Some Homemade Christmas Fun!

I love being crafty! Christmas is a great time to make things you know others will love! Here's all but two of the projects I've done this year (I'll add the last ones once I complete them!). 

Christmas Countdown Plate

Lighted Nativity Scene

Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh Gift Baskets. (The crosses are cut vinyl.) 

Lighted Cross

Small wreath

I may try to sell at some festivals in the fall. 

It Smells Like Christmas!

I've started hosting a little Christmas party each year for my kids (this was my 3rd year doing it). Nothing real fancy. I pick a "theme" (this year was The True Christmas Story, last year was the Grinch) and then come up with a simple ornament for them to make and a treat to decorate. We always make reindeer food from the reindeer food bar and read a story that fits with the theme. Simple and quick. Really. Lasts about an hour. This year I wanted to do one of those simmering potpourris on the stove so my house would just smell like awesome Christmasness. ;-) After a quick Internet search I decided to go with this "recipe" as it was the most common one I came across. 

1 orange, sliced

1 cup of fresh cranberries

3-4 cinnamon sticks

2 Tbs cloves

Put all ingredients in a pot on the stove, add water to within about an inch of the rim, and simmer on low. 

It truly smelled amaze-balls. I started it about 1ish for a party that started at 5. Everyone walked in and commented on how awesome it smelled. I will say I was a bit surprised at how expensive the cinnamon sticks were but it was worth it and I've got enough left over to make more on Christmas Day. 

Enjoy and Merry Christmas! 

Puzzling...

It's one of those times where you have to sit back and just wonder "wth?" Y'all know the time. Good, close friend just disappears off the face of the planet and you can't get in touch with them...for several weeks. You then go through several stages:

1. Don't worry because they must be busy.
2. Start to worry after some time passes, hoping everything is okay.
3. Really, really worried that something bad has happened.
4. Start to wonder if you did something to upset the friend and spend hours racking your brain trying to figure out what in the world it could have been (and coming up with nothing since the last conversation you had with them was great).
5. Okay...I'll just keep my cool and hopefully they'll get in touch when they can.
6. Enter into the "am I hurt or mad" phase (am I hurt because this friend that I thought was so close has disappeared or am I mad?).
7. WTH?
8. Grrrr..... (still hope they're not hurt or something)
9. Fluctuating between 5, 6, 7, and 8. :)

Yeah, I'm at step 9 at this point. I'm more hurt at this phase as I can't bring myself to be "mad" at them yet. Its just sad when you find yourself in this situation with someone you really cared about (though you are aware of some "outside circumstances" that may be keeping them away, though they should know they can talk to you about it.

There....there's my sad post. Every blog is supposed to have some serious stuff occasionally, right? :)

"I Made it" 5k

I finally did my home town's Memorial Day 5k. Yay! That's all the yay I can muster. 

I felt horrible from the moment I got up that morning. Blah. Before the race started I wasn't even sure I'd even start it. 

I did. 

I figured I paid for it I'd better at least start. Then I wasn't sure I'd be able to finish it. 

I did. 

Barely. If my friend Emilee hadn't been there cheering and encouraging as we ran I probably would've stopped. But I finished in 48 minutes, which is surprising because that's only 2-3 minutes off my usual time. Not too bad for feeling like you're gonna fall over and die for the entire length. :) 

Not a great picture (really, it's hard to look even decent with as bad as I felt) but it proves I was there. 

Memorial Day 5k

Time for another race! Yay!

My hometown has had a Memorial Day parade and festival for 20 years and its great! I don't know exactly when they added in the 5k but its been around for quite a while as well. So excited that I'll finally get to do it (and run past my old high school and middle school, which was the elementary school, too, when I was there!).

Made my second sparkle skirt. This one didn't take as long but it still isn't quite right. I'll get it one day! Lol!

Happy Memorial Day, y'all! Remember...its NOT about BBQs, festivals, parades, or races.

46 Minutes

Supermom 5k was a lot of fun this morning! Lots of compliments on the sparkle skirt I made and my outfit (made me feel better about the skirt not turning out quite right!). :) One of my friends from high school (yes, you read that right) ran it as well so I had someone to chat with as I walked. What? You thought I actually RAN a whole 3 miles?! ;-) It's about half and half.

We finished in 46 minutes which is my usual finish time. I was 12 or 13 in my age group; not dead last I'll have you know. :-) 

Looking forward to my next race on Memorial Day in my home town. 

Now I'm gonna go eat. A lot. I burned a lot of calories and I'm hungry! I run because I really like food. 

               The before race picture! 

               Our MRTT group pic! 

Ready to Go!

My next 5k that I mentioned in my last post (I think...) is in the morning. Loving the outfit I put together for this one; first time I've really worn an "outfit" for a race but I've wanted to for a while!

I made the sparkle skirt (save money and all ya know). I should've just bought one. That bugger caused me a lot of heartache. Still didn't turn out quite right but it'll work for tomorrow and I'll get my aunt to show me what I did wrong before my race on Memorial Day. The shirt is NOT a "running" shirt...I got it at Walmart. The socks are from Academy Sports.

Yay for Supermom and happy running!! :)

3 and counting

I posted in January of last year that I was going to give this running thing a try.

That was 16 months ago and I'm happy to say that I've kept at it. Not as much as I wanted to but I'm still going. I've done 7 5ks to this point (wow!!! never thought in a million years I'd do even 1 mile!) and I have another race this weekend and then Memorial Day.

I am NOT a fast runner. Nope. My 5k average time is about 45 minutes so I don't see many medals in my future. I'm dang proud of the 3 that I have though (finishers' medals but hey! they're medals and I FINISHED!).

The first one is from the MRTT 2014 Winter "Virtual" 5k, the middle is from the MRTT 2013 Summer "Virtual" 5k, and the last one is the 2013 Jedi Challenge "Virtual" 5k. I love these. I have them hanging in the bedroom so I can see them every morning.

I'm pretty proud of myself for keeping at it. I'm sure I could do so much better if I actually trained a bit more but hey, I'm happy. :)

I'll let ya know when I add to this medal total.

Is that EXCITEMENT I Feel?

Ambiguous title for a blog post when I haven't posted here in quite a while. For that I apologize; life with two small boys can get a bit hectic but I'm trying to get the ball rolling on the blogs again.

Anyway...

Excitement? About what you ask?

Star Wars.

Yes. I'm one of those geeks folks. I love Star Wars; have since I was a little kid. I can remember hearing that unforgettable, send shivers up your spine opening music on an 8-track cassette (tape?) my parents owned. No, I was not born when the first movie came out in 1977 (I arrived two years later) but my parents loved Star Wars and so I grew up watching the original trilogy...and loved it.

Fast forward many, many years and the news that there would be...PREQUELS!!! OMG!!! We'd be able to see all that backstory that is only mentioned and hinted at in the original trilogy!! Star Wars fans around the world cheered and rejoiced like the Empire had just fallen.

And then they happened. And by "they" I mean the prequels. What started out with such excitement soon turned into...disappointment? horror? disgust? Maybe all of those. I tried to like the prequels. Really, I did. I'm a Star Wars fan and I'm SUPPOSED to like the movies. They're Star Wars for goodness sake!! Well I do like the movies. I LOVE the movies...the original trilogy. While there were some nice moments in the prequels there was just something missing. Something wasn't right. I liked Ewen McGregor and Liam Neeson and even Natalie Portman. I felt they did pretty good with what they had to work with (okay okay...I just liked LOOKING at Ewen!). But the storyline, dialogue, something was just lacking (and I know the original trilogy didn't have superb dialogue either!). For me a big part (besides a Gungan which will remain nameless and hopefully forgotten) was the overall feel of the movies visually. While things looked nice they were missing that charm that the original trilogy had; all that CGI stuff was "nice" but it just wasn't Star Wars.

I'm old enough and mature enough now to admit that the prequels were not good movies. That makes me sad because there was so much potential. Those three movies also tarnished some of that magic Star Wars had always possessed.

Fast forward a few more years and there's news that there will be new Star Wars movies, another trilogy, this time set AFTER the original. This announcement was not greeted with the same excitement as the announcement of the prequels. We'd been burned and disappointed and let down and and and...the skepticism was rampant, with yours truly included. I didn't want the beloved trilogy mangled and tarnished any more than it already had  been.

Then there was...silence with only bits and pieces of information for quite some time. Then there were some sparks of - was that hope? Disney had control this time and Disney has a pretty good track record when it comes to making things work. There's a new director and Lucas won't have a much of a say so/hand in these (how much????). The original stars will have a part in the newest movie. There were hints and rumors about who will be starring in these new installments. As a Star Wars fan I couldn't help but be intrigued and curious but cautious at the same time. And then the news starting coming out (leaking out?) quicker until we get to April 30 and we see this:

I'll be honest. I have absolutely NO IDEA who the new actors are in this movie or what kind of work they've done in the past but I'm pretty excited to see Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Peter Mayhew, and Anthony Daniels returning. But what made me the happiest was when I read that the new director planned on using models, real sets, robots, etc for this movie and that it wouldn't all be CGI. Some of what I've read has given me some hope and excitement because it sounds like they're trying to find what made the original trilogy so wonderful and recreate that. Yes. Excitement. Of course there will be lots of critics who don't like the new actors, don't like the director, don't like this, don't like that but that's to be expected. I, however, have felt the first twinges of excitement for a Star Wars movie since Episode 1 was announced to be in production back in the late 90s.

I'm very much looking forward to December 2015; I'm going to make sure I have child care lined up way ahead of time because I don't want to miss this...though I'll be sitting in my sit with my fingers crossed, praying that the movie doesn't suck (and that there is no mention of midichlorians and no Gungans in sight).

May the Force be with them (because they're gonna need it)...