One of my most favorite poems

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening , by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

BRRRRR!

Today when I woke up in my nice warm bed, I rolled over to kiss my husband good morning. His couter action was to show me that it was negative 22 degrees outside from the weather page on his iPhone. Dude, that is not a way to help me get out of bed. All I wanted to do was throw my nice warm covers over my head and stay in bed for the rest of the day. Alas, work beckoned.

While I was getting ready this morning, listening to the radio announce all the school delays or cancellations I wondered, "what would it take for a work place to cancel work? would would or could an office actually close because of the cold?" I mean think about it. They cancel school because it is dangerous for the kids to be outside even a short period waiting for the bus. Well, I know plenty of grown-ups that have to sit outside and wait for the bus to take them to work. I think that it should be a consideration to cancel work when it is this flippin' cold outside. Who's with me?
Even though I know cancelling work because of the cold will never happen (especially in my line of work. if the market is open - we are open), I still yearn for the good old days of 2 hours late and snow days.
I hope everyone stays bundled - Snuggle a little closer, and an extra blanket (in Kendra's case, make it electric!) and have a warm cup of cocoa. Its winter in Minnesota people!

MMIX

Welcome to 2009 one and all. We are full steam ahead into the new year and so far its been.....COLD! Freezing cold, with an occasional ice storm and lots of snow. I do love the snow; however, that is one thing I will not complain about!

I had the pleasure of spending the weekend after New Year's at my family's cabin. When we got there, no less than 18 inches of snow blanketed the forest floor - and I had the great pleasure to be there and watch 5 more inches of snow fall ever so daintily down from the sky to make it ~2 feet of SNOW! I loved it.

We went sledding and played with Tubby, my family's black lab. Poor Tubby didn't really understand the whole sledding thing because as soon and one of us would go down the hill, he would barrel down it and meet us at the bottom with a thud. He would not move out of the way, and its kind of hard to stop the sled - near the bottom of the hill - so we would actually run in to him. The dog thought it was a game or something. Whatever, he didn't get hurt and looked awful cute running down the hill to beat us to the bottom.

ANYWAY,

I hope the beginning of 2009 is off to a good start for all of you. I know some ended the year on a rough note (minor surgery, car accidents, illness). So, lets put the past behind us and forge ahead into what has the potential to be a wonderful year (except for the economy, the continuing fight over who is our MN state senator, corruption on Wall Street, failing housing markets and rising food prices). But seriously, 2009 is a clean slate. New goals have been and can STILL be set and old problems are gone, never to resurface...hopefully.

I will keep you up to speed on how MMIX is going for me, and look forward to hearing/reading how it goes for you. My best wishes to all of you for health and happiness in the new year.

XOXO

A Wrapper's Delight

I spent about 5 hours yesterday sitting on the couch, wrapping presents. I can't tell you how much I actually enjoy the holiday chore of wrapping Christmas presents. I do, I really do. There is something about the pretty paper and ribbon that curls with a swipe of a scissors - it just gets me in a Christmas-y mood. Yes everyone, my Charlie Brown Christmas feeling is gone. I started out my wrapping marathon watching the Vikings game. That quickly changed into Santa Claus 2 followed by Love Actually - finished with the end of the Wizard Oz (it was on TV). All the while I was wrapping presents my wonderful husband vacuumed AND did the laundry. Now, if that isn't my Christmas present - I can't wait to see what he got me that is BETTER than that! ;)

Now that Christmas is ever so close, I hope all of you can find joy in the small things that make this season so special (like wrapping presents and gorging yourself on cookies). Its the small things in life that make it so great - agreed? Agreed!

Happy last minute gift buying, baking, and wrapping to everyone! Christmas is almost here!

Being Martha Stewart is hard work!

For the past week I have been cleaning, planning and prepping for a Holiday Party Greg and I are hosting at our apartment tonight. I have been really excited to have this party because I haven't had one is a good while. AND....... Good lord, its a LOT of work. I love party planning - love it, love it, love it! But, I have never had to do all the work that goes into it all by myself before. It has really opened my eyes to how hard being Martha Stewart must be. Obviously, in her life now she doesn't do every thing herself, actually she probably doesn't do all that much at all to think of it - but her Martha Stewart lifestyle it what is really hard to imitate. I guess I can't say I did it all either. My loving husband did do his share of cleaning and running to the store and whatnot. Anyway, back on track. I love Martha, I really do, but sometimes I just don't think all the effort to make everything look absolutely perfect is necessary. It was my good intentions to have wonderful crudites platters and lovely decorated Christmas cookies; however, it turned out more like a veggie platter and some nice cutout cookies with sprinkles. I think that it will taste just as good as the fancy ones, sorry Martha!

A Charlie Brown Christmas

So as everyone knows very well - we are in full-swing Christmas mode. I usually LOVE Christmas. I love everything about it. The reason for the season and all the wonderful things that come a long with it such as deocorating the Christmas tree, baking Christmas cookies, yummy traditional food (oyster stew, Swedish meatballs, rice pudding, pickled herring!), parties and presents and lots of Christmas cards.

However, this year I have been stuck with some kind of "Charlie Brown" downer mood. I don't know. Maybe its the economy, maybe its the fact that my older sister is in Korea, or maybe its the fact that my middle sister and I haven't talked since Sept. 7th - and we even spent Thanksgiving together and STILL didn't talk. I am sure there is a plethora of issues causing this weird funk - I just wish they would go away! I mean, I love buying presents for people, its one of my most favorite things to do. So this year when I realized that I didn't have the excitement to get out there and go shopping, I knew that something was very wrong with me.

"Isn't there anyone who can tell me what Christmas is all about?" and make this cloud of gloom and doom leave my personal space?

Anyway, its just really hard to feel this way when everything around me is telling me to "Be Happy" and to spend lots of money.

Yumm-O!

Today I brought ginger cookies to work to share with my co-workers. I just wanted to let everyone know that this batch of cookies I baked might be the finest ginger cookies I have ever made. No joke. Usually I mix the cookie dough too much so when they bake the cookies get crispy or I bake them too long and they get crunchy. When everyone knows that a ginger cookies should be really soft and chewy, the crispy and crunchy turn out can be somewhat disappointing (although they still taste really good:) ) I just wanted to give my self a pat on the back for this job well done (a little praise for myself isn't a bad thing, right?). Also, I hope everyone who got to eat one really enjoyed the deliciousness that is a ginger cookie :) I think I finally did my grandmother's cookies recipe proud. Yea!