creative.mother.thinking

explaining my life to strangers

Archives for December 2010

I know Christmas is over

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and I’m really enjoying the quiet time we’re having.

I also know that I haven’t written an update on my year of happiness in months, and yes, I will wrap it up eventually. I also didn’t write my yearly “List of books I’ve read” yet, and I don’t know if I will but then you can go to librarything and look up my “books read in 2010″-list.

Christmas was very nice this year, with most of the traditional elements:

Weihnachtsessen

the food

weihnachtsbaum

the tree (a bigger one this year)

weihnachtsengel

the angels my mother gave us.

I hope you have a quiet time as well.

Tuesday

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A little meh day for no apparent reason. I seem to be a bit exhausted and overwhelmed. (I typed “everwhelmed” at first, a very fitting description.) It’s already 4 pm, there was a bit of sunshine earlier but now it’s gray again. I did manage to send away the Christmas package to my parents and another one to my sister, and now I’m done with getting gifts here and there. It seems that the gift giving has reached a critical mass, this year there were half a dozen packages already. (My sister had to order my parents’ gifts for us from online because while my father has been owning a computer for about 40 years (early adopter) he somehow isn’t able to do it on his own. So my sister ordered All the Presents, said she wanted them in one package and then every little book and CD came on his own. We had a fun time sorting it all out. If the postman has to ring our bell one more time I have to give him a present too. (He already told me (when he rang on Sunday which is his day off) that he was too busy to go to the doctor for his ear infection, eye infection and the dog bite he got.)

Then I helped the mother of a three week old baby with her sling. About seven years ago I volunteered, people can get my phone number and make an appointment with me, and then I show them how to carry their babies in the sling. I keep forgetting that I’m on the list because so far only three people ever called me about that. It was nice to get to help someone but then I find that the baby thing is not my thing anymore. I really like to encourage the carrying and the use of a sling but I will remove my name from the list.

Then I helped my husband to cook, had lunch (excellent Greek food today, calamari, tsatziki, and kritharaki), had a fight with my son because he needed to hurry up to get back to some school activity, threw him out the door, and taught four students.

And now I’m sitting here, my last student of the day canceled and so I get to do All the Grocery Shopping, and maybe get a tree so that this Christmas we might have one that looks a little less sad, crooked, and Charlie Brownish.

By the way, this new format of blog post comes from me posting these little daily reports on a spinner’s forum where everybody just tells what kind of day they had. When I looked at that, and that it was quite long I thought it might make a good substitution for a real blog post. I hope you like it at least a little bit.

One week until Christmas

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So today’s my son’s 8th birthday, and so I stayed up late yesterday to bake and decorate 30 cupcakes to take to school today,

cupcakes

also de-frosted the cake, decorated the breakfast table,

candles

and set all his presents out.

presents

Today I got up extra early, snuggled a bit with said son (my favorite bit of the day so far), we had breakfast all together (for the birthday even my husband got up early). Then bringing the child and the cupcakes to school, all the while feeling guilty because my MIL was out shoveling snow, and then I felt bad again when the teacher asked if I would come and get the tray later. I thought my son would be totally able to carry a tray home from school, especially when it’s empty. (For the tray full of cupcakes, not so much.) Only later did I realize that in today’s culture where walking through the snow is considered cruel punishment most parents would have picked up both the child and the tray. It’s really weird that I have my mom guilt-moments at the exact time when I’m spending all my time and energy doing things for the son instead of me.

Then a bit of drinking tea and chatting with husband, then errands again, now I’m all set with buying presents. Then hanging up of laundry, and running for 30 minutes (indoors!), having lunch with my son and his friend. His friend is about the loudest talking kid I know. When I went to the annex to take a shower my husband said, “Guess what pitch our son’s friend’s talking is.” I said Ab. I was right. (This flummoxes me a little, and makes me proud.)

Then I made them both do homework, then I taught two piano students, then I started writing this and had a piece of birthday cake, then I taught four more students, and then was now.

I haven’t knit or spun any so far. Now I’m waiting for my last student of the day and then it’s beer o’clock.

Tomorrow I will host a Star Wars birthday party. So far I have everything I need for a cake with blue frosting, green colored soda, extra strong paper and elastic for making masks, and a list of game ideas. And origami paper for folding x-wing-fighters. I have the feeling that beer o’clock will come early tomorrow, and that I won’t be doing anything on Sunday.

I have been all bake-y lately, I even made my very first Stollen. Lactose-free and only a trace of fructose:

Stollen

The end.

Handgemacht – Folge 8: Der Bus hat meine Maschenmarkierer gefressen

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Eine kurze Folge zwischendurch, weil ich dann wahrscheinlich gar keine Zeit mehr habe. Das Thema wurde angeregt von Tini.

In Arbeit:

Cool Leaves Mittens

Sheldon

Maplewings

Ebony Turtleneck

Schnappdrachenmütze

Türkische Spindel von Threadsthrutime

und handgefärbte Merino.

Dann die Frage, was ist die Strickcommunity? Ravelry auf deutsch?

Ta-da and To-do

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I’m still thinking of you and the blog and everything, only it’s December, what can I say.

My ta da-list for today so far (that’s what you already have accomplished):

  • went to the health food store by car so I could get to the bigger one

  • bought a small loom for my son as a Christmas present

  • bought eyes for Sheldon

  • bought beer and juice

  • went to the post office

  • untangled my MILs cell phone trouble

  • ordered photo calendars for all the
    grandparents

  • ordered Christmas presents for my sister and my brother-in-law

  • taught two students (two canceled)

  • knitted on my husband’s mittens for half an hour

now all that’s left to do is:

  • teach two more students
  • somehow manage to make Star Wars-themed birthday party invitations
  • relax
  • write half a story for tomorrow’s writers meeting
  • get off overdrive
  • have a beer and knit some stockinette in the round

Handgemacht – Folge 7: Stricken für Weihnachten?

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Es gibt recht viel zu erzählen, schließlich ist das die erste Sendung seit vier Wochen.

NaNoWriMo habe ich überstanden und mir meine “Gewinner-Urkunde” abgeholt, mein NaKniSweMo-Pulli ist fertig und ich war beim Adventsspinnen in Ohlstadt. (Ich kann leider nicht direkt auf das Spinntreffen verlinken, nur auf das Forum als Ganzes.)

Fertige Projekte:

In Arbeit:

Liegt dumm rum und geht nichts weiter:

Außerdem wurde erwähnt:

Des weiteren habe ich noch einen blöden Fehler gemacht, ich habe des öfteren von linksgerichteten Abnahmen geredet und dabei jedes Mal gesagt, dass ich die Maschen links zusammenstricke. Das war falsch, ich stricke die Maschen natürlich rechts zusammen, verschränkt oder sonstwie….