Jabberwocky

…"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
 The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
 Beware the Jubjub bird,
 and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!"

 He took his vorpal sword in hand:
 Long time the manxome foe he sought --

 So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
 Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
 And burbled as it came!
 One, two!One, two!And through and through
The vorpal blade went snickersnack!
 He left it dead, and with its head
 He went galumphing back.

 "And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
 Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day!Callooh!Callay!'
He chortled in his joy. …

Lewis Carroll (from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

My last contribution to The Unique Sheep's Wonderland Sock Club:

This is what happened when I sat down to knit while thinking about the Jabberwocky from the Alice in Wonderland Movie. Personally, I think it fits pretty well....

Book Review

                This is the 2^nd book of the C.H.A.O.S Trilogy. I confess to not reading the 1^st one, as I received this one from Book Sneeze to review. That wasn’t a big problem. There’s a little comic strip section in the front of the book explaining the background of the story. It is a fun little inclusion.

                This is definitely a Young Adult book- and in a lot of ways, it might have been better to continue the whole thing as a graphic novel, because that’s really what it reads like.  There’s not a lot of character development; there is a lot of stuff that is way out there and difficult to believe in the way the characters act and react.  It’s very much an action book, not big on description.

                Basically, Colt is a teenager (around 16, I guess, it never was clear) that is newly orphaned and living with his Grandpa, who apparently is a famous superhero immortalized in comic books. He and his two friends are on their way to the CHAOS Military Academy- although for some reason Colt is also being pushed as the successor to the CHAOS Directorship. (Which makes no sense to me, as it is obvious through the whole book that he’s a young, clueless kid- and no government agency is going to be run by a clueless teenager. A bit too far-fetched on that one for me.)  In the meantime, the current director of CHAOS has hired an assassin to get rid of Colt.  There’s some background stuff going on to fill things out nicely, but that pretty much sums it up.

                It was a quick, fun little read. It did hold my interest quite well, even though some of it was a bit far-fetched. All in all, it was a nice distraction; and probably a great book for teens.  

Celebrations

I love this time of year. I love that family gathers together often during the last 6 weeks of the year. It seems like the perfect way to end one year and start another- by being together.

And our families have a lot of reasons to get together and celebrate during the last weeks of the year. Not only do we have Thanksgiving and Christmas to enjoy- but there are a lot of birthdays this time of year as well.

Even though today is the actual day of her birth, last night our family joined with Joel's brother's family to celebrate the birthday of my beautiful niece, Sylvia, one year ago- as well as a brief Christmas celebration.  We all had a most wonderful time together.

Sylvia loved her cake. 

It is so hard to believe it's been a full year since she joined our family. What a wild and busy year it was. Roo and his cousin illustrated it perfectly for us:

This weekend is Christmas (Not that you didn't already know that....) and I am so looking forward to it. What better way could there be to end the year than to celebrate the birth of my Saviour?

"How Old Would You be....

"....If you didn't know how old you are?"

I love that quote. Joel got me a magnet with it for my birthday a few years ago. It has a picture of an elderly nun playing paddle-ball. I think it's great.

If I didn't know- I think I would be 22. I don't feel older than 22. Even though today is my birthday, and I do actually know how old I am, I still feel like the person I was when I was 22. I know I'm not- not entirely. I've changed, I've learned, I've grown (and shrunk a little- more than once; having kids'll do that to a person), I've taken up knitting.... But I'm still me.

I must confess, I get a little more spoiled each year when this day comes around. Apparently, the older I get, the more friends I get. I am a very very blessed woman. I have the most amazing family and friends.

This year, they conspired to get me everything on my Birthday/Christmas wishlist.

A lot of it, I got early (somehow that seems to happen more when you're an adult. When you're a kid, you never get your birthday presents early- you have to wait until the day- then you have to wait until the end of the party- and THEN you have to SHARE. That's always the hardest part. I've discovered there are some definite advantages to being an adult- even if it does come with an awful lot of responsibilities!), like the dehydrator I talked about in an earlier post (Thank you again, Mom, I am using it weekly!).

Then this last weekend, I REALLY got spoiled. My Plurk pals got together (again- remember the bread machine last year?), and blessed me.
   The Amazon gift certificate gave me some unexpected fun- the joy of watching my children help my husband put together my new shelf set:

Which is totally cute. Along with the shelves, I got some collapsible buckets- I need more storage space!

And to top it all off, they sent me a Kindle Touch.

I spent the weekend loading it.
I have over 160 books on it already- so I should be set for awhile!
I love it. I've been watching the Kindles for awhile- I actually got the Kindle for PC app over 6 months ago and have slowly been collecting free books- but I don't sit at my computer to read, so they were just sitting in there. Now I get to read them when and where I want to!

In fact, I had so much fun with my Kindle this weekend, that yesterday when I was trying to finish the library book before it's late; I touched the page, and was totally confused for a second because the page didn't turn like it was "supposed" to. :D

Once again, I am blown away by the generosity of the amazing people I know. Thank you so much my friends. I am so thankful for you.

I did get yet another gift for my birthday- but the dress boots that Joel ordered online for me didn't quite work out- so I'll be trying to find some later. But seriously- I can't believe it. How blessed can one person be????

My favorite part of my birthday and Christmas is yet to come, though. I've saved up, and today, the kids and I are going to go through the Samaritan's Purse Catalog together. We are so blessed- and now we get the opportunity to share it. I love that part of December. Advent and the opportunities that are all over for us to give something to someone else. It's my favorite tradition.

Samaritan's Purse also does Operation Christmas Child. We used to do this yearly with our church- now we do it on our own or with friends. The kids love it. They get to pick stuff out for other kids that don't have the resources we do. It is a great way for the kids to be involved in giving.

A couple of churches I have been to in the past do something I LOVE. It's called Advent Conspiracy.  During the Advent/Christmas season, people take a close look at their traditions and gift giving and choose something that costs money, and give it up for this year. Whether that means 1 less toy for each kid- or 1 less trip to the restaurant, or whatever it looks like for each family/individual- the money that is saved then goes to an organization such as Water for Life. I love this. I think it is the best. We are so blessed here- we need to share the love; and what better time than Christmas to do so?

What tradition of sharing do you have during this season??

Update

Wow! What a wild week it has been ! Thanksgiving was a wonderful as I anticipated. The kids helped me make Frosty the Breadman:

All of our family came and celebrated with us. We shared our thanks, ate all day, and then the (younger) men had the traditional "Feats of Strength" Competition to burn off some of the calories:

The kids were suitably amazed. :)

Since Thanksgiving, I have been so busy.

I got all of my Christmas shopping done (except for my shopping for Joel. He is incredibly hard to find a gift for....), thanks to Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.  I do not, however, have all my Christmas crafting done; which means the busy-ness is far from over.

I have been frantically catching up on pattern writing and prepping for the next couple of designs I need to get going on. In November, I have designed and knit 2 pairs of mittens, 2 hats, and completed a pair of socks- all of which had to have the patterns to go with them finished and sent out to test knitters.

Admittedly, that doesn't seem like very much knitting to show for a full month- but I have been so busy otherwise with school, the kids, Thanksgiving, and all, that there was at least 2 weeks out of the month that I was only able to knit maybe 1 hr per day- which is not a whole lot of time.  I am hoping that things will actually start to calm down here pretty soon- when I'm done with the Christmas crafting, that is- and I will have some more time for knitting. In anticipation of that, I've started a new purse project (mittens and a cowl- or maybe a hat, I can't decide.), and a big at home colorwork sweater. Which I finally cast on for last night- and I am so loving how this yarn is knitting up!!! I am really excited about how this is going to turn out. I'll tell you more about it later.

So I have spent the last week prepping (shopping) for Christmas, doing and prepping for school and vacation, taking Roo to the Dr (prayer would be appreciated- that surgery is unnecessary. Nothing life-threatening, just things are not where they are supposed to be...), knitting/pattern writing/designing, cleaning and organizing (we always go through the toys and pass a lot on before Christmas in preparation- do you??), and just being busy with general mama stuff.....

In the meantime- I also received an early Birthday/Christmas present!

I am extremely excited about this big black box.

Because you see, it is a dehydrator. A nine tray Excalibur Dehydrator.

 And I have been putting it to good use already. The kids are thrilled- and so am I!

First Fruits:

First Meats:

Snacks the kids can have, and snacks I can have. Happy tummies all around. :D  Yay for useful gifts! (Thank you, Mom, I LOVE it! :D )

And just because I can't leave a blog post that has this many pictures without the requisite cuteness- here is Bear and Roo happily playing together- and Roo has discovered what to do about that painful camera flash.