too busy

been too busy skiing (yeah!!!) to blog..
I am loving it, and will post soon, as I feel I have much to blog about.
but suffice it to say, I was at the slopes today for 5 1/2 hours with the boys and we all came home tired and happy.....
we have had much cold weather, so the skiing has been great (although still no snow on the ground anywhere except there).
we have been skiing pretty much 4ish days a week, and it's been wonderful.
more soon.

oh, and here is a short clip of emmett on Monday. I was skiing with him while Eli had his lesson. Keep in mind, I was skiing alongside emmett, my hand was wicked cold holding the camera, I was using periforal vision to not crash into anyone else, and emmett wanted to 'bomb' down! (and he just learned to ski less than a month ago!!)


okay, then after I packed the camera into my pocket (usually I put it in the interior pocket, but I quickly jammed it into my regular coat pocket), we got onto the chairlift. We were almost at the top, when we heard something fall into the trees below. Ughhh. it was my camera. damn. it was dark out too. and Eli was just about done with his lesson. Sooooo I had to ski down with emmett to the bottom, get Eli from his lesson... left emmett (cold tired and crabby) with the lesson director who is so nice.... Eli and I went back up to meet someone who was supposed to be coming from Guest Services with a flashlight. We got there, and I popped off my skis, hiked up and met two guys hunting. they found it, and all was well!!

finally!!!

yeah!!! snow!!!!

I love this waterfall as we drive up the driveway to emmett's school.
It was starting to be frozen yesterday.....


then this morning.....
there was finally a liberal dusting of snow that made it finally feel like winter!!!

firing no matter what....

I am so tired of this war and just wish it were done. I, along with many others, feel so powerless to do anything about it. When you read things like this (on wemovetocanada - she publishes a letter written by a marine who was there) about how the soldiers have to "fire no matter what".... it all just makes you realize how much we don't hear in the media.

We seem so disillusioned that we think we are told everything on the nightly news. Not even close. If we were really to have the atrocities that are occurring in Iraq on a daily basis, shown to us on a daily basis, we'd work even harder to get it to stop. Somehow. Bring our troops home. Enough. Why do we think we are solving everything anyway? We aren't.

Let our troops come home to their families. Be done with spending an incredible fortune on the war and perhaps spend it on saving something universal like our planet! We can all benefit from that. For those of us who have read books like Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed and When the Rivers Run Dry, and more. Our planet needs help and we need to figure out how to sustain what we have, not spend countless amounts of money trying to police others. Spend it on sustaining our existence. THAT we need.... this crazy war we don't.

amazing skies

The skies, the stars, the clouds and the colors found there has always made me stand in awe of the world we live in.

In the last few days, as I have driven in the afternoons over to pick up Eli from school, the skies and the clouds have been so incredibly beautiful and dramatic.
(make sure to click on each of these to see them full-sized)




even the puddles seemed to reflect their gold.....

they turned 40!

can't believe my little brother and sister are 40!!!

it really was only a few years ago that mom took this photo of me pushing you....


but it was 1982 that someone snapped these......

damage done......

Apparently this:

warrents this:


Someone hit my car in the parking lot of my little one's school the other day. And then he promptly drove away, with his bumper hanging from his Volvo. I luckily found out who it was, and called him to tell him that he had done damage to my car. He was incredibly apologetic, and was very genuine about it. He had driven away partly due to the fact that he was so stunned that his own bumper had fallen off... and he was not aware that he had damaged my car in the process. He promptly called his insurance and it will all be taken care of.

Today, a man arrived at my door with a huge bouquet of flowers. I couldn't imagine who would have sent them to me. But I wasn't surprised to see the card that came with it was an apology note from the man who had hit my car. I had been told he was an incredibly sweet person. Apparently this is true!

Happy New Year

We had fun last night going to see the early (6pm) fireworks in Bushnell Park. We went to supper early at City Steam Brewery first (which is in the old Brown Thompson Building) and it was great. The restaurant is fun with seating in tons of levels, and lots of up down activity, of patrons, waitstaff, etc. There is alot to look at and we kept the kids busy playing I Spy while we ate- the kids loved the waffle fries there, and I had a fabulous seared tuna with a great dipping sauce. (click the above link for the restaurant to see the view from our table).

It was so good to get out to some festivities for the night- although odd to have it so unseasonally warm, and not even need mittens or coats zippered up! But certainly made it a pleasant evening for walking around downtown Hartford.
Happy New Year to everyone!

happy faces...

there have been some great smiling happy faces around here! cold outside on the slopes (although not too cold really), but warming with these smiles....






Getting back to skiing has been good for me and the boys. I am so comfortable on skis. It is so second nature to me to have such things strapped to my feet, and heading down a snowy slope. A very freeing feeling to be so capable, and have no fear to just head down a snowy trail, with the wind in my face, and the powder under my skis, being able to just turn, swoosh, and have control, and really pay attention to what different parts of my body are doing in order to keep the control within the limits of feeling free.
So glad my kids are able to do this too, and enjoy learning how, and being out in this snowy heaven, with such fabulous scenery. Odd too, in a sense, as these trails are the ones I learned on, and spent so many hours on with friends and siblings. I never would have imagined that I would be on these very same trails with my own children.
I do hope to be able to get to some other ski areas at some point with them, but to ski on these trails which I know so well that I could probably go down them with my eyes closed.... it is an odd sense of being 'home'. It feels good.

christmas scenes

a few things....

a firey sunset over the misty lake on the night before christmas eve.....
(saw it from the trampoline with emmett, climbed off and ran across the street to grab this shot)

my small child's handwriting.....

some wine that was really good from our feast
I loved the label and name too.....


more coming (blogger is being a pain in the butt)....

a little more

finally a little more snow.... from cold nights for snow making at the ski area nearby.

Eli's and my skis as we are on the chairlift... dangling above some barely covered grass below.

buttercrunch

making batches and batches of this........


damn it's good!!! and easy, and everyone loves it.
will be sending out bags of it for gifts.

Chocolate Buttercrunch
(alot less sweet than traditional buttercrunch)


saltine crackers (1 sleeve)
1 cup sugar
1 3/4 sticks butter
1 (12oz.) bag semisweet choc. chips
1 to 1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts or pecans


1. Line a jelly roll pan with foil (12x15), leaving a 2 inch cuff. Line bottom with a single layer of saltines.
2. Heat butter and sugar in a saucepan until it bubbles, stirring well. Once it bubbles, turn the heat to low for 2 mins., stirring occasionally.
3. Pour butter mixture over crackers & spread evenly.
4. Bake at 350 for 13 mins.
5. Remove pan from oven and sprinkle choc. chips over crackers, allow to sit for 40 seconds.
6. Spread choc. evenly and sprinkle with nuts.
7. Refrigerate overnight (or somewhere cold until it is chilled) and break into pieces. Store in airtight container.

skiing soon.....

yippee.. can't wait! Now that Eli is taking the year off from hockey, we will be skiing instead. Sundown opened on Saturday, and we went out to have our photos taken for our passes. It was beautifully bright and sunny, and they had made enough snow to open some trails. I was wishing that we had our gear all ready to have taken advantage of it. Patience. I won't rush it.


The boys had fun messing around in the snow anyway. Especially since it hasn't snowed here yet, and the three of us are dying for it! I am eager for the first beautiful snowfall. There is something so exciting about it, no matter how old I get. There were just a few flurries last week, and they made me happy to see them gently floating down, and eager for more.

...especially since I got these cool new skis!! and I can hardly wait to try them out! they even fit into the car so I can load all three of us into the car with our gear and drive the whopping 20 minutes to Ski Sundown!

luxurious knitting

the body of the rollneck
(the color is richer than is shown here)

A friend of mine wants me to make a beautiful sweater for her.... out of alpaca. It is heavenly to knit with, just soooo soft! I am making her a rollneck sweater out of a bulky weight yarn, using a bit of a different pattern than most rollnecks. This one is an elite pattern* and is made similar to the icelandics, where you knit in the round, one big tube for the body, two smaller ones for the sleeves, join them together at the armpit, and knit the yoke up from there. It is so easy that way! Hardly any seams, just under the armpits.

She has chosen a really rich aubergine color. I took a break and indulged in a skein of heather green for some mittens for myself. I think the colors are kind of cool together.

this shows the richness of each of the colors

It feels good to knit again. Something busy with my hands, producing something beautiful that can be enjoyed by the recipient.... 'tis the season for that anyway!

* Vis-a Vis Pullover by Kristin Nicholas

From

Knitting the New Classics

fondue night

So cold here! only 14 degrees this morning and a cold bitter wind all day.

Tonight we have friends coming for dinner and we will share fondue with them. It is a perfect night for it! We have a fabulous fondue pot that was given as a wedding gift from our friends in Switzerland... a beautiful blue pot with a garlic clove as the handle for the lid. We will have a fire going by the time they arrive, and candles will be lit. The boys will be ready for bed, and we will eat and drink and be merry. Chocolate lava cakes, and maybe some good port to finish...

yum......

Pesto Fondue

This stuff is truly incredible. If you like fondue and you like pesto, it is a definite must. The recipe is from the Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook. I just swirl in pesto at the last minute.

1 clove garlic, halved
1 cup Italian dry white wine
1 1/2 cups grated Fontina cheese (at least 3/4 lb)
1 1/2 cups grated Swiss or Emmentaler cheese (at least 3/4 lb)
1/2 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
2 -3 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 cup pesto

1. Rub fondue pot with the garlic. Pour in the wine and heat over medium low until hot.
2. Toss the cheeses with the flour to coat. Add the cheese, a handful at a time, to the wine, stirring constantly and waiting until each addition melts before adding the next. Check the consistancy and add more cheese or more wine if needed.
3. Just before serving, swirl in the pesto over the top of the fondue. Serve with cubes of french bread, cubes of sweet italian sausage, and cherry tomatoes.


6 -8 portions