crafting going on at Casa de Hannita. But I have exhausted much of my supply of things already made and had on hand for the occasional baby shower or birthday gift.

Back a month or two ago when I sent a package to Heidi I stuck a little bird in there for Aedyn. She sent me a picture of him with said bird:He's in his swing and it's flying. How adorable is that? Ridiculously adorable is right.

I brought two of those wee birds with me for the little ones that were celebrating birthdays over Thanksgiving. One had guitars and the other one I just don't remember... maybe in robin colors.

I also brought my supply of embroidered baby onesies and a t-shirt. Remember this onesie? It finally found a home with one of my cousins and her little girl. It's one of my favorite things I've made to date and it was simple. Maybe that's what I liked about it, the simplicity. On the other end of the spectrum is this beast:

That's a heckuva lota embroidering right there. Back in 6th grade when I had just moved to Kansas I started school mid-semester (divorce, always good for chaos in a kid's life) and had to ride a little bus to school. My best friend that year somehow later hooked up with Melanie and they are thick as thieves these days. Well my old friend got married a few years ago and is pregnant with her first child. And even though we don't see eye-to-eye on everything these days, I still wanted to leave her a little something because babies are happy things and I'm happy for her.

And then I gave away some earrings:
Two pairs were left at Mel's for her and this young lady. She snatched up the long, dangly ones. I have to live up to the fairy blingmother image, you know. Mel has a pair similar, just not as dangly. Again with the whole simple design thing. I'll have to think about that.

A year ago-ish my goal was to have a little online store set up to sell these things that I've made. I even had cards made. But I just don't know what I think about that anymore. I like being able to give things away. And I don't know how I would feel if people didn't want to buy the things I made. Would it rob me of the joy of making them? Would I not enjoy the whole production part of it all if I felt like it was a job? Do the things I'm making even hold up? I just have no idea. So it's not so much one of my goals anymore. But it sure is fun to give things away.

Thanksgiving - because I know you care

Well, I'm not so sure you care. But I feel like it's hanging over my head, so I would just like to say that photos from Thanksgiving are now up on Flickr and I posted them in batches so that hopefully the more interesting ones that don't include people but are just pretty pictures are up first.

Oooh, something exciting regarding pretty pictures! I'm having a few calendars made with some of my favorite pictures. I hope they turn out well.

Y'all, Thanksgiving was So. Good.

I mean, I didn't actually get to have Thanksgiving dinner, they did that while I was traveling. It made me a wee bit sad to see all the service men (I don't recall any women) shipping out. But on my second flight there were two guys heading home and a fellow passenger talked the airline into upgrading them to business class which I thought was pretty awesome. Good on you AirTran! (I was also bumped to business class in my first flight because the plane was so full - it was not a bad thing) But I arrived to my aunt and uncle's place (on my father's side) to a house full of people, three of them rather little. It was great. I swept up my cousin's baby that I hadn't met yet even though she's one and gave her a big hug and kiss on the cheek. She was OK with it. Clearly I belonged. Or she's used to being made a fuss of. Or she was just at an overstimulated point already and one more random person that she doesn't know isn't going to make a tiny bit of difference. And I met my other cousin's little girl - she's about 6 months and very sweet tempered. Birthdays were celebrated - four of them. I was there for that at least. It was just hysterical watching these kids run around and to know who was running the show.

The next day I woke up way too early because the padre wanted to go to Wal-mart for the deals. I refused, of course, but woke up when he left because I'm a light sleeper like that. After he came back, with a new television (seriously, these folks have a television in almost every room - like 10 of them) and a few other things we went to Kohls where buying something was going to be an ordeal because of the insane checkout line. Then we went to breakfast and then they left. Because they only see me two or three times a year and clearly 12 hours, many of those spent asleep, was plenty of quality time.

I found some internet, managed to make my way to Mel's, and then called a cousin (on my mom's side) to see her and her family. We put up her tree after her boys made it to bed. Oh man, those boys are cute, cute, cute. Very wary of the strange person though. And perhaps a wee bit overtired from a few late nights.

Saturday I hooked up with some extended family - second cousin extended family - and it was good. I grew up with these particular second cousins and they are just lovely, lovely people. Two of them have spent the last few years in Rwanda, one teaching missionary kids, the other working with EFM doing pastoral training. One also just got married a few months ago. The next day we drove up to see their missing brother and his family (they had just driven home from Colorado). I hadn't seen this one for about four years and in that time he has gotten married and had two kids. It's hard to believe one family can be so... Good. But that's what they are. Good, genuine people.Also, Sunday morning I got to finally meet Kim! Hooray! People, Kim is awesome. She also has a very unattractive photo of me up on her blog at the moment. She showed me all her pottery goodies and let me bring some home so I am now drinking from Kim cups at home and at work. And if that isn't happy making, I don't know what is.

And then Mel came home along with the rest of her family. And it was so good to see them. I just love them all dearly. Gifts were received and given. Mel has great pictures of the gorgeous bracelet she made me.

Somewhere along there I gathered a little red car. And then Monday I drove and drove and drove and drove some more.

Duck...duck...duck...

Heidi tagged me for a photo dealie.
These are the rules:

1. Choose the 4th picture folder on your computer
2. Choose the 4th picture
3. Explain your picture
4. Tag 4 people to do the same

So this is a conte crayon and watercolor drawing that I did a few months ago of one of the plants that I have in my window. It's not a great drawing and it's a bad picture of said drawing. The plant is getting out of control and needs to be cut back. How hard is it to start jade, anyone know? This is one of the plants that my cats don't bother. For some reason they like pointy leaves, but round ones don't interest them so much. And when they munch on the plants they prompltly barf them back up. But only once they've made it to my bed. It's charming. So in my apartment bromeliad is bad, jade plant is good.

If you're interested in playing along, feel free. I'm not a big tagger.

Unexpected

The last chapel of the fall semester every year has traditionally consisted of carol singing. People from outside of the school come, just for this event. I try very hard to rally people from my department to go and sing and be silly, if only for a few minutes. Every year I fail. We sing Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and The Twelve Days of Christmas with incredible gusto and props. We also sing Good King Wenceslaus and O Holy Night, a bit more reverently. Today was unusual though, communion was celebrated and a graduating senior had arranged Be Thou My Vision for the service. A choir and string quartet and trumpets and piano and organ. It was not the normative way of ending the semester of chapel but entirely lovely. May you find good in the unexpected today.