Happy Halloween!!

Halloween 1991

Halloween 1992

Here are a couple of pictures of my gobblins when they were little. I really miss having little ones around this time of year. Like Christmas, Halloween is just more magical with little kids around. Dan put some orange lights up around the house and we did decorate a little bit. Our neighborhood is older so we don't have a huge number of trick-or-treaters but I so enjoy the ones that do come. I remember the days when my kids were little, our streets were packed with little ghosties and gobblins. Fun stuff.

I'm not dressing up, I'm scary enough just being me ;-) I will be handing out candy by myself as Beth has a party to go to and the guys are going to a hockey game. I plan on watching the live Ghost Hunters episode and hope it is really scary.

Well, I'm off to make a pot of my famous spaghetti. A request from my youngest gobblin.

I hope you all have a very Happy and Scary Halloween.....muahhhhhh........

Kelly over at My Voice, My View gave me this nice award. I do not at all feel worthy since I have not blogged in ages, but it was so nice of her to do it for me. Please go check out Kelly's blog, she one of the nicest people I've met in my short time here. She is a wonderful, inspiring poet and a great mom.

I was actually planning a blog for tomorrow since Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, so I promise to come back tomorrow and do that.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Under Achieving

I had a co-worker tell me today that she thought I should aim my sights higher when it comes to my job. She feels I'm smart, organized and very detailed oriented. I agree with the last two and was flattered by the first. She thinks I'm wasting my talents in my current position. I, however, really like what I do. I'm sure part of it is a comfort level. I've been in my current position about 7 years. I will celebrate my 19th anniversary at the hospital next month. I've worked in lots of different departments and done a myriad of different jobs and this is by far my favorite. I'm in a place where I'm very autonomous and not micromanaged. Those two things are very important to me.



Her comments got me to thinking though. Is liking your job and being comfortable enough, or should you try to challenge yourself? Should I give up a working environment which makes me very happy for one that may drive me crazy? I've interviewed for a couple of other positions during my tenure at my current one. I was offered those jobs and eventually turned them down because I'm scared of getting into a job that I dread going to everyday. Been there, done that.....don't want to do it again. Is having a more prestigious position worth possibly being miserable while working?



And then there is this: I'm liking my life right now. My kids are well adjusted adults who really don't need me anymore except for moral support. I can pick up and go when I want and I'm not accountable to anyone but Dan when I get home from work. I'm so comfortable in my position that I'm able to leave it at work. When I walk out the door I rarely think of work until I walk back in the next day.



I know my answer, and that is that I will stay where I'm at and be happy, comfortable and yes complacent. My question is this:



Do you think it's wrong to not use the potential you know you have and instead are just complacent with what you've got. Does that make you an under achiever? Is that a bad thing? I wonder........



(after reading this back I just want to say that I do realize how lucky I am that 1) I have a job at all and 2) there are options for me to move to another job if I wanted to. I know that is a rare thing in this economy and I am very grateful and thankful)

Christmas is Coming!!

A few months ago I posted about my love, some would say obscession, with Hallmark ornaments. At that time I was getting ready to go to the Hallmark Premier Weekend and stock up on all my ornament buddies. I did go, and got some wonderful ornaments and spent way too much money. So, this weekend is another premier weekend and there are several ornaments that I've had my eye on to add to my collections:

So, I think I need this little guy to add to my snowman tree. Isn't he adorable?

And this is perfect for my Santa tree, plus it plays music! What could be better than that?

Of course, I have to have this for my bear tree. Everytime I look at it I will remember how much fun I had reading to my kids.

So as this weekend was approaching I was starting to doubt my financial ability to add more ornaments to my already overflowing collection. It made me sad but I thought it might not be so fiscally responsible in these times to spend money on these little guys. I could do it, and I wouldn't be taking food out of anyone's mouth but it just made me feel kind of guilty, you know? So feeling kind of dejected, I resigned myself to the fact that I was just going to have to be happy with what I had.

Then what to my wondering eyes did appear? A bonus check from my new best friend, the CEO of my hospital. We usually get a bonus check every year around this time. It's never a huge amount but it's nice that they share with us. This year we didn't expect to get anything because of the economy. We had already made some sacrifices by giving up a lot of the perks we were used to. I guess it helped, and we have been busy, so they decided to give us the bonus.

I consider this found money. Yes, I could pay a bill or buy a weeks worth of groceries, but I have money for that. So, I'm going this weekend to buy my Hallmark ornaments. I think it's kismet, karma and proof positive that God approves of my obscession. At least that's what I'm telling myself so I don't feel so guilty. (I can never get away from the guilt thing....but that's a topic for another post.)

Merry Christmas!! Remember....only 77 days left! Are you ready yet?

T-Minus One and Counting

( Wow, we were so young. I was only 21 years old. I can't even imagine my daughters married yet and one of them is almost 4 years older than I was then. Oh, and I thought I was fat then too. Body image...blech)

Today I have been married for 29 years. Yes, all to the same man. It's hard to believe that it's been that long. Although when I think back on all we have been through together it's hard to believe we shoved it all into 29 years. Not that we are world travelers or anything like that but we did raise three kids and survived baseball, softball, girl scouts, boy scouts, violin lessons, orchestra concerts, band practices, band competitions, band drama and Friday night football. Not to mention three economic downturns, one firing, a couple of layoffs and two broken ankles (they were both mine at the same time and that's when you find out how much someone really loves you.) Last year I put my children on notice that they had two years to plan a big 30th Anniversary bash....don't know if they remember or not, guess we'll see. So....T-minus one and counting ;-)

Seems like just yesterday we were walking down the aisle, bringing our first born home, taking our son to his first little league game, watching our baby go to kindergarten. Where does the time fly? I love my husband more than any one human can love another. At least that's what it feels like to me. I'm so lucky that I get to spend the rest of my life with this wonderful man. In honor of our anniversary, I give you......

THE STORY OF DAN AND GERRI

Or

How I married my best friends brother

The year was 1972. The Viet Nam war was raging, Watergate became a household word, tragedy happened at the Munich Olympics, Carol King was singing, "It's Too Late" and I was just beginning high school. I also met the man that would someday be my husband.

I became friends with a girl named Debbie. She was interesting and funny, and it didn't hurt that her brother was a senior and played baseball. I would have liked her regardless of the brother thing, but it was a perk, you know? So, all freshman year I smiled at the brother, said hi and went to baseball games to cheer him on. He didn't know I existed. The year went quickly and Debbie and I settled into an easy friendship that we were sure would last a lifetime. Summer came and went and soon we were sophomores. I would call Debbie's house, knowing she was not there, just so I could hear the brothers' voice. Yes, I was a nerd. We were happy in our relationship, Debbie, the brother and I. She and I had great times together and he still did not know I was a living breathing being. Oh, well. I held out hope. At the end of the year both our lives were turned upside down. My father accepted a job 200 miles away and Debbie's mom got married and moved to the other side of town. We got together before the big moves to sign each other's yearbooks for the last time. I wrote in her yearbook that someday I would marry her brother. I was joking. Soon, our only communication was letters (remember when you used to write letters?) and an occasional long distance call. But, we remained the best of friends. I had a boyfriend in my new town and thoughts of the brother were all but non-existent.

In 1976, we graduated and started our lives. Still living miles from each other we kept the friendship alive. Then, in January 1977, I accepted a job back in my hometown. I had no place to stay so Debbie's mom invited me to live with them. The brother was still living at home, working and going to school and fresh out of a relationship. I decided it was now or never. I flirted, talked baseball, flirted some more and finally, he knew I was alive. We started dating on January 22, 1977. For me, it was love right away. I knew within the first few months that this was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. It took Dan just a bit longer. It took almost 4 years, me having to move away, and his mom threatening to just adopt me into the family before he finally decided that we were meant to be (we don't call him the King of Procrastination for nothing!).

On September 27, 1980 I married the man of my dreams. My best friend was my maid of honor and my sister-in-law. The yearbook prediction came true.

Now, 29 years later, I still can't believe how lucky I am. He makes me laugh every day and I still get butterflies in my stomach when I see him. I feel honored just knowing I get to spend the rest of my life with this man. Our life is not perfect and we've had our rough spots but we've loved each other enough to work through it. I thank God everyday for bringing us together and helping us to keep it together. I've been so blessed these last 29 years, I can't wait to see what the next 29 bring.

The Finished Product

As promised, here are pics of my latest creations. This first one is a scrap afghan called "Confetti Stars". I finished it at midnight last night. I have worked on it between projects for about two years. There are 391 two inch squares in this afghan, which means to finish it off I had to tie in 1646 ends. Thanks goodness I did it as I went along. I love the finished look and I think I may put this at the end of the bed in my spare room. I also included a close up of the border which was so incredibly boring that I thought I would never get done. I forced myself to stay up last night to finish because I was at the point that if I didn't finish it then, I might have put it away for another two years. Glad I didn't, because the finished product is great and the pictures don't really do it justice.

This afghan is "Americana Granny". I love it and plan on putting it on the back of my couch. It's got that old fashioned look to it which I love. The close up square is my favorite color combo, probably because the first 5 rows remind me of Christmas. It actually gave me the inspiration for one of my next projects which will be a Christmas afghan made from these very colors. I'm going to try and design it myself, so we'll see how that goes.

I decided to include this next afghan because it resides on the rocker I was using to take the pictures of the others and I thought, why not? It is another scrap afghan which I made a couple of years ago. Scrap afghans are great because when you look at them, it reminds you of all the projects you worked so hard on, right in one creation. (So it wasn't until I came back to the blog to see if I had comments that I noticed that the next picture is upside down. Normally I would be a little OCD about stuff like that and fix it, but today I am too tired. This is what happens when you stay up till midnight and then try to do a blog at 7 in the morning....)

So that's it for now. I am currently projectless, which always bothers me. I always like to have something to work on, which is why I am going today to buy the yarn for the Crochet-Along. I'm going to do a baby afghan for my nephew who's baby is due in December.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Crochet Crazyness

So, I realize that I have been woefully abscent from the blogosphere, but I do have a good excuse. I've been furiously trying to finish two afghans. I did finish one, the other is a scrap afghan that I have been working on between projects for about 2 years. I was hoping to finish it this weekend and post pictures of my new creations, but alas, the border is more time consuming than I anticipated. Which really means that it's boring me to death and I have to keep putting it down because it causes me to fall asleep. That's what happens when you get old. Anyway, as soon as I finish I promise pictures.

Then in a fit of insanity I signed up to do what they call a CAL or Chrochet-Along. I'm trying to venture outside my comfort zone, although why I'm doing this I have no idea. You follow along on a blog, everyone crochets the same thing, and you share your progress. The pattern is the picture above. I have never done shapes that have anything but four sides since the time I tried to do a triangle afghan and it came out all sorts of misshapen. But I figure I have time now to concentrate on it and I'm in need of a baby afghan so I thought this might be the perfect time to try something new. Wish me luck...I'm going to need it.