Happy 2011!!

Happy new year everyone!  While 2010 was definitely not my worst year on record, I am looking forward to the start of a fresh, new year and all it will bring.

If you make resolutions, I hope that you have the resolve to stick to them.  If you don't, that's okay too.

I resolve to try to be a better person.  To love more, to laugh more.  To bake and share.  To run with my dogs as much as possible.  To try to finish one knitting project before starting another.  To spend valuable time with friends because I'm lucky to have them.  To enjoy my kid, because he's growing up too fast.  To remember that we need to be thankful for every day we are given, because we never know when there won't be another.

I wish all of you and yours a perfectly spectacular 2011. 

Merry Christmas (and other assorted holidays)

I am so far behind in everything this year.  This is the first year in many that I didn't even contemplate sending out cards.  If you received one from me, count yourself among the lucky.  I only sent out a handful (in response to cards received!)  I did, however, manage to send out ecards!

Baking has been the focus for December.  I have baked many things.

Red velvet cookies.

Ginger Molasses cookies (made with whole wheat flour this year, which wasn't a bad thing.)

Maple Iced Shortbread

Toll House Cookies

Fudge

Cinnamon Rolls


And for Christmas day...  apple pie

and dinner rolls.

I'm wondering if I'm channeling some long dead baker.  Because never have I baked like this before. 

I also found time to knit Ron a hat for a gift - he's started riding his motorcycle again and his ears get cold when he gets a whim to ride at night.  Believe it or not, it's actually a bit chilly in AZ in December at night (too cold for me to ride.)

I knit dishcloths for gifts - an annual staple.  I owe a pair of mitts (sorry Mary!) 

I have been running as many mornings as possible to stave off the inevitable pounds that will be gained from all the baking.  I am losing the battle, but the puppies are happy!

Kyle has had his annual between Halloween and Christmas illness.  Bronchitis this time.  Hopefully he will be fully healed and ready to play hockey on Monday night.  (spoken like a true hockey mom)

Ron is on-call Christmas day, but we are hoping he will at least be here to open gifts. 

We had lots of not so exciting things happen this year.  That post will come later!

Merry Christmas everyone.  Hope you and yours have a blessed holiday together!!!

Hockey begins!!!

In some parts of the country, Labor Day weekend signals the last weekend of summer.  For others it's the last weekend before school resumes (not here, we start school in August and even in some areas, July!)  And for some, it's the start of college football (GO BRUINS!)

In my world, it's the official start to hockey season.  The Labor Day tourney always kicks off the new season.  Tonight at 5:30pm hockey officially begins!  The thrice-weekly practices.  The scrimmages.  The games.  The tournaments.  The travel.  The eating-most-of-our-meals-out cause we're on the road all the time.  The fun.  The friends.  The highs and lows of competitive hockey.  The memories.

Kyle has been insisting that this is it.  This is the end of the road.  He is done playing travel hockey after this season.  He will be a senior in high school next year.  Moving on with his life.  It is another passage.

He says this like it's so easy to give up something that has been a part of our lives now for more than a decade.  He has grown up on the ice.  Laced up his first pair of skates before his 5th birthday.  Played his first game when he was 5.  I remember when he began playing travel hockey and I would look at the midget parents and think, wow, they've been doing this a long time.  Now I am a midget parent and staring down the end of the youth hockey road.  It's hard to believe how quickly it's gone.

But we have one long season ahead.  Trips to Las Vegas, Nashville and D.C. planned.  Trips to the rink 3 times a week and games to be played.  It will be a good season.  One last chance for all of us to be together doing this thing we love.  One last chance to watch our kids go out there and have fun.  One last chance to tuck away the memories for a day in the future.  When our kids go off and have their own kids to haul to hockey practice.

I am sad.  But I am also happy for what this has brought me over the years.  So many friends made.  So many places visited.  So much fun for all of us who have been touched by the youth hockey bug.

I will miss it.

Life without a uterus....

Thanks to all of you who have personally been following my journey from being "whole" to losing the "factory."  HA!  Someone said I'm an "it" now, no, not quite.  Still have those ovaries to remind me regularly that I am in fact female!

Life has not returned to normal.  Not yet.  While the blessing of having DaVinci surgery means you're back on your feet sooner, those feet are not steady.  There is still the daily struggle of pain, brain fog, and exhaustion.   Who knew 3 hours of anesthesia could render me even more blonde than I'd been prior?  The question is, will my brain cells ever recover, or is this like when you have a baby and you permanently donate those brain cells to them?

My running career is on hold.  I am thankful to be able to walk one mile on the treadmill now.  And the nightly walk around the block with the dogs.  I do think back to the first night when I couldn't even stand up for more than 30 seconds!  Or the first days home when I had to ascend and descend the stairs sideways (yes, like a crab) to avoid the strain on my ab muscles.  It's a process, they keep telling me.

"THEY" is the Hyster-sisters website.  To anyone having the fun of considering, going through, or recovering from a hysterectomy, this is the place for you.  To find the information you need, the support you crave, the friends to laugh with along the way.  Checking in here both pre and post op has been the only way I have gotten through the last 3 weeks.

I must send out a huge thank you to my husband, who waited on me hand and foot when I returned home from the hospital.  He has totally been there for me through this nasty recovery process (and the couple days before which were no picnic either.)

Promises to be back soon and share real chaos.  Like the fact that my house hasn't been cleaned since pre-surgery.  Ron has learned how to run the dishwasher.  Laundry?  What's that? 

Eclipse....

Another year, another Twilight movie with the Yarnies. What could be funnier than 8 grown women (with kids of their own) going to see a tween movie and squealing like tweens? We are dweebs. Or as Mands calls us "dorks in Forks."

But it was awesome. Faves....

• Sitting next to Gherkin and watching her curl up in a ball and cover her eyes whenever Robert Pattinson was on the screen.
• Hearing Kitteh yell, "oh baby" when Taylor Lautner is shown shirtless for the first time.
• The fact that as old as we are, we could sit there entranced like tweens for the full 124 minutes of the movie and still be wishing for more when it was over.
• That we are already planning for November 2011 when the next Twilight movie is released.

An entertaining lunch followed at PF Changs. Egg drop soup anyone?