Post Boxing Day Celebration

We met at our favorite Greensboro eatery, Pho, for an excellent Vietnamese meal. James One was in fine form. He seems to like noodles.

Christmas Day 2015

My Bro with his girls, Mal's girlfriend and Mal

My brother decided to drop by on Christmas with his girls (home for the holidays from Princeton). Unfortunately his wife was not feeling well and couldn't make the drive. His oldest girl is in Korea right now teaching the natives how to speak English. You can visit her at her blog here. I had not really planned on holiday guests, so we had our traditional dinner of nachos. Brother and girls stayed at a hotel over night (yes, I'm a horrible host) and we had breakfast at Elmo's in Carrboro before they headed back to Virginia. I went to Ft. Bragg to babysit for James Two so his parents could go see Star Wars. I definitely got the better deal. Me and JT had a wonderful time.

the Boston family

Bert, JT and Calvin

Miguel and I found ourselves with an opening in our schedules yesterday and decided to make a quick trip to Ft. Bragg to check on the kids. JT is teething again, so he wasn't feeling super great, but he was still adorable. A coworker gave me her kids' old workbench and tools. James LOVED it. All is going well with his future sibling. Bert is about 32 weeks along now. She feels fat and tired, but otherwise OK. Hope to post some pictures of James I soon. I saw him last weekend but forgot to take my camera. He is also adorable. Amazing that I ended up with the 2 most incredible grandbabies on earth!

Visit with JT

Stained Glass Workshop

I signed us up for a stained glass workshop at Kaleidoscope Studio in Mebane. We learned how to score, cut and grind glass, then wrap in copper foil and solder the pieces together. We both made sun-catchers. Bert's was a sunset design and mine was a modifier cross. I thought it looked a lot like the Zuni sun symbol (which is on the New Mexico state flag and license plate). We had a great time and I would love to make something else in the future, but I am really not interested in doing this as a home hobby. It would cost a fortune to get all the necessary equipment. I do not need to adopt another hobby at this point in my life. I barely have time to work on the thousands of projects I already have planned. My goal in 2016 is to use up most of my supplies before investing in anything else.

Nativity Display

Annual Nativity Display in Apex. There were over 800 nativity sets and art work from all over the world. Very interesting to see how different cultures interpret the same theme. I ran into an old friend and it turns out 3 of her kids were singing in the Youth Choir that evening. It was a wonderful performance.

More Crochet Projects

Prototype Fish Bag in cotton yarn

blurry shot of a bunch of practice baby fish

Fish Bag with drawstring mouth closure

Version II mesh fish bag

This is what I've been up to lately...trying to perfect a pattern for a crochet mesh bag shaped like a fish with a drawstring closure at the mouth end. The first bag took FOREVER to crochet. It is huge. So I made the next one smaller and in a mesh stitch rather than straight single crochet. The idea is to have a little bag to put the baby fish toys into. I'm using cotton yarn because it holds it shape better and is washable, even though it is much harder to work with. Don't know how many of these I can make because it kills my gnarly old arthritic fingers. I'd love to make one for the boys and a couple of my friends' grandkids. We'll see. I'm pretty happy with Version II up there. I made the whole thing this morning. I've got to go rest my hands now, so probably won't do any more crocheting today. Oh, I did take the red bag for a test run. I let my grandson play with it and he seemed to enjoy it. So, this has been thoroughly kid tested and approved.