Break

So what did I do during the rest of break? Most of it came after Christmas (Edinboro now has a "winter" semester in between semesters, so they've now pushed most of break to be after Christmas).

I had YW on Wednesday nights.

I stayed up late and slept in.

I tried to clean my room (nice try). It's back to being disastrous. Back to the drawing board.

I did succeed in purging/organizing the clothes in my closet.

And I think this new closet system just might work (miracle of miracles!).

I was a hermit and stayed home a lot (I wasn't too bummed about that).

I took naps. Heaven.

I watched movies. And The Office.

I had a recurrence of my nasty itchy rash from woodshop from my contaminated coats- once I got them cleaned/washed I was much better after a couple of GoldBond Medicated weeks.

I did some crafty things too, I'll show those another time.

I did get to have a few social outings. I went to Cleveland with my sister right after Christmas to an Institute New Year's activity (even though New Year's was days later). We tried out the GPS for the first time (it's amazing!) and I had fun seeing my friends.

Me and Anne:

{Sidenote: Anne just got married this month to a really nice guy the temple and she's my age! Way to go Anne! It gives me hope.}

Things were fun until I sat next to a girl and she asked if I was a chaperon. Thanks, thanks a lot!

Um no honey, but now I'm going to make sure that no one asks you to dance!

Adding insult to injury was the fact that all the "adults" there were senior couple missionaries!

Laura and I stayed in a hotel so I didn't have to drive and get us home way late. We went out to Ihop the next morning, it's been years since I went to one. It was good to have some bonding time with my sister.

It was fun to see people who were home for Christmas, like the two couples I helped do the pre-reception for, aka The Four. I was counting the days til I go to see my girls Rene and Ame!

It was really nice to see Dennis & Ame and Rene & Mike. When it was time to leave I was sad and they were all "You get lonely out here, don't you?" and the answer to that is Yes. Most of my friends out here live far away and I only see them at conferences. Or they leave and go to school out West.

Ame, me and Rene:

{Sidenote: Why do I have a sword in my head?}

My last hurrah before starting school again was to attend the YSA conference in Pittsburgh. Normally my stake does the conference in January but we've now been reassigned to do a conference this July in Palmyra in conjunction with Pageant. I think it will turn out ok, but it's a tough assignment to plan something that's not even in our stake! And it involves camping in tents! Lots of logistics to figure out.

I was a bit apprehensive about my choice to go since there weren't many people Friday evening and once again it was the dreaded GTKYG. Those are against my religion! But thankfully things got better and it turned out to be way fun.

The theme was about cultivating our talents. Saturday was breakfast and classes. I attended one on the gifts of the Spirit, it was good. Also attended one on budgeting/finance that didn't tell me anything new, but was a good reminder. Sigh!

And then I had a rare Bad Girl Moment and I ditched the conference with some friends. We went out to lunch at Cheesecake Factory (yum!) and I also found myself at Goodwill helping my friend Mitch find a tie (he'd forgotten one.) We didn't feel like going back right away and drove around Pitt. We went to the zoo...just not inside since it was closed. After driving around a bunch more (thank heavens for GPS to get us back!) and exploring this big tower called the Cathedral of Learning, we got back in time to watch a talent show. Fun to watch, though I'm not sure if naughty dancing was really appropriate.

We had dinner and a couple of speakers about talents and then a pretty good dance, and by far the best one that Pittsburgh has ever had at a conference. They're cursed, I swear!

Sunday was breakfast and Sacrament meeting and saying goodbyes in the parking lot. It was a great weekend.

Bad Girls at the Cheesecake Factory:

The Cathedral of Learning:

 Inside it looked like Harry Potter!

 Scary elevator ride- the view from the top:

 Dinner looked like a wedding reception- was that a subliminal message?

 With Ivan and Jason, my York Boyz:

Very fun conference. Pleasantly surprised, cause at first it looked like it was gonna stink!

In other news, I went sledding on Martin Luther King Day, it was awesome. I also happened to read the "I Have A Dream" speech in it's entirety for the first time that weekend, it's an amazing and inspiring work. Read it if you haven't for a while.

And then the ax fell and I started school. More on that later.

Stay tuned!

Christmas

Well, pardon my French, but we kinda half assed Christmas this year. We had a nice day and all, but we didn’t do everything we usually do. It just seemed like everything was out to thwart us:


-I didn’t get out of school til Dec 17th and had been really busy the two weeks before that with school (not even any time to window shop!).

-Dad got shots in his knees two days before Christmas.

-Mom is still recuperating with her leg.

-Laura was away housesitting the week before Christmas (leaving me to do most stuff around the house).

-The branch Christmas dinner got postponed a week, (and Mom planned a fancier party then Corry usually has) which meant that we were worrying about it for two weeks, not just one.

We just didn’t have the energy or time for some stuff. We usually get a regular sized tree, but this year we got a fairly small tree. We didn’t have the energy to wrestle with the living room furniture to make room for a bigger tree. I kinda missed having a bigger tree but I will admit it was so much easier to get in and out of the car and house and set up!

We cleaned house and decorated, but not to the extent of past years. There were some favorites that didn’t get put out. And I’ll fully admit that we cleaned/decorated pretty much only in the areas that would show in pictures.

I found myself shopping for some presents on the 23rd. Usually I do shopping earlier but was so swamped with final projects. The tree didn’t make it in the house until a few days before Christmas. And since Dad is in charge of the lights and he didn’t do them til the 24th, the tree didn’t get decorated til then! And not a ton of ornaments, either. I was wrapping presents at midnight.

We also like to go to the mall as a family and do some shopping and out to dinner at Cracker Barrel, but that didn’t happen either. And what we did do for Christmas exhausted me cause it was pretty much just me digging out the Christmas stuff and decorating.

I like to be very crafty at Christmas and that didn't happen either. I did manage a smidge of time to make ornaments for my YW by swirling paint in the value colors inside a clear glass ornament. Then I wrote their name and the year with a white paint pen. I felt like the Winter Warlock from Santa Claus is Coming to Town when he only has a bit of magic left in his fingers. I also felt old- wasn't it just a few years ago that my YW leaders were giving me homemade ornaments?

But that being said, we did the important things. We watched our favorite Christmas movies together leading up to Christmas. On Christmas Eve, I picked up Laura from the place she was housesitting (she had cable tv and the internet, the brat! She didn’t want to come home!) and we had dinner together and put up stockings and read the Bible verses about Christ’s birth. We put out cookies for “Santa” too. And then Laura went back to the other house.

Christmas morning came late- someone had to go get Laura. Instead of coming to the tree from the bedroom, Laura and I walked to the tree from the front door after I'd fetched her. We did walk in the house accompanied by our family's music tradition (a Nat King Cole mix tape done by Grandma years ago). I joked that our relatives that live on the West coast were going to be done opening presents before we even started! We had fun opening presents and had our traditional cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Then came stockings and we had fun playing with our new stuff.

That afternoon we all bundled up and walked with our three dogs way down the driveway and put out old apples and bread for the deer and critters. Since we moved out here, we like to do that at night on Christmas Eve, but this year we did it during the day. We like to be charitable to the animals around here- they are God’s creations and the winters here are hard for them. It wasn’t long before the deer and critters found their present.

Christmas dinner was lasagna- nothing will top the Christmas lasagna I had as a missionary (it had perchuto in it!) but we came close with three different kinds- classic, spinach and a version with salami in it. I like the spinach one best. We also opened crackers, which is another tradition. You know, those paper tubes (that pop!) and you get a paper crown and a toy and a joke. And we got a homemade cheesecake for dessert! Lots of sugar that day!

In the end, Christmas is supposed to be about spending time with your family and celebrating the birth of our Savior, and we accomplished that. That’s the important part- the rest is just fun.

On to the pictures:

Hanging my stocking:

Christmas morning, had to get Laura- I wore my Gaga pants!

Keeping warm by the fire:

Wrapped Dad a tractors calendar in green duct tape with a red duct tape bow!

 Me and Dad

I gave Dad a train that goes on a track in your tree! Big hit.

 Mom and Dad

 Laura love jellybeans

The house with old sleds on the porch:

And at night (with the light-up geese I gave Mom!) :

The YW ornaments I did:

Feeding the deer on Christmas Day:

What was my favorite present? Marleen (my former missionary companion) calling me up on Christmas Eve to get my address. It's been years since I've heard her voice (though we do keep in touch electronically) so it was incredibly nice to chat and catch up. It's the simple things that are the best. Thanks dear!

What was your favorite thing this Christmas season?

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!

Pre-Christmas Fun

I know it’s late showing these pictures, but I managed to squeak in some fun in December even though I was super busy with ending this semester.

Mom and Pop weren’t up for it, but Laura and I went and had fun in Corry (our neighboring town) on their Christmas celebration night early in December. In past years, the branch dinner is on the same night so we’ve never gotten to participate until this year. The park is lit up all month, but only on this night do they set up the luminaries, which were lovely.

The little downtown area is open late, and I had fun wandering antique stores and the local quilt shop. And Laura and I got to ride in a wagon pulled by big draft horses! It was cold but fun. It was snowing big fat flakes for most of the night. The local radio station was playing Christmas music outside, everything was very merry. Laura and I often butt heads, so it was good to have some bonding time.

Later in the month, our YSA group had an outing to Kirtland to see the lights and nativities at the church’s visitor’s center. We had 5 YSA and two of our advisor couples attend and we had a fun time. I had heard last year that the visitors center did this, but wasn’t able to go. I’m glad I got to go this year; it was a lot of fun to see the lights and all the amazing nativities. Two of the people that attended hadn't been to Kirtland before, so it was neat to be with them on the tour (gotta love sister missionaries!). One sister missionary was all interested in the camera strap cover that I'd made.
 

Large nativity statues outside (like the ones at the temples):

 In the little schoolhouse was a display of a whole bunch of nativities from all around the world, those were neat to see as well:

Can you believe that a teenager carved this from wood? It was amazing.

 I liked this copper tree with nativity stamps hanging off of it, I may need to make my own version someday:

This display of the Savior's life was neat:



There were hundreds of amazing ones, framed nativity Christmas cards, and upstairs there was a tall fake flocked tree with all white nativity ornaments on it, vey lovely. I may have to steal that idea.

Mom, being RS president, was in charge of the Christmas dinner. She opted for real tableclothes, plates, glasses and silverware, which meant some additional cleanup but looked nice. She made the greenery centerpieces using her silver bowl collection and stuck in some pinecones and glass ball ornaments that I owned. It was the first time the Corry branch had used real stuff for a dinner since we've been around and we got a lot of good feedback on it. I think it helped people feel special.

I designed my Christmas card in Photoshop and used my oranment painting from last year. Told you to act surprised! I got a good deal. Once again, not much is new with me on paper so I just wanted something to wish people Merry Christmas on.

I like how the back turned out:

December was busy as always, but fun!

Hope you had a good one too.

O Christmas Table

Well, after our carved alien fruit, we spent the rest of the semester designing and creating a table. We were limited in size (our teacher didn't want us going much beyond 3 feet in any direction) so I wound up making an end table. I would have loved to have made a retro kitchen table, a coffee table that could display things, or carve a carousel table, but I wound up making this one. Having wood and metals in the same semester was a challenge- both are time consuming and so I opted to do a table I could finish more easily without living in the wood classroom.

Even so, I got rushed at the end. I would always see wood students racing to finish their projects at the end of the semester and would say "that won't be me". Ha! It was me! I missed a couple days of school due to snow and that threw me off. It was also a major pain to fight to use the equipment, everyone seemed to need the table saw. Everything takes twice as long as you think it will.

In all, I liked the process, just wish I could have enjoyed it a bit better without being so rushed. I also didn't like the nasty rash I got from dealing with wood- I was so itchy I wanted to claw my arms off! I don't know if I was allergic to poplar or to sawdust or possibly walnut- I read recently that people can have allergic reactions to it. I didn't use walnut, but other people did and I was exposed to everyone's dust.

You had to have at least one mortise and tenon joint (which are a pain to cut) and mine had eight to attach the rails to the legs, so it fit the bill. I cut the rail shapes on a bandsaw and then had to file and sand those curves- also a pain! Sanding thru like 4 grits of sandpaper was a pain too- my hands went numb from the electric sander!

I had decided from the beginning to paint my table, so I opted to make it out of inexpensive poplar rather then maple or cherry or something. It doesn't look too bad here after I sanded the heck out of it, but it has a yellow or green cast to it and there's streaks of reddish purple in it too. Other woods are prettier!

Here you can see a purple streak:

I routed the table top and shaped the legs, too:

Thought I'd show what other people did in my class, you had a good deal of freedom:

My friend Angie did this, a lot of joinery on each end. There's at least 32 mortise and tenon joints in this!

This was a well made table but it's not for clutsy people like me- I'd smack into the pointy tabletop!

There was also the option of making a bench- it's pretty much like making a table but your table legs stick up to form the armrests.

One girl painted this top:

One guy did these three table that share a leg- you draw at the tallest one (the top lifts up) and can set your supplies next to you on the smaller table. It takes up a good chunk of space, though.

Someone from the other class did an armadillo table:

 One girl did this cat desk (cat heads on the bottom, fat tail at the top):

One girl did this table complete with "legs"...does it need to go to the bathroom?

 A girl from the other class did this mustache table. I liked it but wasn't crazy about the irregular tabletop.



My table isn't complete, you just had to have one coat of something on it for crit so all it has on it now is black milk paint. It needs another coat or two and then a coat of satin finish sealer. But that's not happening til after Christmas!

You know what I really want to make? Shaped cutting boards! I know how to glue up boards and clamp them and shape them with a bandsaw and a router...now I need all that equipment in my dream art studio!

Gobble Gobble

We had a pretty low key celebration this year, what with Mom being off her game and all. Usually I like to pull out the brown tablecloth/lace overlay combo for the table and we also like to make flower arrangements in mini pumpkins. Laura usually makes a "turkey" out of an orange with cheese and baby corn toothpicked in for tail feathers. None of those things happened this year and we survived. There wasn't much point in decorating the table when Mom eats sprawled on the couch looking like Cleopatra due to her leg and the rest of us ate near her in the living room.

With two gimpy parents (Dad has some pretty bad knees), I found myself doing a lot of the cooking and cleanup, and by the end of the day I was pretty wiped out. Running around all day on our hard floors sure didn't help my hips and knees. I made a pumpkin pie (thank heaven for pre-made crusts!) and did mashed potatoes, a cheeseball, green beans, the veggie platter and yams. Dad did a really good turkey and stuffing. He made some sort of concoction with homemade croutons, fresh spinach leaves, mushrooms, sausage, cream of mushroom soup and who knows what else. It turned out really good.

My parents are cute sometimes:

The meal, so yummy. And we always use the BIG plates that my parents got when they got married- the orange and gold flowers in the center are perfect for the holiday!

The stuff in the bowl is fruit salad in Cool Whip. So healthy. ;)

I like to wear purple on Thanksgiving, it's my own funny little custom. I remember wearing it one year when I was like 12 and liking it and it became my thing. I even wore my purple blazer to Thanksgiving when I was a missionary.

Mom (aka Cleopatra) and me:

and Dad and Laura:



We had a nice day together and it's great to have some time to remember your blessings. Another funny Thanksgiving tradition we have is to watch a tape of an X-Files marathon- Thanksgiving 1997 was spent in a motel room in Newport, WA when we moved there and were awaiting our house and that's what the tv was playing all day. Thankfully our friend invited us over for some good food- we had a little oven but couldn't do much there. I was also really really sick that Thanksgiving. Someone taped it for us then cause they knew we liked X-Files so we get to watch it every year since. So somehow X-Files = Thanksgiving for me.

It was a nice 5 days off from school, though I didn't get much rest. We are not Black Friday shoppers, but I had to go out the next day to take Hanky yet again to the vet for a checkup. He is doing well, thank goodness, but there are still more check ups!

Mom is getting a lot better, it's great. She is still in pain/purple but it's gotten a lot better this week and she's up more on her leg.

November has some milestones for me- 22 years ago on Nov 19 I was baptized. I had to wait four months past my birthday for my dad to get home from his business trip! He used to be gone for months at a time. Also, Thanksgiving marked 7 (oy!) years home from my mission. I can't belive it's been that long- time flies! Anyhow, both events make me think about past choices and how I'm so blessed to have the gospel. Baptism really is the gate to so many wonderful things.

We also got our first real snow over the weekend, though it was pitiful for PA. 3 inches and it melted the next day. There's more where that came from though! Our view looks like this again today:

Hope you had a good holiday. I think I am finally starting to wake up from my turkey coma!