Christmastime

so as i just perused the previous blog posts, i realized that i have done the last 6 out of 7 of them. so instead of mcblog it should be called christina'sblog. oh well. haven't posted in a while due to many holiday events. Santa came with a christmas miracle on day 6 of laryngitis and gave me my voice back. it still sounds hoarse over a week later, but i am just thankful to have something. brainstorming sessions at work were difficult and also sarcasm doesn't translate well when written. also anxious to get back out skiing in order to train for the City of Lake 35K.

christmas was good. kind of a whirlwind. had christmas eve with my mom's family. steve and i hosted brunch the next day for them and family friends and then christmas night with my dad's family. picture above is from brunch with my 87 year old grandma. such a cutie she is (pic taken on my cousin's iphone, not bad). this post is kind of boring. below is a photo of the new cabled hat that i knit for my mom. i just kind of made up the pattern by combining about 3 other patterns. it worked out pretty well, although taking a picture of it posed some difficulty, it's hard to see the cables, whatever.

My own private hell

Quiz question: What do Ariel the little mermaid and I have in common? Nope, not fish tails. No, not the use of a fork to comb hair. Answer is-- it’s the loss of our voices. I am on day 3 (and it's looking like day 4 will bring more of the same) of not being able to talk because of laryngitis. It has been quite possibly one of the most frustrating things in recent memory. I have been carrying around a wipe board with me, making hand gestures, using facial expressions, text messaging and using steve as my interpreter. It is exhausting!!! The doctor said that there is nothing that can be done besides not talking or whispering, but my patience is wearing thin. It could potentially last up to two weeks. I have been doing a lot of knitting though so here’s a picture to show the weekend's work. A new hat and i finished the mukluks. also working on another hat right now.


It would be nice to end this post by writing about the new zen perspective on life this has given me or how introspective I have become or how once I get my voice back I will be more articulate and think more before I speak… but that’s not at all the case. Although it does give you a new appreciation for those monks.

Red sky at night, sailors' delight

Red in morn, sailors take warn. Anyways, so Kristen and I went for our first cross country ski of the season on Sunday. We headed over to Hyland Park Reserve in Bloomington. The snow was the perfect consistency for skate skiing; a lot of people had the same idea we did. We went late in the day and the sky was beautiful and cast a warm glow on all the bare trees and the frozen lake. Can't wait to go back and with the snow we got today, we should be set for a while!

also, in other news, we got our christmas tree tonight, or should i say, my christmas tree. the thing is heinous. the trunk is all gnarled and it is missing large patches of branches. that's what you get though when you go on the snowiest night thus far to go pick one. we couldn't really assess the tree's quality until we got it home. it will just have to do though.

STUFFED!

So this will probably be one of the only posts where we talk about the wedding until the actual wedding. wedding talk is annoying to others. So anyways, on Saturday Steve, Kristen and i went out on this snowy day to taste cupcakes (there will be no cake for us). Prior to the tasting i would said that if i were on a desert island with only one food it would be cupcakes. I was convinced that saturday's activites were pretty much a dream come true because i adore them so much--- well i was wrong. We all felt so sick after three tasting appts. that we had to cancel the 4th one. This was predictable i guess. The thought of eating one even today, three days later, is not appealing. although let the record reflect, i would do it. anyways, so we tried them from miel y leche, wuoletts and yum! bakery (above pic from there).

miel y leche chocolate, also ate 5 other kinds.

Wuoletts before and after. i think when we were done here it was kind of a turning point where the stomach ache really hit.

We spent the rest of the afternoon shoveling to work off the 200,000 calories we had just consumed.

LINK OF THE MONTH

Wow, who would have thought that getting chickens and having your entire family stay with you for Thanksgiving would lead to the least amount of posts in a month on McBlog?

Anyways, do you have some time on your hands, care about people who are hungry, and like to learn vocabulary? If so check out the December LINK OF THE MONTH at freerice.com. They will donate 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program for each word you know. Good luck!