Pick Up Sticks

November

I adore the month of November.  The weather is getting cooler, the leaves are beautiful, the air is crisp, the sky is particularly blue and it culminates with Thanksgiving - my favorite holiday.

We have had some wonderful Fall days in the past week.  And despite 6 inches of snow at the end of October my roses are still blooming. 
I have a row of knock-out rose bushes along my house and driveway and they bloom from May through November each year.  And this year is no different.

So as I walked out to my car at sunrise this morning bright bits of color swayed in the morning breeze and brought a smile to my face!
Pink, red and yellow roses dotted the plants despite a light frost. 

Ten on Tuesday

Joining up with Carole Knits for her 10 on Tuesday.  The Ten on Tuesday topic is 10 Things You Do To Care For Yourself When You Have a Cold.  I can so relate to this as I have had a cold/cough/sinus issues for the past month.

1. Sleep - get lots of rest.  This is some advice I really need to learn how to follow.  There are never enough hours in the day.
2. Drink lots of liquids.  I always seem to get a little dehydrated when I have a cold - probably the meds.
3. Drink juice with Vit C. - This one is pretty obvious and helps with #2.
4. Hot Tea with honey and lemon.  Feels so good on a sore throat.  I would not object to a shot of whiskey or brandy in there at times as well especially as this seems to help with a cough.
5. Stock up on soft tissues to help prevent a sore nose.
6. Chicken soup.  There is something about the way homemade chicken soup makes you feel when you have a cold.  Maybe it is psychological...but it it makes you feel better than I am all for it.
7. Go to the doctor.  I hate going to the doctor but admit I did this time as this has lingered way to long.  How come as a mom I am all for making sure my kids got to the doctor but I am forever putting off this for myself.
8. Take a sick day or two.  I tried working through this...and with my crazy hours it just made things worse.  Don't try to be the hero.
9. Take care of your self.  Again..stop trying to be the hero.  It doesn't do anyone good...or yourself...if you don't care of yourself.  Let someone else do it...or let it go until you feel better.
10. Cuddle up in bed with a good book or a stack of magazines or a knitting project and relax.

Weekend

For months I have been working on the weekends and the long 65 hour weeks are catching up with me.  I was determined not to work this weekend and am happy to say I accomplished this!

Saturday we shopped for furniture.  Since our youngest moved out and took all his furniture we have a room that  is totally empty.  We have painted, replaced woodwork and are having carpet installed in the room.  It will be a guest room.  We have a bedframe and mattress and boxsprings but I would like a headboard and dresser at the very least. 

Furniture sure isn't made the way it use to be.  It seems not much is made with real wood anymore - so much is particle board - unless you want to pay a fortune for it.  We aren't in a huge hurry so we are going to continue to look.  I am hoping to find an old dresser that I could paint.  I should have looked at yard sales in the summer but wasn't thinking about it then.

Afterwards we headed to the new Troegs brewery facility in Hershey.  Troegs is a local microbrewery that has been in the Harrisburg area and opened a larger place a few miles away.  It is so cool!  So much more room.  Now they only need to add food to the mix and they will have a hit.

Their other facility was always crowded in the tasting room.  This tasting room is huge.  We tied their newest Scratch Beer #51 which is a collaboration with Fat Heads Brewery in Cleveland.  It is a really hoppy IPA and so good.  We brought a growler home to enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Saturday night we went to one of our favorite restaurants in the area and had a casual dinner before heading home to watch LSU and Alabama.  YEA LSU!

Sunday we caught up with household chores.  Hubby finished some painting and I washed windows and cleaned.  It was a wonderful Fall day so having the windows opened as I washed them brought is fresh,crisp air.  I LOVE clean windows with the sun shining through.  Our sunroom alone has 11 windows and french doors - all now nice and clean.  I did some other cleaning, laundry and some cooking for the week and then settled in with a glass of beer and some knitting.

A wonderful, productive weekend.

TGIF

Of so glad it is Friday!  I have been fighting a cold/sinus infection for what seems like forever and it is kicking my butt...I am tired and in need of a break....which I will get next week when I have a 3-day weekend.

Today at work will be a slower day as our servers are down as we migrate to a new system.  so we only have access to email and any documents we saved to a thumb drive.  So I plan on working on organizing my office and reviewing audits.

I am usually at my desk by 6:30 am but dragged my feet getting out of the house this morning.  It actually felt good to relax a bit before heading to work. 

I have a relaxing weekend planned.  I have a few things to get done around the house and then hubby and I have some plans to explore. This is what we call days where we find a town or area to check out.  Not sure yet where we are headed tomorrow but I know it will include a trip to Troeg's Brewery and their new location in Hershey.

But first I will work a short day and then head home for PJ's and leftovers and a glass of wine, snuggled under a quilt with my latest knitting project and the dog.  Sounds like heaven to me.

Knit Night

Every Tuesday I go to a local Panera and meet up with several others for a knit night.  This is a group of ladies that I did not know very well but joined up with and have really enjoyed this night out.

We are of varying ages and stages of our lives.  I am the oldest at 49 and we have the youngest who is 27 - my oldest son's age.  But it is a fun group of ladies.  They may not know this but this group has helped me so much - to overcome my shyness and my tendencies to be a homebody.  While I have many friends I am content to stay at home and putter around my house.  This tendency has grown as we became emptynesters...not sure why.  Maybe it was all the running around we had to do with our kids growing up - which I loved at the time - but relish time at home now.  Maybe it is because by the time I come home from work I am exhausted and don't feel like going anywhere,

But I try really hard to make time for Knit Night on Tuesdays.  Sometimes work gets in the way - actually it does way too often - but my husband encourages me to try and get there.

It is funny because I am the only one who regularly knits at knit night.  Most of us grab a quick sandwich or bowl of soup and then I whip out my latest project.  I always have an easy project on the needles so I can still chat while knitting.  We talk - alot - and laugh - alot!  And luckily Panera does not mind that we take up a large table every Tuesday for seveal hours.

We have also taken to doing other knitting related activites together.  We try to meet at First Friday at our LYS - which is a monthly event at Yarn-Love - our LYS.  Sometimes we meet for dinner beforehand.  We have visited other local shops together and local knitting events. 

It is a fun time and I truly appreciate this group of ladies!

 

It's Been a While

Really...last post in March!  Sometimes I wonder why I even try to blog.  I am really bad at this...going months without a post.  Yet I love the idea of blogging...keeping a record of eventful things in my life. 

So much has happened in the past 8 months. 

• Our youngest son graduated from college in May, moved out in July.  He doesn't have a job and has been struggling to find one.  But he moved in with his fiance who has a really good job and is supplementing his income with tutoring and using his savings.  But he is happy and healthy and working really hard to find a job.  He starts substitute teaching next week - even though education was not his field.  His area has a guest teacher program and anyone with a college degree can go through a program to become a guest teacher and sub.  He is really excited and now talking about going back to school to get his teaching certification as he has been told there is a desperate shortage or math and science teachers out there.
• We found out in June (on Father's Day actually) that we are going to be grandparents!  They were barely pregnant at the time but couldn't wait to tell us.  We are so very excited!  Baby is due in February and they are not planning on finding out the gender.  DIL is doing fine and now has a round little belly and looking adorable!
• We took a vacation to the Finger Lakes area of NY - specifically Seneca Lake and a lovely B&B called Magnolia Place.  We had a wonderful time exploring the wineries and breweries in that area and did a little hiking as well.  Here is a picture along a gorge in Watkins Glen State Park which we explored.
• We loved the B&B and would recommend it to anyone visiting the area.  The accomodations were comfortable and the breakfasts phenomenal!
  
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Work has been kicking my butt - as usual.  Hours are long and it has been stressful and I need to figure out a way to handle this better.  More on that in another post.
• September found us taking a long weekend trip to Burlington VT for a family wedding.  We stayed at a wonderful resort where the wedding was taking place - The Inn at Essex- which was lovely.  It is also a culinary resort - they offer packages away to go and take cooking classes - and the food was fabulous!  Even my typically snoopy husband stepped outside his comfort zone and tried - and loved - new dishes.  We travelled up to the area a few days early and explored.  We unfortunately saw the devastation of flooding in VT.  So very sad.  But had a wonderful time with family, visiting wineries and breweries and enjoying cider donuts! 
• And speaking of flooding - September saw unusual weather in our area - including an earthquake and a tropical storm that left 15 inches of rain to our area in 24 hours.  Our small town is still recovering from the flood damage as is our whole area.  While we do not live near a river or creek we did have a large amount of water in our basement from rain sewer water backing up through basement drainage in our neighborhood.  We spent a sleepless 48 hours in the basement pumping water with two sump pumps and two emergency pumps trying to keep ahead of the water pouring into our basement.  But we survived - despite 3 days without power or phones.
• The latest unusual weather happened this past weekend when we received 6+" of heavy snow - in October!  Our area again had major power outages because of downed trees from the heavy snow combined with leaves still on the trees.  October snow sure played a trick on trick or treat!  But our power is restored and life goes on!

But life is good.  My goal is to keep up with my life on this blog - if only for me!