A fond farewell

I am not a "shoe-girl." I could careless about most shoes as long as they are comfortable and allow me to walk from A to B, I'm pretty happy. But there are exceptions to every rule and for me that exception is my Chuck Taylors. Since middle school I have had six pairs, four of the traditional hi-top black with white toes, one low-top blue with white toes and my "work Chucks" which are black with black toes.

With the arrival of my new "non-work" Chucks, my last pair has departed. I received those shoes as a gift from Nathan when we had been dating for a year...it was a fantastic present.

I have had them ever since. In five years we have really gotten to know each other, they have molded to my feet, become dirty and riddled with holes where the rubber and canvas meet. More pairs of shoelaces have passed through those sixteen silver eyelets than I can remember.

I have had them longer than any other pair of Chucks I've ever owned. I will miss them.

Christmas

I hope everyone enjoyed a Merry Christmas. Ours was lovely, despite the weather and my new schedule. Because I'm new at work and my trainer has Mondays and Tuesdays off, I had to work both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

It is traditional in my family to spend Christmas Eve with my dad's family in Pecatonica, where he grew up. After I got off work Christmas Eve, the weather was already turning nasty and I did not feel like making the drive all the way to Pec, so Nathan and I opened our presents to each other (I got a puzzle and a T-shirt with a great British TV reference on it and a food processor). Then we went to Mass at my church in a nearby town, then we went to Nathan's church service.

After that we went to his mom and dad's house to spend time with them and his sister and her husband.

After work on Christmas Day, I stopped at home and we rounded up the presents and then set off through the softly falling snow for my mom and dad's where we had a lovely meal and opened presents.

After that, we packed up and headed back to Nathan's mom and dad's where we opened presents with them. Through all these gift opening, we received many lovely presents, including Nathan's new computer monitor and my new pair of non-work Chucks, which I love.

St. Nicholas Must Really Love Me

To celebrate his feast day, he brought me this, which I have been wanting for a little while now:

It's a puzzle and after some initial frustration, it came together quite well. I love it! St. Nicholas brought Nathan a Christmas ornament of a French horn, and we both got candy as well. Happy St. Nicholas Day, everyone!

I HAVE A JOB!!!...

...Details to follow...

A wrap

I've noticed, the last couple years the increasing lack of Christmas wrapping paper with religious themes. When I was growing up, we had rolls of beautiful paper decorated with angels and wisemen. My favorite was the burgundy roll with yellow angels. I loved it so much I wanted to save a scrap of it when we ran out.

But these days Santas, snowmen, penguins, and even Disney characters fill the brightly colored rolls of paper in cardboard bins in the stores. I love this paper, too and some of it is absolutely adorable, but I miss the prettier for religious papers.

I mentioned this to my mom this year and when we were at their house doing laundry a few days ago, she handed me large thick roll of paper featuring wisemen and Nativity scenes. I couldn't believe it. I had looked and looked to no avail this year. I asked her where it came from, but she wouldn't tell me.

I'm just happy to have it.

Oddly Nostalgic

Nathan and I had a little vacation this past weekend. Friday night we drove four hours north to visit my middle sister Anne, where she is going to graduate school at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota.

Here's the thing about this: Anne has been at Winona State for six years now, four as an undergrad and two as a grad student. For three of those years, she was joined by Elizabeth, who transferred to Winona during her sophomore year of undergrad.

Now, Elizabeth is in Alton and this May, Anne will graduate with her master's in teaching English as a foreign language and it will be "Farewell, Winona" for the whole family. As we spent time there this weekend, I started to feel sad and nostalgic about the place. Granted, I have been there maybe three times in the six years the girls have been there. But I've always liked it, as a place. When we went there when Anne was trying to decide where she wanted to go in 2004, I noticed how pleasant and "small-towney" it felt.

The university is not huge and the town surrounding it spreads out for quite a ways and still feels like a friendly area.

And it is replete with interesting places: the Winona Sandwich Company has the best bread this side of Jimmy John's. Last weekend I went with Anne to the co-op she goes to to get oats and other things for her made-from-scratch pumpkin pies. I had never been in a co-op--it was a nice store. The town sits on the Mississippi River and is bordered on one side by a long range of bluffs, which provide ample hiking. But it also has all the things a college town needs, including a Wal-Mart, Target and many restaurants.

I may not have been there quite often enough, considering it's where my sisters were spending their time. But when Anne moves on to the next phase in her life, I think I'll miss Winona a only a little less than she will

Assessment

Over the last few months, I have discovered that, contrary to popular opinion, rehabbing an old, beaten up house is neither easy nor fun.

I'm not going to deny I felt a great sense of accomplishment after I painted the sun room and I was also pretty happy with the results of the living room.

Then we did the front door together and it looks great, and I'm happy with that. But this month, I have dedicated to repainting Nathan's office. However, before I started painting, I had to scrape the ceiling, which was flaking quite a bit. I thought it was going to be like scraping the living room ceiling, which involved scraping a little and then sanding and painting over to make it look right. But the office ceiling hasn't stopped peeling as I've scraped, so the decision has been made that I need to scrape the ENTIRE ceiling.

Now, to be fair, this is not a large room...thank God. But working on it is just me with a little scraper so the progress I make is relatively limited. I'm not sure I'll actually get around to painting this month.