The Uggo Xmas Sweater

My mom's side of the family does a drawing each year to see who will buy for whom for xmas. Back in August my cousin Orry told me that he was going to rig the drawing so that I got his name. His special request was going to be that I crochet him an ugly xmas sweater. He wanted it to look like the sweater from the live version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/13062/13226707_1.jpg?v=8CF201495BE22F0

After several months of working on and off, I finally finished the sweater. It's not quite the same. I am really not sure how well it will fit since I didn't have a decent size reference or pattern, but hopefully it works well enough for his purposes.My computer was being stupid and rotated the picture. I didn't feel like figuring out how to fix it, so please turn your head.

I plan on giving him the sweater at Thanksgiving so he can wear it before the actual holiday for any ugly sweater parties he might have. I'll try to get a picture of him in the sweater once I've given it to him.

Runless

I've been training to run the half marathon on Oct. 20th since August. I had made it up to 12.75 miles. (A half is 13.1) Then on Sep 29th, I did a long run in the morning. In the evening my foot started to hurt. A lot. I went to urgent care the next day for an x-ray. It didn't show anything, but I have been unable to even walk without discomfort since then, up until the last couple days, when the pain finally started to ease off.

I tried running today. I only went a mile. It wasn't awful, but I am definitely not better. And the pain was worse afterwards just walking. If I am even able to run at all, I will have to downgrade to the 10k. It is kind of disappointing. I was so confident that I could do it, and proud of what I had accomplished. I guess I will have to settle for achieving last year's desire to run the 10k. Maybe next year I can do the half. I'd rather be able to run some rather than not at all, so I am not going to push myself.

I've been using the stationary bike at the gym. It definitely does not give me the same results or gratification, but it doesn't hurt my foot and it's better than nothing. And I can work my brain doing crossword puzzles or reading, so I guess it's not a total loss.

Lord, I was Born a Traveling (wo) Man

I checked my mail today, and my passport had arrived. On Feb 1st I will be traveling to Mazatlan with my friend Jill and two of her friends. I will be staying in a super sweet resort with a wrist band that gets me free drinks and meals. I don't have to pay a dime for all of this. All I have to pay is the ticket to get there and any souvenirs that I might want. I also had to get my passport, but I have ten years to make that $132 worth my time.

This will be the first time that I am leaving the country. Really the first time I've ever done anything more adventurous than going to NY and NJ which I did in 2005. I think it will be amazing, and I'm very much looking forward to it!

The New Job

I started my new job on Wednesday. So far I am feeling pretty good about it all. My new desk is super far tucked away in a little nook in the basement of the hospital. It's kind of creepy getting to it. There are also a bunch of unused hospital beds right outside the door. A couple of them have full-sized practice dolls on them, so every time I walk out of the bathroom and see them out of the corner of my eye, I jump a little thinking there is a dead patient laying there. I showed Donna where I am at. She likened the area to scenes from The Stand and The Walking Dead. That didn't to much to make the area seem less creepy, but it is fun to day dream about it when I'm down there.

The work is ok so far. It is definitely going to keep me busy. There are lots of phone calls that interrupt work, so I have to work on that balance of finding good stopping places and prioritizing. I think I will like it a lot once I get faster and more efficient, and more comfortable with all the programs I will be using.

A couple of nurses at work got me a very nice bouquet of flowers and a balloon as a going away present. It was partially a joke because the balloon had a huge smiley face on it and flowers are so girly. At work I'm pretty well known as a cynical and dry humored person who is not super smiley. However, the gesture made me smile a lot, so it was kind of ironic and very nice of them. :)

New Stuff

Today I played in the First (Annual she said hopefully) Farrow Family Golf Fest. A good-sized group of the Farrow clan got together at the golf course in Elmore. We played a fun best shot, 9 hole tournament. The weather wasn't the most cooperative, but we got most of the holes in without rain. We ended up stopping on hole 8, but I think it was still good. Afterwards we had supper and delicious ice cream cake and good conversation. I really hope that we do this every year.

On another note, I got a new job. I will start on Aug 28th. I am staying within the Mayo system, but now I will be working in the Release of Information department. My title is "release of information technician." Basically I will be completing records requests that are submitted by patients for personal use, to be transferred to other clinics, or sent to insurance/employers/etc. I am excited to start. I have been needing a change of pace for a long time now. I am not sure what exactly to expect from it, but I think that it will be a good switch for me.

Pizza and Aprons

I made another delicious pizza tonight. The crust is made from a white whole wheat crust. The sauce is a mixture or ricotta cheese, milk, grated Parmesan and, and a spicy hot saucy. I mixed up some chicken with chiles and a bit of the abode sauce, spread it over the top with some Italian blend cheese and some sliced grape tomatoes. All in all, the pizza was very much to my liking.

In the crafty realm, I recently made a silly maid apron. I have a little running joke with a PA at work. To bug me, he will rearrange things on my desk. I told him the least he could do would be to dust under stuff if he is going to insist on moving it and told him I’d even get him a duster and a maid uniform. So one day I got to work to find my desk completely messed up with a feather duster sitting on top of it. I decided to make the apron as a follow through on my threat. Tonight I snuck into his office and left the apron and duster on his desk. I am really hoping that he will randomly walk by someday wearing the apron.

Lastly, I finally got a picture of me on my new motorcycle. I’m getting used to its size and got a new front tire for it since the old one was getting pretty bald.

Filling the White Space

Quite a few months ago I decided to rearrange my living room. I ended up liking it a lot better, but it left one wall completely open and bare. Ever since then, I've intended to find something to put up, but I had not been able to think of what to do. Then, a girl at work gave me an idea when she was talking about something she saw on pintrist. I got a wild hair recently and decided to tackle the project. This was the end result.

I think it is kind of fun. But it also might be a but small for the space. Oh well. At least there is something on the wall now. I included a wider shot to show how it looks with the re-arranged room. The colors go well with the rest of the living room.
The pieces are just shoe box lids covered with fabric that I appliqued squared onto.

When I got home from the Leech Lake vacation I was struck by how bare and white my apartment was since none of the walls are painted. That was when I really decided I needed to get in gear and add more color. However I have not done much else to add color. The only other thing I did was repaint the frames of my kitchen chairs. That was something else I had intended to do for a long time and never got around to. I just made them an almond color instead of plain white. It looks good with the re-covered, brown seats, but  it didn't really do much to spice up the color in the room. Oh well. I will just have to keep thinking of little projects.