Its January 8th already.

And my tree still sits by the front window (thank goodness its artificial). I'll have to dust the ornaments before packing them, at this rate. The angel topper is already down, thanks to Sadi....who ran under the tree while chasing a tennis ball......unlike Max, who used to bring down the whole tree, little Sadi just wobbled it enough to make the angel take a swan dive.....

I made no resolutions this year....other than to try to make time for myself - an ongoing battle. I am trying to find time to exercise, time to cook/prepare foods for myself, time to squeeze in some doctor appointments, etc.

Here's a cute gimmick to add to my workout routine. Sounds like a good idea.....but then, so does a nap. Hmmmmm. Got this idea from http://runagogo.com/. A number of knitting blogs I follow mentioned it and I could use all the motivation I can get. So I went to TickerFactory and made a ticker, and put the appropriate 100 miles by April 1st button on my side bar. I really need to get serious about it, so maybe seeing the turtle move will be a bit of motivation.....



Note: On 01-08-07, this showed 0 miles done and 100 to go.....When I exercised and updated my ticker on 01-09-07, the ticker changed on this date also....Hmmmmm.....I had hoped it would be different each day, but oh well! :)

Current projects at this time: Further garage rehab, Karen's quilt, Laurie's quilt and finishing the Healing Shawl I started last year. Pix soon.....

One picture available now.....this is an example of a really effective way to wake up. The other morning, I was working in my office at about 4 AM and the rest of the house was sleeping peacefully. Suddenly I heard bumping and thumping upstairs and then the fire alarm went off.

It happens so much here with the various family members' cooking attempts local SoCal wildfires that I sort of ambled over to the front door to open it and see if I smelled smoke. I was peripherally aware of mumbles and curses and sounds of panic upstairs but assumed that Max the Wuss Wonderdog was having a panic attack because of the alarm and Michael was trying to calm him.

However, the bedroom door opened and to my astonishment, Michael exited the bedroom and started down the stairs carrying a flaming torch in front of him that turned out to be the bedside lamp. He had turned it on to get up and navigate over sleeping dog bodies on his way to the loo, and it burst into flames. Kind of a spectacular sight, truth be told.

Actually, he made a fairly spectacular sight also, parading to the front door with every intention of taking it outside to put the fire out. I relieved him of the lamp at the front door, after reminding him he was not dressed for the front yard (undies only, plus a flaming torch do not constitute acceptable clothing!). Needless to say, he didn't get any sleep the rest of the night!

Proof that its a fairly common event for us to be sounding alarms: Patrick didn't even get up, and the girls took a peek at Dad going downstairs bearing a torch and just went back to bed.....unperturbed!




















I blew out the flame and went back to work.....We didn't even try to repair this one - a new lamp was purchased instead.

Much more updating to do on my blog - but for now - work calls....