There’s a delightful white blanket of sparkly snow covering our town. Something about such weather brings me a great deal of joy.

I stepped out the door of Tangle to take a few photos of the weather and just kept clicking away. I figure it’s been awhile since I posted photos of what the store looks like anyway. In some senses we’re still a baby store, but I’m very proud of how far we’ve come. I’ve taken very little time lately to just sit back and be proud of what I’ve accomplished.

I’m at Tangle today with Honor. He decided that he wanted to learn to knit, so I sat down with him and tried to teach him. In between each stitch we made, he lept up and had to do a squirmy dance before settling back down to the next stitch. After about six stitches, he was done, promising that he would knit next time we are here.

It’s all he can do to even begin to contain himself why we are here. I think what he needs is perhaps a giant hamster wheel so he can try to expend his unquenchable energy. Now, just where would I put it?

“Mom, I’ll give you a hug if you give me dessert and if you don’t give me dessert, I won’t give you a hug.”

• Things have been sort of slow with my knitting. I finished up Cropped Cardigans for my mom and sister and have been knitting a KPS tunic for Eden. But I ran out of yarn so I’m stuck on that one until more comes in.
We got the new Son of a Stitch n Bitch book in at the store and it’s really good. I think I’d like to start the double knit argyle scarf. I’m also making a double sided scarf out of all of my alpaca scraps, because alpaca is just too good to waste!

• Winter break is almost over and Eden will go back to school on Tuesday. It will be nice to be back to some sort of schedule as it was crazy around here with my nephews visiting for 10 days plus we were missing the structure that school provides.

• I’m increasingly thankful for our friends who are always there for us, especially when our family is not. A friend let us borrow her brand new car so Jim could take the nephews back over the mountains to their dad.

• Years ago when we were in Germany, we had our first taste of Ikea. We loaded up on stuff there including 2 twin size down comforters. They keep the kids very warm, but they’re a boring white. So I took two twin action hero sheets and sewed Honor a duvet cover. Eden’s is next in 100% pink hello kitty.

January
• I started to come out of the fog of depression. Having hope again was something so amazing.
• One of my very favorite customers died of cancer way too early.
• I worked hard, hard, hard on the Tangle online store and it launched!
• More snow than usual here in the desert found us sledding!

February
• Eden got her first haircut.
• I wrote a new pattern in honor of Nancy, my friend who passed away.
• Eden turned 5 years old.
• Honor continued to be naughty.

March
• Eden started playing soccer.
• I jumped on the “green” bandwagon and started rethinking a lot of things I do with my life. I also crocheted up a large stack of reusable grocery bags.
• I changed the dining room walls from red to green.
• We spent lots of time outside enjoying the spring weather.

April
• Jim turned 32.
• We found a perfectly windy day and flew kites.
• I experienced my first ever hangover.
• Eden was accepted to her school. We were very lucky.
• Jim had his hair cut into a mullet just to annoy me.
• We took a quick jump over the mountains to do some shopping in Denver. The kids had their first Casa Bonita experience.
• Jim and I had the pleasure of experiencing the Rota virus.

May
• Honor learned that boys don’t cry about shorts.
• I woke up to a cockroach in my bed.
• I experienced some sort of non-religious epiphany. I’m still not totally sure what to do with it.
• The weather started heating up therefore slowing down at Tangle. I decided to cut back on the hours so I could enjoy time with the kiddos.
• Some of my buddies and I officially instituted “girls night”. Lots of drinking ensued.

June
• I was having a few moments of doing good at the gym.
• Jim started competing in the local battle of the bands competition. They won several rounds before being unfairly voted out.
• We took a trip over the mountains to visit Jim’s sister.
• I invented the “girlfriend” – a tasty drink.
• I experienced my first (and second) trip to Whole Foods.
• At said trip, we encountered a psycho lady who accused us of scratching her car. There was no possibility we could have.

July
• Honor discovered that his dad is far from compassionate and decided to tell me every time Eden hit him.
• We spent lots of time swimming at the lake.
• We enjoyed a really fun 4th with all of our friends. Jim played the national anthem Jimi Hendrix style in front of the whole city.
• My friend Sarah had her third baby the same day that our friends Seth and Carrie tied the knot.
• The wedding was very hot, but went off perfectly because I was organizing it. :)
• My friend Brooke and I took a real quick trip over the mountains again to visit Jim’s sister. We also took the opportunity to shop at some decent malls.
• Christina and I decided to become business partners.

August
• Tangle turned 1 years old.
• Honor learned the trick to being good at the store – snacks!
• I remodeled our bedroom. Jim was not happy with my spontaneous choice to destroy the house.
• Eden started Kindergarten.
• We finally got to go camping!

September
• Honor gave me a huge run for my money as we all settled back into work and school schedules.
• I turned 26.
• Honor turned 4.
• My perspective changed a bit and I realized more and more just how great I have it in my marriage.
• Jim’s dog, Daisy, died.
• I had a seriously hard time with the infidelity of some of my old church members.

October
• Jim’s company planned and ran a benefit ball for a local non-profit organization.
• SO much yarn poured into Tangle. The biz was doing really great!
• Jim and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary.
• We started getting milk delivered in glass bottles.
• My niece stayed with us for a few days while our new nephew was born.
• I knit some seriously cute sweaters.

November
• We took a trip over the mountains to move Jim’s sister and niece here to live at our house for awhile.
• Lots and lots of rearranging of the house ensued.
• Christina and I taught a 20 person knitting class at a local church.
• All the stress of life, kids and running a store caught up with me and I suffered two weeks of migraines.
• I discovered the deed to our house crumpled up in Honor’s piggy bank.

December
• We struggled (and made it out the other side!) through some serious family problems.
• I nearly had a nervous break down coming to terms with how we should balance our lack of Christmas celebration with my families abundance of Christmas celebration.
• We had two very successful Sunday knit days at Tangle. We need to do more.
• My tooth started hurting, first needing a crown then an emergency root canal. I took some serious pain meds to no avail.
• We spent Christmas eve with my dad, going to the movies and eating at the restaurant where my sister works.
• The kids and I went to have Christmas dinner at my moms. I was really sick from the antibiotics the dentist gave me.
• I was very, very happy to see 2007 go.

The end!

10 ways to green up your bathroom from Tiny Choices.

I need to work harder on almost all of these! What I wish is that recycled TP was cheaper!

pencil bag tutorial – I could see Honor using stacks of these. He always needs to tote his stuff around in a little case.

make your own silly putty

I absolutely have to have this bag. I’m thinking of how I can bribe my mom or Joelene to make it for me.

um and, uh, this tunic too.

just fyi, there are a few things that are on sale at Tangle. :)

Lots is swirling around in my head right now. I’m trying to sort it all out, trying to figure out how to control my life and be happy with everything in it. I’m glad that Christmas is over. It was such an internal struggle for me – trying to figure out how to balance my beliefs with those of my family’s. Trying to get them to accept me as I am. Trying to accept that they can’t.

I wasn’t given much for Christmas this year, but the very best gift that I got was my dad telling me how proud he is of me and my sister.

With that, I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of gift giving. I’m having a hard time understanding the point of loading down kids who are unthankful for what they already have, or gifting a family member that you only see once a year out of obligation. I like the idea of filling a simple card with meaningful words, or making something with your hands as a gift that has a real meaning.

Don’t get me wrong, I love presents, but do I really need more stuff? Am I thankful for what I’m given? Maybe…

I’m thinking a lot about how to control my life. Six people are living in my house and it’s constantly in shambles. (It felt that way when it was just four, too.) I’m wondering what I need to do or what systems I need to implement to keep this place running like a well oiled machine.

I’m wondering where I can find the time to make things beautiful, to create and to appreciate creativity. So much has inspired me lately, but I feel all of that inspiration slipping through my fingers as I search for time, energy and gumption to harness it.

And I’m trying to get my health under control. It seems that for awhile now it’s always been something. Something is always making me feel bad, tired, worn out, sick, lacking energy. I got my tooth fixed and now it’s the antibiotics sucking it out of me… or maybe something else? The blood tests I had Saturday will hopefully reveal answers and hopefully be an easy fix.

Friday I spent the morning at the dentist’s office. I need a crown for a cracked tooth, so the dentist prepared the tooth for the crown and fitted me with a temporary crown until the permanent one could be made. While he was doing all the work, he got really close to the nerve and determined that I would probably need to have a root canal as well. Because, you know, my teeth love me. So I’ve spent the weekend hopped up on drugs.

Today was especially bad, so far I’ve tried darvocet, vicodin and percodan and nothing is killing the pain. I’m not quite sure what to do as the dentist is going out of town for Christmas. I hate this.