Baby Mason

Proud Mama sent these wonderful pictures of Mason and his birds!

Isn't he darling?

Baby Mason's Birds

You may recall my bird project from this post back in October. Well, I finished it! I met Erin's darling Mason when I was in NH (for Haiden's 2nd birthday) and presented the proud mama with the fruits of my labor.


These pictures don't show it well, but the birds are hanging down from the crosspiece, which swings and tips quite nicely, along with each bird turning a bit. (Pardon the poor quality, the pictures are from my cell phone). Upon presentation, we held it up for Mason and he seemed appropriately enthralled :-)

The project was inspired by the picture at left, as executed by Spool Sewing. Originally the plan called for each bird to be perched on branches which would hang from each other, and swing separately. Lovely.


Alas, I completely overestimated the balancing abilities of the birds on the light balsa dowels I had chosen. I didn't realize until I was in the thick of it that there was nothing I could do to keep the branches with the birds perched upright!! It seemed no matter what I added as counter-weight on the bottom, the bird still flipped the stick over and wrapped the lines around.


Now, I couldn't simply hang the birds - they were clearly sitting, not flying! If I had more time, I would have gone back and sewn wings on each one of them. But alas, I was to present the gift the following morning - just a few short hours away - all seemed lost!


After a good night's sleep, I came around to see reason: the 2-month old and his parents wouldn't care whether the birds were flying or sitting or what. This is simply meant to be a pretty thing for their nest. So I attached individual perches to each bird, and strung them each separately. Voila!


Perhaps I will try again to achieve the originally-intended product, but clearly more weighty branches are called for in the future. Or more cooperative birds.

Just a little post...

to keep you all posted.

After losing my job at the end of January, I was spending 3-4 days a week teaching at Bolton Valley. I continued skiing with the office team I put together for the corporate race league every Thursday night, and had a great time doing so. Um, until that last one...

Sports fans, I blew out my ACL.

It was my second run of the night, I was on my new skis. The whole team had been putting up great times, and we were all in a rowdy mood. Racing against VTKiwi, I slipped out of a gate and over-corrected...then over-corrected again, and before I knew it, I blew out of the course. As I was falling, I could feel the twist, and knew it wasn't going to be pretty. I got my first-ever ride in the ski patrol sled, after which we decided it was actually only a sprain. Hooray!! I took my baggie of snow (icepack) and happily walked to the bar with my team.

The next morning, I could barely move it or put weight on it. Not cool. Went to my doctor, they got me right in for an MRI at FAHC. That afternoon I had the results: ruptured ACL, bone bruise, and pulled LCL. I met with the surgeon the following Monday morning, and he basically told me if I ever want to be a skier again, I have to get the surgery.

So that's that. I have a month of PT, which I affectionately refer to as my 'Jane Fondas.' After that I'm meeting with the surgeon again to schedule the surgery.

Roger was SO patient with me when I was still in a brace and on crutches. He quickly figured out that we now take stairs one at a time instead of all in a mad dash. One morning on a walk, he saw a squirrel, tensed up to chase it, but then looked back at me, and kept walking. Seriously, he's smarter and more compassionate than some people I know.

So now, 11 days later, I'm doing great - I'm mobile, working on regaining full range of motion. It's my left leg, so I can still drive, and I'm off the crutches. Once I have the surgery though, I'm going to take you all up on the offers to walk Roger or pick up groceries!!

BraveDog the Adventurer

Roger helped write today's post.
We went on a big adventure today!! We went really far down the bike path, it was practically uncharted territory. I even walked out on the frozen lake, which is just crazy. Lou says I'm very brave, and I agree. There were trains, and people, and ice, and other dogs, and sand! Like I said, it was a BIG adventure.

After that, we went to CDSW and dropped off the compost (which smelled AMAZING), and then we went to Pet Food Warehouse! We got a new bag of food, and Buddy Biscuits, and I got all kinds of treats from the people with the blue aprons, just for sitting and offering my paw! OMD, I love that place.

Since then we've just been snuggling at home. Lou baked a batch of my favorite peanut butter cookies, and I started my new food at dinner time. I love weekends - and it's still only Saturday!! Tomorrow we might see Cartoon Drum, and I'll get a raw meaty bone.

Did you know I tweet? Not quite like birds, but like Twitter. There are LOTS of other dogs on Twitter, and cats and horses too! You can follow me to read all about what I'm up to. But now, I think it's nap time.

GOTTA love race league!

So, it's true I've been dreadfully ill all week, but if there's one thing I'll rally for, it's race league! Despite the fact that it was raining here in town, we had been promised snow on the hill, so we piled into Kate's car, and headed over to Bolton.

It continued to rain the whole drive there, only switching to snow once we started climbing the 4.5mi access road. The higher we got, the more the snow had built up. By the time we hit the S-curve, it was pretty messy! We lost too much speed to make it up the steep, and ended up parking the car just below it in a pull-off, and thumbing a ride up the hill.

Now, I don't make a habit of hitchhiking in general, but on several occasions I've ditched my Focus and hopped into the back of a pickup to successfully commute up the Bolton access road to make it in time for work. In my experience, it doesn't take that long - usually after just a few minutes of walking with my thumb out, I'm rewarded with a ride. And the same is true on race night - even with three of us and our equipment!

Racing was about as fun as the drive - with just a little more pain. It wasn't cold, but the snow was...sharp? You couldn't face down the hill without it stinging your face, which made racing pretty tricky! There were no lines though, and everyone was riding the same ruts so I think we held our own pretty well.

After we all got our two runs in, we headed to the James Moore Tavern for a beer before heading home. Unfortunately, there was an accident at the base of the access road, so the plow couldn't get up, so none of us could get down! Oh no, we're all stuck at the bar!!

Luckily, there was still the race league raffle to keep us entertained! Would you believe the three members of our team who were NOT there were all drawn? I wouldn't make that up. Only one Disrupter, Michelle, managed to bank a prize, now we have some team wax! Oh, and there was that time we sent Sean up on accident...

Finally the access road was opened up, and the guys drove us down to Kate's car. As soon as they pulled away though, her car got lodged in the snowbank! Right about that time, the driver of the vehicle parked next to ours arrived, and easily pushed us out and on our way! Thanks to the rainy/snowy mix, it was a pretty long trip down the hill and back to Burly, bringing to an end another wonderful race night!

And now, nothing left to do but await the posting of the official results!

Thousands of things go right for you every day, beginning the moment you wake up

I woke up right on time today! Didn't hit the snooze once.

Checked the weather: 15 degrees and rising, with sun expected!

Walked the Little Sir - huge snowbanks, lots of fun!

Tried a couple different hair styles with my short new 'do, decided to leave it plain for today.

Aw, sweet - my pink shirt is clean! Matching bra and underwear makes me feel like a secret super hero.

Wearing my lucky penny for race day, and OMG, I found my sister ring - it's been missing since Christmas!!

Sunny walk to work.

Ooh, that cute coffee mug with the polka dots is clean, nice.


And then I got laid off. From a company I LOVE, and a job I loved. I'm still working on finding the silver lining for that one.

Regarding Resolutions

Resolution #4: Put money in savings each month

I've recently discovered Mint.com, a personal finance management website. After setting up a free account, I put in my online log-in and password for my bank and my credit card. The site can then access my transactions (a little scary, but this IS a reputable site).

Their software categorizes each expenditure - grocery, gas, bills/utilities, entertainment, food/dining, and so on. It displays it in a pie chart to show where all your money goes each month. From there, you can set monthly budgets for each category, and Mint keeps a running tally of each. You can compare your spending to cities, states, or the national average.

Personally, I've always kept a close eye on my totals, but I no longer break it into budgeted categories. I think it's going to be really helpful to have a running total of how much I've spent in the different areas.

Discoveries: for the month of January, I've spent a lot on car repair, booze, and Roger.

Today's Trifecta

Icy edge of Lake Champlain. Brave Little Sir Roger. We think it must be very tough to be a mermaid in Vermont.

Inspired by the blog Orange Pattern

RACE DAY!!

Heyyyyyyyy, DISRUPTERS!!

Are we ready for the big night?!? First race of the season, FINALLY!!

So the season is off to a rough start - first week postponed due to temps so low your eyeballs would freeze. Now we've got Bookless partying in Vegas this week, and Ebbets out with what hopefully won't be a season-ending knee injury. At least I know Prunty and Flanagan have their game faces on, they were over last night to sharpen and wax their boards. I believe Ayer is going to tune his skis AT his office today, how's that for committment?!

You are all officially invited to come cheer us on at Bolton Valley and whoop it up afterward at the James Moore Tavern every Thursday night! Lift tickets are only $15 when purchased with a racer, so drop me a line. I believe we'll be posting results in the KSV Kitchen, for you uberlocals, and results are posted online on the Bolton Valley site - and I'll most likely be splashing them all over the blog, as well.

2009: Things I'm Looking Forward To

It started as a numbered list, but these aren't really the type of thing one can easily rank.

• -The inauguration of President-Elect Barack Obama.
• -KSV's Corporate Race League team, The Disrupters!
  
• -Tulip season, expanding my vegetable and flower gardens
• -Warm weather run-arounding with Roger
• -Camping, hiking, cliff-jumping w/ Roger and the boys
• -Feminist meet-ups
  
• -Home improvement projects - painting and stenciling my bedroom!