Catching up real quick

Whats new in our house...My husband will most likely be out of a job after the first of the year. We are stuck in a frustrating limbo as a result. If he leaves early, he forfeits the severance package, and a bonus, leaving a large sum of money "on the table". If he waits it all out, he might beat the rush of others in the same situation and get a job, but most likely at a significant pay cut. I don't think there is a right answer to this one. Right now he is looking all over the country for any employment. I don't want to move. I like the life we have created where we are, and I hate moving. I will move, although I joke with him when he tells me where he has applied, or where he has an interview that I will miss him. I just hope it doesn't have to come down to trying to sell our house and relocate once again. I am still plugging away at school. I only have a few weeks left in the semester and still have all A's. Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope it stays this way. I have having so much fun. I wish I had figured out 20 years ago this is want I wanted to do. Not only would I be done by now, but this layoff wouldn't matter as much, as I could pick up a few more hours at work. Oh well! I should be appling to nursing school in Feb., of course that is if I don't move. Moving may just throw everything off as each state/school has their own pre and co recs. Again lets keep our fingers crossed. The girls' cheer season ends today with States. We have not done as well this year, but the squad is closer this year than years past. We have practiced less which makes the parents happy, but it makes them frustrated that we aren't placing...which we might do if we practiced more. We can't win for losing. Well I am off to States, wish us luck! TTFN,Miki

Catching up

It has been a long while since I've blogged and I have some catching up to do.

First both my daughters cheer squads took third at States this year. This was a nice end to a busy season.

I have been knitting away when I can find the time. I finished a prayer shawl for my neighbor and am working on a scarf for her husband. These will be Christmas gifts for them. I will post the pattern and pictures soon. First I need to get the knitting machine off the table so I have a place to take the pictures that has decent light.

Speaking of the knitting machine, I pulled it out of storage to knit a hat for my youngest neice. She will be two just after Christmas and that is about the right age for the felted hat. She says her favorite color is purple, but my sister begged me not to make another purple hat. You see the other three girls all have hats that are a purpley shade and there is always a fight about which hat belongs to which girl. So it make both of them happy, I knit and felted her a hat in a nice bright not purple shade of aqua, and hand knit her a lace beanie in a lavender with a silver sparkle thread running through it. This yarn is the same kind as the yarn I used to make her ruby red mary janes, but lavender instead of red. The best thing about this hat, is that it has two little holes on the sides for her pigtails to stick out. I need to put it on one of my girls so that I can post a picture of it. I can hardly wait to see it on her! I guess that is one good thing about living MANY miles away from them, I can't give it to her early.

The last thing I can think of, is the thing that has me frustrated right now. I knit a hat for a friend. She wanted a charcoal grey one like mine. Well, I can't find a LYS that carries that type of yarn. I know I can order it, but what a hassle. So I went in search of a different brand. The other yarn I use to felt also didn't have a grey. Then I found a beautiful yarn that was named Alpaca Natural Blends. It was perfect...or so I thought. I knit the hat up, threw it in the wash and a hour or so later went to check on it. NO change. WTF! Then I read the label. 30% Alpaca, 70% Acrylic. YUCK! No wonder it didn't felt. I guess I should read the label before buying. So, now I still need to find and knit and felt a grey hat. I guess I will keep the other for a snowman. Or maybe I will frog the whole thing. BTW...it snowed today. It didn't stick, but I still think falling snow is one of the most beautiful things in the world. TTFN, Miki

One Down Three to Go

Yesterday was the first of four Cheer competitions. It was the very first ever one for my youngest. She hadn't really ever even seen a competition. It was fun on one level and frustrating on another.

My youngest daughters squad went for out of our groups. Her squad looked better than they have, but it is a big squad (21 girls), and they have some young ones on the team. My daughter is a back spot. This means she helps the flyer get in the air from behind. She has two bases on either side that are supposed to help her get the girl up and then back down again safely. This never happens. She is the only one ever "catching" this child. Now they don't throw her or anything, just lift her to about knee level, but for one girl to catch and the other to back away that is just not good. The other stunt group, actually dropped their flyer. Not good. This team got 7th place out of 9 or 10 teams. A nice first outing.

My oldest daughters team, for which I am a coach, went on a few groups after my youngests. My team has spiral curls in a high pony tail. I roll my daughters hair. Some people buy hair pieces. Actually on our team of 10 girls, it is split about even. I prefer rolled hair for many reasons. First it looks more natural. If you have ever seen some of these hair pieces you would know what I mean. It is just WAY too much hair for a head, let alone a childs head. The second, and probably biggest reason is that they can fall out. You can think they are is secure, and then BAM! right in the middle of your preformance it falls out. Sometimes it only falls part of the way. It will just hang half off the head, and the girls will just have to ignore it, or lose more points. Other times it will fall clean off and just lie there in the middle of the mat. This is what happened to us yesterday. One of my daughters closest friends hairpieces fell off in the middle of a jump. EVERYONE in the audience gasped and then laughed. My girls just kept going as if nothing had happened. Yeah for them! We had coached many times on what to do if something doesn't go right. Our biggest example was a flyer not being able to safely get in a stunt. We always say pull them down and pose. Keep going as if it were planned. The girls did this on Sunday. I am very proud. Other than this problem, their routine looked GREAT. I have reviewed video and there are some areas that need work, but all in all they did a good job. However, our scores didn't seem to reflect all of that. We took 6th out of 9. The girls were frustrated. I spoke with an offical after. What we didn't know was that we were a "true" junior squad, and many others weren't. We had all girls of the same age group and some of the squads we competed against weren't. They only needed one girl of that age to be at that level. Yes they would have to preform better, but you could do some great stunts if you had 11 year old girls lifting 7 year old girls. It is much harder to lift someone who weighs close to what you do. I thought our stunts were challenging, but what we could do if my youngest was on my squad would be amazing. This was one of the frustrations. Not all of our competitions will be like this.

Another frustration was that the gym was too crowded. The fire marshall wanted to shut it down. And then the air turned off. This crowded gym turned into a sauna. Then just before the awards ceremony we were "treated" to a performance by J. Randall. He sang several songs, and then said, " How about one more" He of course expected screams, and what he acually got was silence mixed with some "no's". How embarrassing. I will get our scores today so we will know what we need to work on for this Sunday. TTFN, miki