Today Jim spoiled my surprise for his birthday. I had been saving up for an ipod, but he texted me from Target announcing they actually had a wii and I told him to just buy it. He always does this, just when I think I’m going to surprise him.

So we spent our few precious date hours tonight looking at video games… and new skillets. I SO need to buy new skillets the ones we’re using now have got to be past the point of healthy. I’m thinking I’ve got to figure out how to use cast iron and it sort of scares me. What I’d like is a couple 80 dollar Calphalon skillets from BB&B. What kind of skillets are you using?

Now I need to go peel my children away from their new game as it’s WAY past bedtime.

My mind is buzzing with ideas for our new Amy Butler fabric. It’s almost enough motivation to get going on refinishing the chairs so I can cover the seats. Almost.

I’m also thinking of making these storage bags to hang on a small wall in our dining room. I think it would be nice to have one for everyone in the house so when I’m running around picking up stuff, I can just put it in their bag rather than take the time to put everything away.

Also with scraps, cloth covered thumb tacks are perfect.

(I really need to stop sleeping so I can have more time to craft!)

•We all started feeling better.
•I found a new stove. It’s stainless steel and I bought it from a contractor supply place so I saved about $200. I’m happy but it won’t be here for another week!
•I’m so close to finishing our new table I can’t stand it. Just two more coats and it’s done. I can’t wait. Next up is the matching chairs and I’m SO not excited about working on those.
•We tore through the house cleaning and the only thing left to clean now is the bathroom. What a nice feeling…
•Another disk of Heros came from netflix and that makes me quite happy.

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

handmade cloth napkins – I need to make a giant stack of these and stop using so much paper – even if it is recycled. Maybe it would be nice to screen print or fabric paint the napkins too – I want everyone to be different.

How to make gift boxes out of cereal boxes good idea

Hanukkah Crafts for kids

All links via Craftzine.com

Today I woke up to a thick blanket of white, powdery snow outside. This means that I had to shovel all the sidewalks in front of Tangle. (Can I just say that it’s a major pet peeve of mine to have sidewalks shoveled now that I walk to and from work? You’d be surprised how many people don’t.) I let the kids run around outside while I shoveled and everything was going swimmingly until Honor tripped head first into a big pile of snow. Let’s just say, 3 hours later, he’s finally stopped whining about it.

I have to say, though, that snow makes me terribly happy. Here in the desert, we don’t usually get a ton of snow, so each snowfall is a treat. I love it because it covers all the ugly brown. It also provides a great backdrop for photos that would have happened had Honor not nearly died in the snow.

I’m not feeling very well. I’m really tired of not feeling very well. The last couple weeks I’ve had to deal with some family issues, so I can’t tell if it’s the emotional let down (things are mostly settled down now) or maybe some bug I’m fighting off. But I found myself telling Honor, “You have to be nice to me, I don’t feel good” and I realized why he always says the exact same thing to me when he’s not feeling good.

And he told me, “Mom, you’re so tute (cute)” so that made me feel much better. And Eden read a level 5 book today. Sometimes it’s the little things you have to hold onto until the big things right themselves.

Over the long weekend we spent lots of time with both sides of our families. We had all seven of the cousins together on Jim’s side and hopefully got some good pictures. (They’re importing now.) It didn’t really feel like Thanksgiving to me. Probably because it just got cold here the day before – the weather had been floating around the mid 60’s – and because I was so busy getting all the holiday stuff ready for the store that I didn’t have much of a chance to think about the upcoming turkey day. Having a migraine for almost two weeks straight didn’t help much either. (I’m currently at one day and counting on no need to take pain meds.)

You should see Tangle, I have to say, all our hard work paid off. It’s jam packed with yarn and all kinds of goodies. We got in our last shipment of Amy Butler bags and there’s a huge mountain of them in one corner of the shop. I spent most of last week working on the website; adding all the new things that have come in and uploading new patterns and gathering together lots of gift ideas. I’m always amazed at how much work still needs to be done on the website. It certainly could become a full time job, just keeping that thing perfect.

Over the last couple days, I’ve finally had a chance to relax. (Although the tension in my shoulders hasn’t let up quite yet.) I knit 3 pairs of fingerless mittens. A pair for each of the kids – now that it’s cold, Eden needs them for the playground – and a pair for the shop. I think our shop pair of Cabled fingerless mitts was stolen! Can you believe it?! I finished up a sweater and washed it with SOAK – wow, I love that stuff. And I’m almost done with the Blue Sky Alpacas pleated vest. Maybe I’ll get to finish that off tonight.

Anyway, I figure that all those migraines were due to hormones, a screwed up back and stress. It has been an unreal last few weeks and I’ve handled it pretty well emotionally so I think that it all went into my body. I’m hoping that now that the house is finally in order, and the shop is in order that I can start to recover and that things will be looking up from here. But regardless, I now know that I can handle as super human amount of stress so my attitude is pretty much, bring it. I know I can take it.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Today I am thankful that I’ve had a few hour reprieve from the migraine that’s been hanging around for the past week and a half. I’m SO over this…