Goals

This time of year many people make resolutions, or determine an action that the wish to take for the New Year in effort to improve themselves. I've never been real good at making or keeping any resolutions. Today my 9yo sat at the computer and came up with list of 9-10 "resolutions" of how she wanted to improve her behavior. They were all nice ideas a couple of therm were, "be nicer to my little sister" and "work harder at school". I told her these were great ideas but that for her to be successful she needed to focus on a couple and use measurable goals to improve the behavior....then it hit me. I sounded just like my instructors in nursing school

Every week on Wednesday we, the nursing school students, would go to the hospitals where we were doing our rotation that quarter, and pickup our patient assignment. Each assignment was generally 2 patients we would have to study their medical history, current history , disease, medications, etc. We would then have to write out a care plan for each patient identifying the potential or actual problems the physiology for the problem, include actions or nursing care that would help improve the patients situation or prevent a problem from actually occurring. Goals would actually have to be measurable; we couldn't just write "patient will be pain free" but "Patients pain level will be less than 5 on a scale 1-10".

So here I am trying to explain to my sweet 9yo that while I appreciate her wanting to be nicer to her little sister, she needs to think about, how, what actions she is going to take that will help her be nicer to her sister. She looked at me like I was a little nutty, I have that reputation with my kids. This interaction with my daughter has helped me think about what I want my goals for the year to be. When I decide on what they are going to be,I don't know if I'll post them all here it depends on how brave I'm feeling at the time.

Until then Happy 2010

Its a beautiful gray and cloudy day here in the Phoenix area The girls and I all have the sniffles. I hope and tend to think they are more allergy and weather related than viral.
John had a migraine this morning. I feel bad that this is something he has to contend with in his life, but am grateful that they aren't worse or more frequent. I took the girls out to run errands for a couple of hours so John could have the quiet he needs to get over the headache.

We came home bearing donuts and lasagna (John's favorite). Hoping it will be a good day.

Knitting wise I'm going to finish the scarf started while mom was here, then start some dishcloths for my MIL's birthday present. Her birthday is a little over a week away, Think i can make 6 dishcloths before then? I would like to, we'll see.

...one more entry for the day

It is two days after Christmas. We've taken down the decorations, put away the tree the only thing that remains if the fudge in the refrigerator. It was a little strange this year because my oldest was gone. He entered the Missionary Training Center a little over a week ago, to serve 2 years as a full time missionary for the LDS church. Its a pretty awesome thing to watch your son grow from a fun goofy kid into a neat young man. around 11yo going to first scout camp

19yo missionary

The three younger kids were a little sad and missing their brother, my parents saved the day, as only grandparents can, by coming and staying with us for Christmas. My youngest got a lot of snuggles from Grandma and grandpa. Em fell in love with their new dog, and John had fun playing games and going golfing with Grandpa.

My mom and I visited a couple of our favorite yarn stores and new projects were started, scarves. Mom was glad to be knitting something new. I started one just because mom wanted me to start one too. Most moms and daughters go clothes shopping or get pedicures together....my mom and I knit together.
Even though we had a great time. Thoughts of my oldest child are in the back of my mind. I know he is safe and happy, and in my mind I am giving him a big hug.

Bad blogger...no cookie!

I'm a bad blogger. I've hit a major blogging slump. The history of my blogging has been all over the place.

• family and friends
• knitting
• healthy living
• cooking
• crafts
• my faith and beliefs
• gardening

Those are pretty much my main interests. I craft all over the place too. I have a bad case a ADDOS (Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny) and frequently will put down a project to start something new. I was hoping after a year that I would get the hang of it and by now I would have and informative inspirational and witty blog that I would be proud of.

When I told my husband 9 months ago that I had a blog he asked me what was the purpose would the blog serve. For me it is a way to connect with other people and an opportunity to be able to express myself and maybe get a little feedback.

I will continue to blog about activities with family and friends, knitting and crafts, my quest live a healthy lifestyle, stuff I do around the house, and a little of my faith. My faith and beliefs are precious and personal to me and won't be a huge part of my public blog.

I want to be more organized this coming year, take care things that need to get done, and actually finish some projects. Finishing projects that would be a nice change. This week while the kids are home I'm going to examine ways to help accomplish these goals.

A belated Merry Christmas have a safe and happy New Year.

Forest Canopy Shawl (and other knitting content)

I have been absent from the blog. I've mostly been busy recovering from the surgery and trying to catch up with all the things that didn't get done while I was recovering.

The first week of post-op recovery had me finishing this lovely little shawl for my mother-in-law. It is knit in Dream in Color Smooshy in the Oceania colorway. I loved working with the yarn and the pattern was fairly easy to follow even on heavy-duty pain pills

I finished a couple of hats. I really enjoyed knitting Quincy the pattern by Jared Flood from his book Made in Brooklyn I just bought the pattern as a downloadable PDF on Ravelry, I love Ravelry love how it lets me buy a pattern anytime of the day :) yes I'm an impulse shopper I knit this hat in Berroco Peruvia Quick. Its a soft warm hat I love it and since its been chilly (for Arizona), I can actually wear it and not swelter

On the home front my oldest leaves soon to enter the Missionary Training Center in Provo , UT. After being there for a couple of weeks , he will go to the North- Eastern part of the United States where he will be serving an proselytizing mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He has been a fun kid to raise we've had some really awesome talks lately. I will miss him but I am excited for him to go out into the world to grow in the gospel and in life experiences. He's an awesome young man.