Yesterday this is what it look like as I drove off to get my chai.
To catch the frosty limbs one must take pictures early.  The sun melts them quite quickly.

Katie and I were up and ready to do something by nine because Ginny dashed out the back door.  Again.  She thinks this is great fun.  I. do. not.

I told Katie.  We are NOT chasing her.  People say she will come back.
Katie cried.  Not having Ginny in her sight makes her terribly fearful and anxious.
I tried to be brave and believe.
After 15 minutes we got in the car and drove down the road.  As we neared our home
we saw Ginny running toward us, from the direction of our house.  She had come back home.
BUT she was way too wound up to get in the car or even come and get a piece of cheese. (her favorite treat)
She dashed away.  We pulled in the garage and left the door open and some cheese on the ground.
She snuck close enough to grab the cheese and the ran like crazy.
We did not chase her.
Five minutes later we got in the car again. We drove around the block.  The route of Katie and Ginny's walk.  We did not see her.  We closed the doors this time and went in the house.

Ginny was hooked up to her lead in the back yard.

A kind neighbor must have caught her and put her back.

Other people's labs do not run.  Ours loves to run away.

It's all fun and games until you get hit by a car.




This is what the back yard looked like yesterday.


****

I finished Barb's Koigu Ruffle scarf (Churchmouse Classics)





I have not pressed it yet.
Where is my iron?

Even unpressed it looks very similar to the picture on the pattern.
It's small and looks better on Katie's skinny neck.


***

I ordered my Christmas/New Year cards and made myself a calendar yesterday to distract myself from the disappointing play of the Packers.

I used Mpix again.  The cards were 1/2 the price of Minted or Tiny Prints.  That was with no special offers.  The calendar was 20.00 but I used them last year too and the quality of the photos is wonderful.

Tuck that away for next year.

Yay Mpix.



Happy last day of 2012.


“The best things are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain common work as it comes certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things of life.” 
― Robert Louis Stevenson



Encourage one another,
Donna

Ha! My husband just noticed the blog...and lack of posts.
He called me a slacker.

hehe

Sorry friends.  I just did not have a spare moment to sit down and write.
I cooked so much, I never want to cook again.
Mostly because I cooked alone and everybody else was elsewhere.
I wanted to be with them.  Not alone in the kitchen.

Somehow this needs to change in the future.

I like to make my favorite things for my favorite people but when it takes me away from them...for hours and hours.

Bad.


Here are some pictures I took while I was away from the blog.
I will not be posting many pictures to Facebook anymore so ya gotta stop by here to see what I'm up to.
K.





groups of booshays :o)



For Christmas I got a Lensbaby Composer.  It makes the edges blurry.
I love it.
It's dreamy.

And it made this look like an action shot.
I made the girls lay down in the front yard before they went sledding :o)




Cindy came to dinner on Saturday.  It was so wonderful to be together.
I made a tenderloin and it was WAY too rare.
Emma bought me Ina Garten's Foolproof cookbook for Christmas, it has a recipe for tenderloin, I will be trying that next time.  Yikes.



Cindy and her Patrick.
So happy together.



Cindy brought a little of mom along with her.



On Christmas we tried to see Les Miz.  It was sold out until 3:20 so we stopped at Starbucks....
and took pictures.

We all liked the movie very much.  It's a serious musical.
Much of the background is left out of the story.  But this is a movie of the musical.
Not a movie of the book.

Have you seen a movie of Les Miz (the book) that you really love?




Nice light at that Starbucks :o)



This was my nostalgic contribution.
We made this ever year for our New Years Eve gathering.
It was neighbors and friends.
Our gathering is family.

I happen to like this appetizer of bologna and cream cheese.




This is the best of the family picture bunch.  Not so good.
I  edited off my butt on purpose...but what am I going to do with the Patricks?

Oy.




I've been knitting a ruffly scarf.




I've driven to Iowa.




I've enjoyed my busy Christmas with my family.




I'm on top of the world :o)


Encourage one another,
Donna

Happy Birthday Katie Gracie

Happy Birthday to my precious Katie.  I guess I should say our precious Katie.
She doesn't just belong to me, after all.

What a joy and delight she has been to us.

Love you honey!


****




I snapped a few pictures when Emma was home on Saturday.


Merry Christmas dear friends.

With love,
Donna

Winter Solstice

Ginny was ready.



It snowed and it snowed.

Patrick shoveled three times.
The dog ran out the front door at 6:00.  
She ran and she ran.
We ate chicken and dumplings.
I cast on 648 stitches and then knit one row.  It took forever.




This is what it looked like the moment I awoke today.
Hello world.
It's nice to see you.
Glad to still be here.



This is from my spot on the couch.




This is my helper.
The dog wrangling in the snow takes more than one person.
Sometimes three.

I made this little graphic this morning.  I put my logo on it because I'm tired of seeing my little pretties go viral without credit.  I will not be surprised to see my logo taken off anyway.
But this is my wish for you, my friends and readers of this blog.





Matthew and Melinda are making their way here today...they have hit icy roads in Iowa.  Could you please pray for their safety.
Emma is coming in tonight.  We will all be together under one roof tonight...God willing.

Let the wild rumpus start!


Encourage one another and be light.
Donna

I watched this Bing Crosby Christmas special in 1977.  It was shown after Bing had died.
I watched it in the living room of my college house, Waterman.  I can also remember watching the Walton's Christmas movie in that same living room.  I have always been an old soul.
This clip became popular, I think, when MTV started airing it in the 80's.
I love it so much.





Guess who has this song as her ringtone?
These guys. They are having so much fun.  You want to go to the party they are going to.
They remind me so much of my dad.

Oh yeah.  It's my ringtone.






Patrick Sr. came to my rescue and drove to Milwaukee to get Patrick Jr.
It has hairy.  It was slow going.  But Jr. is here and sleeping in Emma's creaky old bed.
Patrick's plane landed with no problems.  We were very fortunate for this.  Patrick's girlfriend flew to seven airports yesterday and still has not gotten to Omaha.  What a nightmare.
We are glad they are safe and do not have to drive in the snow for a few weeks.

Ginny was utterly delighted with the foot of snow as you can see from the video!


It is still snowing.

Warm Thursday Wishes!!

Encourage one another,
Donna

Yesterday Di wrote a very wise thing in the comments.

She said, "It seems to me that most things worth having are a whole bunch of work."

And isn't that the truth.

Melinda has started a new job, she is a secretary at a hospital in the OB dept.
She works three 12 hour night shifts a week.

She knows it will be hard.  Probably not quite how hard until she gets into it....
but she finds it very hard to be away from Asher so much during the week and she decided to choose the work hard instead of the away from Asher hard.

I admire her so much and when I was awakened last night at 3:58am by my BLARING cell phone telling me there was a Blizzard Warning starting tonight at 6:00 pm, I immediately thought of Melinda and said a prayer.

And I thought of my son Patrick arriving tonight at Midnight in Milwaukee...and how on earth I am going to get him home in this blizzard.  Traveling nowadays is hard enough at busy holiday times so Patrick's trip will get hairy, I imagine.  Will his plane land?  Will he be diverted?  Will I be too terrified to drive?  It's hard. 

But gosh darn it.  We have not all been together in two years.  It will work out eventually.
Living so far away from your children is a terrible hard.  A little airport/blizzard drama...a piece of cake.

My friend, MFS, once shared an article with me about dieting.  
The author said, "Choose your hard."

I agree with that statement.  Melinda is choosing her hard.
Sometimes things are out of our control and we don't really have a choice.

But I guess its then that we remember...be it a marriage or a job or a pregnancy or a toddler or your education or a dog....


" most things worth having are a whole bunch of work."






Wishing you courage and blessings as you toil away.
It's going to be alright in the end.  
At least that's what I'm telling myself.


Encourage one another,
Donna

One year ago today...

Ginny rode home from Boscobel in the car with Katie and me one year ago today.













She is active and loves to chew.  She is naughty but she is gentle.  She is sensitive and she is curious.
She is a lot of work.  I like her best when she is resting beside me and when she runs around the yard like a nut.

She is a pretty girl and smarter than she looks.

We are still adjusting.

Every stick Ginny finds will be her wand.

She will be a very strong, brave, loyal girl.

~ginny's blessing Janice Bue

Encourage one another,

Donna and Ginny

Encourage one another

Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)

Christ Has No Body

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

*****

Encourage one another,

Donna

Sending weekend wishes of love and peace.

Encourage one another,
Donna

Flash Back Friday

Five years ago I was just learning to use my digital slr.  It was a Nikon D80.




My little muse here was my best helper.
I learned so much taking a gazillion pictures of her.



I turned 50 that year.  My sister Nancy picked me up and we drove to Missouri together to celebrate with Sue and Cindy.

What a good idea that was. What a fun time we had.






Oh Cindy. You make us all laugh and we love that about you.
Nancy (our guardian angel) is on the left and Sue is in the middle.




I love that Sue is reading a magazine.  I know that might be weird to think about, but this is so Suzy.
And Cindy...tan beautiful Cindy.  It's a good picture.




Why I love this self portrait, I don't know.  But I do.



Hello, little honey.




He smiles.


When you go back and look at your pictures/photo stream do you get lost like me.
I could stay there for hours.  It's one of my very favorite things to do.

Same thing happens when I go back and read portions of my blog.  I wrote this in 2005;

The Ghosts of Winter Past

Once upon a time I lived in hilly, pine tree covered Wausau, Wisconsin.Every day at noon I would head over to the ice rink at the fair grounds to skate.Typically four or five skaters would be there; a mother and a child, a young man skating figures, an elderly gentleman and me.
The young man showed me how to skate a figure eight. I learned to use the edges on my skates.Harley, the elderly man, taught me to skate the waltz. The waltz is skated much faster than you would imagine and very close to your partner.
Stroke, swing, inside edge, loop.Stroke, turn, outside edge, glide. 
I was nervous and scared and worked very hard to keep up with Harley's speed and steps.
I loved it so much.
It was possibly the coolest thing I have ever done.

Our dance was a combo of these two.  I remember having to turn and skate backward for part of it.  But not quite as much as this second dance.

It was such a challenge for me.  But it was thrilling to try!




Encourage one another,
Donna

New Glasses

Two weeks ago Katie broke my glasses while cleaning them for me.  She is amazingly strong.
This forced me to pony up and buy some new glasses.

Wearing cheaters for two weeks was terrible.  Sharp focus is my thang.

Finally the glasses came yesterday.  I slightly freaked out because I could not see anything well.
By the time I went to bed last night, my eyes were already adjusting.

But last night when I was trying to take a picture of myself I noticed the big puffy bags under my eyes.
I was aware my eyes were baggy up top.  But this.  This was new to me.

So this morning I bought Cover Girl concealer, applied the concealer to my lovely bags and promptly took my picture in the parking lot at Target.

That seems to help.

Crisis adverted.




******

Last night in New York many old and very famous rock stars got together to raise money for the victims of hurricane Sandy.  Things are still very desperate for folks out that way and it was nice to see this group of entertainers do this thing.

This guy Roger Waters was on Jimmy Fallon the other night and I did not know what band he played in.  Apparently he is in Pink Floyd.  Apparently I was nursing babies and listening to Raffi in the 80's/90's.   I did recognize all of the songs and even knew some words!  woo.


I was thrilled to hear Eddie Vedder sing with him.





Matthew and Melinda and Asher adore Chris Martin of Cold Play.
I think Chris Martin was the best all around performer of the whole night (The show was over 5 hours long!!)      

He is so darn talented and appealing on stage.






So there you have the Good Parts Version of #121212concert.

You're welcome.


Encourage one another and rock on.

Donna

12-12-12

Twelve things.

1. My favorite quarterback is #12




Yeah.  I'm a girl.  I'm gonna show you behind the scenes of a commercial and NOT touchdowns.
Heh.


2.  My favorite 12 year old.  For most of the year Katie is same age as the year....except the 2000 part.






3. Twelve Months old.






4.  I get a kick out of special number runs on the calendar and on the clock.
12-12-12 is the final single number run this century.  I plan on taking a picture of the twelve year olds at school this afternoon for the yearbook.


5. I am sure I have seen The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind at least twelve times.


6.  When I was 12 I attended Edison Jr. High in Wheaton Ill.  We were the Panthers.  I was a cheerleader.  Our school song was sung to the tune of On Wisconsin.  On oh Edison, On oh Edison...
  I learned to do a back handspring that year.


7.  My best friends were Claire Lamb, Heidi Hutchinson and Lynn Robinson.  We lived in the same neighborhood.


8.  The Chicago Blackhawks were my favorite team.


9. I kept a diary and was already writing my favorite poems and quotes in a little black book.
They are saccharine sweet, most of them.


10.  Twelve years ago we moved from Marinette, Wisconsin to the Madison Wisconsin area.


11.  These are the coolest mittens I have ever knit.





12.  This is the best cake I have made in the last 12 months.




Bonus:  this is my favorite group shot of the year....



 Info:  Nikon 700, Exposure(shutter speed) 1/160, Aperture f/6.3, Lens 50mm. ISO ?
Back lit.  Spot metering.  Focusing on someones face in the middle.




Wishing you twelve things that makes you smile today!

Now.  I would be super happy to get 12 comments.
Oh. Yes I would.

Encourage one another times twelve,
Donna Boucher

Twelve. Twelve letters in my name.
AH, AH, AH!

Light. How I found it.

This is a iphone picture.  The thing that makes it pretty is the light. (I think)
I was driving home from school this morning with the sun behind me.
The sky was dark in front of me. There were clouds appearing to my right.  The light looked so beautiful but I was looking at apartments and houses so I turned into a park.  The park road had me going toward the sun.  Nothing looked very pretty any more.  Then I turned around and headed away from the sun again.  And there was the pretty light.

Sometimes, both in the morning and at night, the prettiest light is opposite the sun.




Here I was looking North.  This appeals to me composition and color wise.  But it doesn't have that lovely light like the picture above.


*****






This is such a pretty song from Home Alone 2.
I know my big boys will like to hear it.  :o)
To them Christmas movies all begin with Home Alone.



Happy Memories.

Encourage one another,
Donna

Perfect timing

On Saturday we drove down the road to a small Christmas tree farm.
I said we would just look.  See if we could find a scrawny tree.

We didn't even take a saw.

But right away I saw that there were many scrawny trees.

A fellow shopper offered us his saw.

After passing many trees that Katie thought were embarrassing,
I picked one out.

Patrick cut it down.

Then we saw a nicer one.

This made Katie cry.

Oh boy.

Her heart is still right there on her sleeve.

We put the tree on the porch.  Then it snowed and snowed.



I usually get gasoline and Christmas trees and put up lights on the coldest possible day.

This year our timing was perfect!

HoHoHo.


Encourage one another,
Donna


Informational P.S.
Tree cost $33.00
It is 5 1/2 ft. tall

The pretty wreath is from my sister Janet and her family.
We get one every year.  It is a fantastic gift that we just love getting!