Marvelous Monday Update 12/8/08

Weather
Mother Nature has blessed us (ahem!) with an accumulated total of 7" of snow three different times in the past week. It takes me two hours to clean my driveway each time it snows. Even though I have a snowblower, there is still a lot of work that Shove has to do to clean up places the blower can't get to.

Here's what my house looked like at 8:15am, after I cleaned the driveway on Sunday:



Tis The Season
I've been debating whether to put my big tree up this year. I will be the only one who will see it... even though I love seeing all the ornaments, it's not quite as enjoyable if I don't have anyone to share it with like my nieces/nephew, or someone special. What to do? What to do? I have two smaller trees and put one of them up this weekend. I'll get the other one up when I get time.

I put all the ornaments I stitched this year, and the ones I've received in exchanges on it. I still have to get a topper for it, as the one that came with the little silver balls isn't size proportionate for the tree.

See all the gifties? Those are the 12Days gifts from my sister and my niece. Next to those are the ones for the 12Days exchange for the SC group. Can't wait to open them!

Side Note: Those pre-lit trees are a great idea... UNTIL the lights no longer work. What a PITA! I spent 40 minutes removing the dead lights and re-stringing the tree. I'll just leave those on when I put the tree away for the year.


3 Days, 3 Cities, 3 Women
Last week I mentioned that I volunteered to be a speaker at a seminar on behalf of my firm. Trepidation, Anxiety, & Fear consumed me each day. The first day, we spoke before 30 attendees. The second day, there were 50 attendees. The third day was about 12 and most of those were company employees. Everyone I talked to said we did an excellent job! I looked at the comment/rating sheets after each seminar and we received 4's and 5's (5 being the highest rating). I put in over 51 hours last week, and was sooo tired at the end of each day. It will be a LONG time before I volunteer to do something like this again, but I will say it was one of the most intrinsically rewarding things I've done... because I'm in NO WAY a public speaker, and it was definitely outside my comfort zone. I was told by one of the other speakers that she told her DH it was really wonderful for her to see how I blossomed through this entire process. (She's such a great lady!)


School
Now that my public speaking debut is over, I can concentrate on finals which is on Wed. Not only is it a cumulative final, it also includes the last 5 chapters we went over last week. Yikes! All I want is a "B" on the final. That'll ensure I get a solid "B" as a final grade.


Dating
The last guy I mentioned just dropped off the map. Not quite sure what happened, as he was calling and emailing me after the date. Then *poof* gone. Ah, well. Next!

So on Saturday, I had another first date. He lives about 40 minutes away and drove to my city. We had lunch at a fun Mexican restaurant. The food is great there! He seems very nice, is stable, and quite the talker! He also has texted, emailed, and called after the date. He's also indicated he'd like to go out again. He even invited me over for dinner on Sunday. Since I had studying to do, I had to decline.


Stitchy Stuff
I started my December ornament for the SAL's I'm involved in. Two hours yielded me a border. I used 18ct aida and the ornie is turning out to be quite tiny! It's OK, though since I'll be putting it on my small trees. No pics yet... sorry.


Hearty Yum-Yum
Seeing as the weather has been really cold lately (Think single digits and teens), I thought I'd make some Creamy Potato Soup. Mmmmmm... good!

I made so much that I was able to freeze four double servings.