SNOW!!!!We got SNOW!!!!!

Ok. We got a light dusting, less than an inch really, but it's still pretty and it's snow. Being on the coast and situated where we are in New Jersey, we don't often get snow of any appreciable amount. We get excited by even just a little. There was one year that we got a blizzard and 3 feet of snow fell in 24 hours. That was something. It snowed a lot that year. I seem to remember having more snow when I was little. Now it makes me feel like a kid. Here is the holly tree in our yard. It's a male tree and therefore doesn't get berries. It looks pretty in the snow. We have to enjoy what little we get because we aren't predicted to have much snow this winter.

I didn't know it was snowing all morning because I was teaching a crisis management class. I teach mental health professionals how to de-escalate a situation and how to restrain someone safely should it become necessary. Hopefully, the verbal techniques we teach make the restraint unnecessary. We also teach defensive moves in case someone feels that he/she just has to put their hands on your neck to get your attention. What this means is that after two days, I am sore! I have bruises (it is not gentle) and sore muscles from doing the moves over and over. It felt good at the end of the morning to have someone say, "this is the best class like this that I have ever taken." All the work of the past few months was worth it. I have 4 more classes of mental health clinicians to teach in the next week and a half. Then in January we will train our administrative staff.

In the Christmas traditions that are important to me catagory, today I want to share our Christmas book with you. Called, Christmas at Our House, this book was started on Dec. 26, 1981. We bought it our first Christmas together. We had this crazy idea that we would record each holiday so we would remember them years later. And 26 years later, we still look forward to reading about holidays past. It helps me remember what we did, like the year we had the tree we nicknamed "Boomerang Bob" because it was kind of crooked, or the year the tree fell over on Christmas Day, or the year we all had the flu and were sick as all get out. These are the small details that I know I would have forgotten and it makes me smile and brings me great joy (and many tears, I'm just like that) to read and reread them each year. This is the final year for this particular book. There aren't but a few pages left in the end. Now I have to find a new one to add to the collection. It will be Christmas at Our House, vol. 2.

I finished my waving laces socks. They are beautiful and very soft and warm. I would love to show you a photo but my cat, Calvin, just wouldn't leave them alone. Every time I moved him away, he jumped back onto the socks before I could get a photo. I cast on for the Embossed leaves socks from 25 Favorite Socks. I have finished 2 pattern repeats and I am enjoying watching the pattern come into being. Simple things amuse simple minds. I also finished my one row scarf and have been wearing it this week. It is a little itchy against my bare neck but it is so warm that I put up with it.

I hope you are all in good health and making headway on the holiday plans!