Short Story Long

I was telling a friend about some money concerns last week, and she told me that the years when her family had no money were her best childhood years.  It's like the people who refer to The Depression as the "good ol' days."  Priorities shift and you realize what is really important.  I guess that got me thinking about the simple pleasures in my memories.  My best memories of our courtship  were the simple things...  eating chinese food while watching t.v., getting Slurpees, walking around downtown (that's where we met), and as I was driving through Denver on the way to a meeting this morning, I was reminded of one time when we had a picnic at Cheesman Park.  I got home this afternoon, and there was an air of lethargy in the house so I forced all my grumpy men into the car. We took some sandwiches and a blanket and went to Cheesman Park.  It was a warm January day but it is still January.  One child was shive...

You know those people who have a word for the year? Yeah, I'm one of those people. My word came to me in December, I knew exactly what it was going to be. I even said it out loud on, New Year's Eve, to someone other than my husband. What's my word? contentment .  Somewhere, in the first few days of the year, I saw a post about word(s)-of-the-year and everyone left their own word in the comments.  Many people had similar words about striving toward new and great goals, but only one person had one like mine.  Jillayne's word was content .  I commented on Jillayne's blog, and she replied.  And then I realized that I didn't know exactly what I meant by contentment.  In the meantime, I had joined a group on Ravelry based on The Compact , about using what you have instead of buying more, which I thought went right along with my word.  But as everyone was talking about not spending money, I realized that was not my goal at all.  Mind yo...

Now that the patterns have been released, I can finally show you more from my photo shoots last October.  Marly , Natalie and I had fun zipping around town taking pictures of the latest Bijou Basin Ranch patterns knit up in their latest new colors!  I especially liked this set at the 'Pec (El Chapultepec, famous for "hot burritos and cool jazz.")  As always, Natalie was a great model.  Natalie also brought along several bags and pieces of jewelry from her friends at The Sassy Factory .  The bright colors of this wall really brought out the brilliance of the yarn.  ...and I loved the taxi-hailing pictures.   Marly designed this piece and Natalie spotted this red and orange art installation.  I ended up with some of the red yarn, you know how I feel about red!  Later in the week, Marly and I met up with Ashley to shoot the remaining pieces, including this sky blue top.  I purposely tracked down this blue building I frequen...

 Winter finally arrived in the Denver Metro area, a week or two after Christmas.  I took this photo of a lovely ice sculpture which was forming under the leaky downspout last week. 

Finally!  I tried several times to download this picture, I don't know why it wouldn't load.  Anyway, the finale of my handmade gifts!  My mother-in-law had forwarded me an email about our foremothers' necessity of aprons and all the things they were used for, and she said she could use one.  I took the hint!  Immediately, I found a cute pattern at the fabric store but it took me over an hour to find three fabrics that I thought would go well together.  The pattern actually calls for four; I couldn't find a fourth but as the fourth was for the lining I got the appropriate yardage from one of the first three.   The pattern came together pretty easily considering I had left this to the very end to sit down and do.  I thought it turned out really cute.  I like the button, too!  Pattern:  McCall's Retro Aprons, M5643 Fabrics various. I just may sew more things this year.  Hopefully s...