January Goals

Time to breakdown what I'd like to accomplish in January:

1.  I know,  This almost feels like I'm already giving up on the possibility of crocheting a Christmas gift this month doesn't it?  Ok, well maybe not to you, and yes, I will certainly be crocheting more than what's listed under Goal #1 - I just feel like before I can start on any big project for 2015, I've GOT TO finish the not one, not TWO, but THREE baby gifts that were started over the past year and are not finished!  One is much smaller than the other two, and very close to being done.  And another is close to 3/4 done.  The other has a ways to go, but if, for once, I were to focus on these solely, I could actually get them finished by the end of the month no problem!  So far now, I'm holding off on starting a Christmas gift so I can get the monkey of these old projects off my back and out the door.  Besides, these babies need my crochet goodness to keep this warm this winter!

2. and 3.  These go hand in hand because there was a "great shuffle" of boxes and things over Thanksgiving weekend to give us a temporary living room in the 2nd bedroom we originally had demo/electrical/insulation work done to back in early 2013 (see the first set of before and afters HERE)

Here is what the 2nd bedroom/"storage central" looked like when we started in on Black Friday:

yikes, right?  

I know, it almost makes me twitchy.  I spent close to 18 months completely ignoring this rooms presence when I walked through the upstairs hallway.

Well after moving and shuffling and repacking and moving and labeling and shuffling and moving to the attic and the amazing super power that was having my parents helping us (seriously, I do NOT know what we'd do or where we'd be with out them), here's where we were by Sunday early evening:

As we rolled up an old mouse eaten rug from the room to replace with a remnant we purchased that weekend, we found this hole in the floor!  Crazy thing is, can't say any of us were all that surprised by this (other than the fact that I just thought it was a soft spot under the carpet when I would step there - not an actual, uncovered HOLE).  We've found this time and time again in the house where holes were cut in the floor for whatever reason access under floorboards was needed, and usually the fix was to just nail down whatever they had over it to cover the hole.  This would include tin can tops, parts to tin can tops and a 12" x 12" section of wainscoting (all were found on the original floors of our Master Bedroom)  The house originally operated as a Bed and Breakfast starting in 1885, though sections of the house are older than that (2 smaller houses were brought up on the hill by ox cart from the village and much work was done to build everything together into one large hotel.  When they demoed our Master Bedroom, in January 2013, there was newspaper being used as insulation from 1813 found in the walls - pretty cool huh?)  We believe many of these types of holes were created in the early 1900's when they would have been running electrical wiring in the house for the first time, and access was needed to hang chandeliers down in the 3 first floor parlors.

A few nights before we left for Disney, we had our couch, TV unit and coffee table from Maryland set up in our "new" temporary living room.  I snapped this very grainy picture with my cell phone on this night to post to Facebook:

It was my first time sitting back down on our couch since we had left Maryland 18 months prior and I was feeling all sorts of feels: sentimental for our old apartment, missing our friends and excitement for some progress on our side of the house.

I have cleaned blankets to use on the couch now, and my favorite couch pillows are out.  We even got a small fridge for drinks and a Keurig for morning coffee up there. I just need to clean up a bit this weekend before I can take some more after photos to share.

Moving all of my crafty things out of "storage" and quickly just into my craft room, meant my beautiful, almost finished craft room went from this:

(all that's missing is some moldings and my tile flooring - we decided to let me move everything in now and use the room as I can while work is being done on the bathroom, etc and that we'll get the tiles laid one of these days when we have professionals in working on the bathroom or something and Jonathan and my dad are in need of something to keep them busy! LOL)

to this!

Scary, huh...  

It's better than this now thanks to all my yarn being 90% put away (as I mentioned yesterday), but there is still tons to get put away so I can easily find things and use this room - including getting my sewing machine out of that box on the counter and start using it again!

4.  While I don't really knit anymore, I thoroughly enough reading Stephanie's blog.  Not only does she make me wish that I was a better knitter, but she's hilarious to boot!  One of my favorite times of year with her blog is during the month of December when she writes to non-knitters daily about what they can buy the knitter in their life.  Always amazing things that she researches and shares, many of which nicely convert over to use for a crazy crocheter like myself!

I'm always so insanely unorganized during the Christmas season (or, at least, it felt that way this year), and Stephanie's spreadsheets really spoke to me in my haze of just not knowing what I was doing for Christmas gifts.  Before Christmas was officially upon us, I had built out my own version of her spreadsheet to make sure that I had all the gifts I needed, and that I wasn't forgetting something stuck in a bag, hiding on the counter of my craft room behind a large tower of bins filled with yarn.....it was very interesting getting in there on Christmas Eve to find the Santa gifts which still needed wrapping!

Since wrapping up Christmas 2014, I have begun building my own gift-giving spreadsheet for all of 2015!  Whether birthdays, anniversaries, for Jonathan, my parents, sister-in-law, the puppies, or Bingo gifts for Christmas Eve; everyone has a row and every holiday a column.  It's still evolving (just yesterday I added in Mother's and Father's Day, and I blacked out any holidays where gifts aren't needed for particular people. I don't tend to buy my puppies Anniversary or Father's Day gifts, but I do spoil them with special treats on their birthdays, home-a-veries and on Christmas!  Nor do we buy my dad and father-in-law Mother's Day gifts - you get the idea)

I'd like to have, at least, a first draft of my 2015 spreadsheet well under way by the end of this month.  Mostly the crochet/sewing column - it's really the only way I'm going to effectively know what I need to make each month and stay on track, right?!?

5.  For those of you who don't know me personally, I skiied my entire childhood.  My parents were both on local ski patrol (my dad was actually on ski patrol at 2 different resorts) so I started skiing when I was 2 - which is actually 5 years before I even started taking dance lessons!  The last time I went skiing was my senior year of high school.  We used to come home from DC for the holidays thinking we'd get to ski but we'd run out of time, or the weather would just be too warm.  Now we're on our 2nd winter in WNY and we still haven't gone skiing.  That's changing this Sunday!  I'm excited and nervous all at once to pick something back up that I used to love, but haven't done for the past 12 years.

My boots still fit, my skis and bindings are being checked my a local ski shop.  Last night after work I stopped at Mom and Dads to go through what ski gear I still had that was usable.  Everything still fits or was in good enough condition (some mearly good-enough to get me through what's left of this winter) except for ski pants.  Turns out my hips are not as thin as they were when I was 18.  duh....I totally knew that 

There you have it - my January Goals.  Will try to remember to photograph my progress and completion throughout for a month-end recap!

Stay warm out there today.

"excuses" and Christmas crocheting

I'm just going to go ahead and ignore the fact that I haven't posted anything since March.... there are about 500 reasons why this is.
Okay maybe not 500, maybe it's closer to 10....in the past 9+ months I have (in no particular order):

1. changed positions (and desk locations) at my company, not once but twice

2. very effectively ran a super busy 1st summer for Jonathan and I at Panama Rocks Scenic Park

Opening Weekend

3. have performed in 3 shows, and choreographed 2 others in addition to 2 solo performances over the summer

May 2014 

October 2014

If you were paying attention, I mentioned involvement with 6 shows and only showed photos for 3. In addition to the ones shows above, I choreographed "Annie Get Your Gun" for a local high school, performed in a theatre fundraiser called "Home for the Holidays" and choreographed "Miracle in Bedford Falls" for the Lucille Ball Little Theatre"

4. taken on a Board of Directors position with the Lucille Ball Little Theatre of Jamestown, and began actively managing their website and Facebook page

5. took a trip to Walt Disney World with Jonathan to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of my 30th birthday - I could add about a bazillion pictures here that were taken, but I'll spare you!

Lunch on my Birthday was at Cinderella's Royal Table - IN Cinderella's Castle... DREAM.COME.TRUE.

Mickey Ice Cream is the best!  Really everything "Mickey-shaped" just tastes better!

6. continued working on the house remodel, which for my part usually is just about me moving boxes, reorganizing and excitingly getting to put things away.  Again I could show a million pictures here of our work in progress but they're probably boring to you since it's not your house, and really it barely looks as though much as changed.  I'll save them for now!

7. Celebrated our 3-year Wedding Anniversary (and 10 years together)

8. took a very last minute trip to NYC after winning tickets on Facebook to see the Radio City Rockettes Christmas Spectacular!

Walking around my old "stomping grounds" from when I went to college in NYC

View from our Time Square hotel room

[one of] my FAVORITE dances in the Christmas Spectacular!

AMAZING yarn from a really incredible store on the Upper East Side - if you are in NYC or plan to visit NYC - go there!!!

9. spend as much time with the puppies, kitties and Jonathan when I'm not at work or the theatre

Happy Heron for my 2nd year!

Silly date night selfies!

These dogs tho!  Good gracious I don't even want to tell you how many pictures of them are filling my iPhone!  I just LOVE them and all of their silliness!

Sunday morning poses!

"Dear God, it's me, Copper.  Please send roast chicken"

My babies on National Dog Day 2014

Not sure this one requires a comment....it does make me laugh EVERY TIME I see it!

10. crocheted as much as possible...looking back, on the last day of 2014, I'm honestly not sure if I crocheted a lot over the past year or no where near as much as in years past.  Based on the lack of pictures, minimal custom orders and lack of Christmas gifts I gave this year that were crocheted it feels like I crocheted very little.  In fact, looking back on some really ridiculously busy weeks and months at the theatre, I know that entire weeks went by where I didn't pick up a crochet hook!  But I know things were crocheted....barely anything that I can recall was finished and my list of ideas has grown 10-fold.  Definitely have to make sure I do a better job at photographing the work I complete in 2015 (we'll call than an official resolution - don't worry the 2015 Goals post is up next!)

A little Facebook stalking of my own page allowed me to find the following that I did crochet, finish and photograph since March:

Olaf-inspired hat for a Halloween Costume (completed custom order)

my own pattern

"Phittens" (completed custom order)

my own pattern

My Neon c2c blanket....still no where near done, but I just love the colors of this one, and the fact that I was sitting on my front porch in flip flops crocheting! 

PATTERN

Speaking of 'warm weather' crocheting - doesn't this look like amazing way to be spending a Sunday morning??

my own pattern

My first pair of Boot Cuffs!

PATTERN

The beginning of my Road Trip Scarf.  Everything but the border has been done for MONTHS, but the last time I picked it up, I couldn't understand the pattern so I gave up...it's still waiting for me, mockingly to finish

PATTERN

Crocheting accomplishments from Thanksgiving morning while watching the Parade and Dog Show

Cowl is a variation of this PATTERN

Boot Cuff Pattern is the same as above

Remember that AMAZING tower of yarn I purchased in NYC?

Well here is the hat that I crocheted for Jonathan at his request.  This was photographed from our hotel in Buffalo the night before we left for Disney.

my own pattern (just a simple dc beanie)

Here's a quick recap of what I did crochet for Christmas gifts:

As you can see, more detail and effort went into "collaging" and decorating this in PicMonkey than the actual photographing of gifts before wrapping hastily on Christmas Eve (yes, I was that person.  We arrived home from Disney around 2 a.m. on the 22nd and I had to work the 22nd and 23rd)

And, "why?", do you ask is it that I don't get anywhere near as much crocheting done as I'd like to on the rare occasions when I'm home and not sleeping?

Oh yeah, cause someone gets jealous he's not getting all of my attention at all times!

That's all for now friends.  I've had the blogging bug bad for a few weeks now so I hope it continues to stick with me in 2015!

Wishing you all a safe and Happy New Year!

BIG Announcement

Jonathan and I will be moving the end of May 2013!  After almost 8 ½ years in the DC metro area, we will be returning to our favorite little corner of WNY…..Panama, New York!

I [sadly] gave my notice at work 3 weeks ago, and have just 3 short weeks remaining while Jonathan only has 2 weeks of his student teaching internship left!  3 weeks from today my parents arrive in town (extra hands to finish parking, and enough adults to drive all cars back to NY).  3 weeks from Tuesday we pick up our U-Haul, the movers arrive by 9 a.m. and hopefully by 1 p.m. on May 21, 2013 we will driving 2 Jeeps, 1 convertible, and 1 U-Haul the ~400 miles HOME!

The house that we will be moving into is on the property of Jonathan’s parent’s tourism business, Panama Rocks Scenic Park.

This, truly, life changing and exciting move has actually been in the works for almost 18 months now.  Conversations about whether or not it would ever happen probably starting as far back as the summer of 2007…so to say that we are ready would be an understatement.  In 2011, while in the final stretch of wedding planning we were faced with the decision of where Jonathan would go to school for his Masters – Maryland or New York.  Obviously, we chose staying in Maryland where Jonathan attended Johns Hopkins University while we continued to work and save every penny possible. 

Back in January we took our nextbig step toward the move; we started remodeling the house.  FOLLOW THIS LINK to read about how in 1885 the park was founded, how a farmhouse became a summer hotel, and a bit about the work that has been done by my in-laws since they purchased the property in 1979.  If your cup of coffee (or glass of wine) is big enough to keep you reading the History of Panama Rocks, you will read more about how half of the hotel was winterized in the late 1980’s.  This is where Jonathan and his sister, Jessica grew up, where my in-laws currently live, and where we got married. 

The process that we began in January 2013 was to winterize the 2^nd half of the house that has been unused (other than for storage and guests when the extra space was needed). 

The work that we have done so far is depicted in the “before, during, after” pictures below.  Many hours have been put in by an amazing team that demoed the original horsehair plaster walls, wood lath and electrical wiring from the early 1900s.  Our Master bedroom, my craft room, [half of the bathroom], one future kid’s bedroom (2 small hotel rooms where we took down the divider wall to create a larger bedroom….will be used for storage for the time being), and the upper stairway/hallway have been rewired, insulated, dry-walled, and primed.  Our Master Bedroom also has been painted an amazing light blue that changes color depending on the time of day and level of sunlight coming in from any of the FIVE windows.  While Jonathan and I were home in early April we started work with my Dad to build frame for the doors to our closet, which as you can see below is still a work in progress ;-)

Starting on Monday the final stage of hooking up the electric to our side of the house will begin, in hopes that we will have power [and lights] when we move home.  First on the list for June is to finish our closet and replace the wood floors in the Master Bedroom and my craft room.

We have A LOT work ahead of us but are so very excited by the outlook of making this home our own:

***don't forget that you can click on each of the pictures below to make them larger***

Hallway walking in our Master Bedroom

Master Bedroom Closet Area

My future CRAFT ROOM - one day will no doubt be my favorite room in the house!

2nd Bedroom - A.K.A. "storage central"!

Upper Half of the Stairs 

***don't forget that you can click on each of the pictures above to make them larger***

I’m sure the next question that most, if not everyone, is asking is “what will you do in NY?”  Well, we are hopeful that Jonathan will be able to find a teaching job; putting his hard earned Master’s degree to good use.  I have been job searching, applying and in the beginning stage of interviewing as well.  This summer we will also be learning the ins and outs of running the Park, and enjoying a much needed change of pace that only a village like Panama can give you.

For now, I think it's time to get back to packing - we're MOVING IN THREE WEEKS!!!