A Few Early Christmas Presents

I swear, I have the BEST friends!!!! I've received some amazing Christmas presents from them over the last few days...just thought I'd share...

From Erin- a beautiful necklace that I was drooling over a couple months ago while we were shopping together in London...I was so surprised and excited to discover that she had gone back and bought it for me...and in my favourite colour- blue!! The picture doesn't do it much justice- it's a funky shaped metal flower with a couple of blue stones on it.

From Shantal- "The Wisdom of Donkeys: Finding Tranquility in a Chaotic World." Perfect for two reasons...first, I LOVE donkeys, and second, I often get so busy and stressed that I end up sick and don't sleep for many nights because my brain won't shut off...perhaps I'll learn from the donkeys!

From Holly, Cait and family- Ozzy Osbourne quotes...yes, I'm a devoted life-long fan of all things Ozzy. This book is absolutely hysterical and we had a blast reading it the other night...well...everyone over the age of 16 had a blast reading it anyways. And a plaid hat! I love goofy hats, and this is my favourite type. I have three of them in different colours. This one is perfect because Holly and I are very into tartan anything right now. We're both Scottish....and we're obsessed with Johnny Reid...also Scottish, and belong to his fan club, the Tartan Army. I plan to wear this hat to the next concert....maybe he'll notice us!!

From Bob and Pat (my landlords)- an amazing little donkey statue!!! He came with the name Dooley, and I absolutely love him! He's quite heavy and has the cutest look on his face...I'll cherish him forever.

My Race!

I can't hold my excitement in any longer....I beat my personal best by 3 WHOLE MINUTES!!!!!!!!!

Phew, with that out of the way, now onto the whole story!

SO....I've been group leading a 10k clinic with Todd, and our group's goal race was on Sunday! It was the Ajax Snowflake 10k.....appropriately named of course, since it snowed throughout most of the race...it was a very chilly 9am run along the shores of Lake Ontario. Our main group consists of Todd, myself, and  Erin #2, not to be confused with my best friend Erin #1 who I've talked about a lot on this blog. She was there too, but just to watch :-)

So Todd, Erin #2 and I were joined by 2 others from our group....it was a pretty uncommitted group so on a lot of nights it was just the 3 of us...which made this race fun to run...and we stuck together for quite a while, chatting, and laughing....our usual. Erin then hit "the zone" as well call it, and she was gone. Then Todd stopped for water at a water station and I left him there....and I hit a good groove as well. It was great! Here are some pics!!



Erin and I freezing our butts off, waiting for the race to start



Me, just after I left Todd at the water station LOL



Crossing the finish line- 1:03!!!!!



Our group- Todd, Katie, Nicole, Me and Erin!

 I've bought all of my floss for the Crazy January Challenge! I've been using my TV watching time for the last couple nights to wind it onto bobbins....and I think I still have a couple of nights of winding ahead of me. I'm pretty close to being organized!

Erin #1 has been here visiting me since Saturday, which is soooo good! I hate being separated from my best friend! She left today to go home to her parents house for Christmas, but she's coming back for New Year's WOOHOO!!!!!!!

Is everyone finished their Christmas shopping? I AM!!!!!! Yep, I'm bragging! I won't be stepping a foot into the mall until Christmas is over! Unfortunately I work in a grocery store making fruit baskets and fruit and veggie trays so I might as well be in a mall...bring on the craziness!!!!!

And on a side note, I just wanted to say THANKS to everyone who's been stopping by to read and/or comment. I LIVE for comments, they make me so happy....so thanks everyone!!!!

Crazy January Challenge Organization Progress

So......we're getting pretty close to our January 1st start date! I'm starting to get reallllllyyyyy excited, I can't wait to start stitching!!

Yesterday Holly and I went to a new (to us) cross stitch store in Whitby....and it was pretty awesome! There was lots to choose from...I guess the biggest problem was that we didn't have a whole lot of time to look around...it was getting late and the weather was starting to get pretty snowy and we wanted to get home. Also, we have very different tastes, and between her trying to help me, and us both getting frustrated because we don't like the same things...and my natural indecisiveness..it was a little stressful! But I think I got some great stuff, and my 15 is complete! Unless I'm able to get a couple of patterns that I specifically want but can't find locally. See above for the tentative list!

Well....I guess that's all for now! It's Christmas week (almost) and that means that work is CRAZY and our employers seem to think that we're machines...so it'll be a fun 7 days.

Oh, and I have a race on Sunday! The Ajax Snowflake 10k...excited!! Wish me luck :-)

Well That Was Firetruckin' Festive!

....on new "swear words," Shawn's belated birthday party, and our makeshift Christmas decorations.

Yep....I work in a special place! LOL! No really, we're goofs and we love it. We recently had to come up with fake swear words because...well...I can't exactly remember the reason. So a few of us created a list and have been pretty good about following it! Except for Shawn, on the day he knocked over an entire skid of blueberries :-)

So.....if you're really, really mad at someone...for example, the other day, when Shawn wouldn't leave me alone, you would say... "you sugarcrispy, firetruckin melon farmer! Just go to the farmer's market!" You can take from that what you like.....we know what it means, and I'm sure you can assume hahaha.

We found out that Shawn's birthday had passed a couple of weeks ago and he didn't tell any of us. When we asked why, he said that he didn't think we'd care. So of course, since this is completely untrue, we threw him a little belated surprise party the next morning....here are some pics....

Our "decorating"...notice the little plate of cupcakes ontop the the salad pile :-)

I had "fun" fighting with Cora, my pineapple coring machine while waiting for Shawn to get to work

Shawn reading his card

Hiding behind a box to eat his cupcake because it's "against the rules" to eat in the backroom LOL!



Me and Holly!

 And finally...we were quite upset that we're the only department that can't decorate for Christmas (stupid health department rules!) so we decided to use what he had.....a branch that had fallen off the trees the floral department sells, a grape tomato, a twist tie, and a pineapple chunk...to make our own "Christmas tree!" here it is.....

And in the words of...us....isn't that firetruckin festive? LOL!

Now....I have an hour to stitch before I have to be at the museum :-) Have a great day!!

The Past Two Weeks.....

My last two weeks have been completely taken up by essay writing...no fun at all! Except that it was...sort of fun haha! I was working on original artifact research and got to work with the curator of the museum...we looked at accession files, did a couple of oral history interviews, etc. So it was really cool to see how the museum does things and handles artifact research for new exhibits, while also fulfilling a huge requirement for my last unfinished course of the semester: a 4000 word essay on an unresearched artifact. Done and done!!!!! All that's left to do is my footnoting...so I'm feelin pretty good today :-)

Onto some stitchy-ness.....well....there hasn't been any. I haven't started working on any of my December goals yet....but that changes today! I'm so excited to be done with my school stuff so that I can relax and only worry about work, running and STITCHING!

Holly and I are taking a trip to Oshawa later in the week to do some Christmas shopping there and I hear there's a pretty decent cross stitch shop there...so it's on our list of things to check out. I'm hoping they'll have some nice kits and patterns for me to add to my Crazy January Challenge. The Michaels there also has a whole aisle devoted to cross stitch, so that's on our list too. Unfortunately the Michaels here in Peterborough fails epicly at this- all they have is floss. So hopefully by the end of the week I'll be a little more organized with that! And I'm heading over to Rose's next week and she's going to help me with my quilt binding, so that'll be another check off the old list :-)

For now- a finish. Not mine, but Holly's! She doesn't have a blog so I took a pic of her stocking to show on mine because it's soooo cute! She finished it last year but just finally sewed it into a stocking last week. Here it is!

What's Your Favourite Christmas Special?

Mine's How The Flintstones Saved Christmas. You know the one....Santa falls off Fred's roof and breaks his ankle, so Fred and Barney have to deliver all of the toys on Christmas Eve? I have such a soft spot for the Flintstones! There's something so magical about the scene where Fred and Barney are in Santas Workshop helping the elves make all of the presents...can't wait to see it this year!

What's your favourite?

A longer post to come soon :-)

Happy December First!

Phew, November went by fast, didn't it? All I remember was a lot of work, school stuff, exams, and rain! I didn't have any stitching-related goals for the month of November because I was determined to get through what had to be done for school...and I did! I'm down to one big assignment, then a BREAK! Yay!!!

That being said, I thought it might be a good idea to set out some goals for December:

1. Finish It's a Girl Thing for Love Quilts (inspired by Vonna, the Twisted Stitcher)

2. Finish Vancouver 2010- make it into something so Erin can finally take it home rather than visiting it at my house

3. Stitch Feelin Festive and Joyeux Noel by Jan. 9 to give as gifts at a post-Christmas family gathering

4. Sew the binding onto last year's Christmas quilt

5. Most importantly- organize everything needed for the Crazy January Challenge!

Here's my progress on It's a Girl Thing so far:

Hmmmm....what else is new? Well, I went to my first Christmas party of the year on the weekend, which was our annual work dinner. It was fun- good food, some drinks....



And, to mark this first day of December....it finally snowed! Like, actually snowed, as in significant accumulation! It started around 9 this morning, and this is what's fallen since, in about 4 hours:

And finally, I was super-excited to read that Robin from http://stitchingwitch.blogspot.com/ has offered to send me a chart to add to my Crazy January Challenge supply! I'm so grateful to her and I can't wait to see what she sends :-)

Enjoy your week!