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It's Official

When I was cleaning out my closet several weeks ago, I straightened out my sewing box. In doing so, I found this box of straight pins belonging to my mother. Apparently one time after she had voted, she placed her sticker on this box. I remember always kind of making fun of her for putting it there and wondering why in the world she kept it.



When I dusted the top of my chest of drawers last weekend, I took a good look at this little basket that keeps just little random things in it and guess what I found.




It's official. My fears have been confirmed. I am turning into my mother.

The Vienna Inn

This morning, we had breakfast at the Vienna Inn. It's not very far from our house and it's a place we had heard about several times - a place people said "we had to go to". We left our house at 8:00 with the knowledge that this little cafe fills up quickly with locals.

We walked in and we were immediately greeted by some of the customers. They said "Just sit anywhere and help yourself to the coffee". They pointed up against the wall where the coffee pots were. They asked if it was our first time there and I said it was. They told us "Welcome". So we went over and grabbed two mugs and proceeded to fill them with coffee.

We sat down in a cozy little booth and a waitress came around with a menu. Apparently you can just order what you want. We had eggs/bacon/toast/hashbrown breakfast and went over to refill our coffee mid-way. The waitresses were very nice and checked on us periodically to see if everything was ok. Near the end of our meal, the waitress told us that when we were done, just to go on up to the counter to pay for our meal - that there wasn't on a ticket. They do it on the honor system. Seriously.

It was a very good breakfast and the cost was under $12 for both of us. That is unheard of in this area!

There were lots of "locals" there - several groups of men that obviously met there on Saturday mornings for breakfast on an ongoing basis. It was just a little slice of hometown life in the middle of a big city. We both enjoyed it!

Spinning

The group I knit with on Wednesday evenings is so much fun - it's a new community of friends for me and in this city, that is a very important thing. As it turns out, the third Wednesday of the month is also spinning night. A good percentage of the knitters are also spinners and after watching them a few times, I realized that I wanted to try it out. Several of the ladies let me try their wheels and before long, the "spinning bug" had found its way into my soul.

To start out with, my friend Laura let me take home one of her spinning wheels to use. Note that I said "one of her wheels" because apparently - once you have one, you have several. (Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain Jay)

So after using hers for awhile, I knew that I needed one of my own. Yesterday my friend Liz met me at a shop in Centreville and the lady there let me try out several wheels before I settled on a Kromski Sonata. I was smitten. It was just perfect for me. Next............the sell job to the husband.

As you can see from the picture, I am now the proud owner of a Kromski Sonata - and it is just absolutely the best! It is portable - it folds down and has its own carrying bag.




Along with the wheel, you get $50 of free merchandise and here is a picture of part of the things I purchased. This is a picture of four 2oz packages of raw spinning material - namely alpaca, silk, merino (a type of sheep) and yak. Yes - yak.

Apparently you can spin most anything with hair or wool. So for all you barking dogs in the neighborhood, take heed.



This is a picture of a scarf I knitted about a month ago with a Maggie yarn. Kinda fun!



So now I want it to snow - snow so hard that I'm snowed in and can't go anywhere. For days on end. I have things to do!!

Christmas and Hawaii

No, no - it's not what you think. We did not spend Christmas in Hawaii.

This morning, I saw that I only had a few coffee beans left of Christmas Blend. So I thought "what the heck" and put them in with the Kona beans we got in Hawaii. And guess what? It makes a very nice blend - I'm calling it Christmas in Hawaii! I know - not very original - just humor me. :)

On a side note - I got a coupon in the mail last week for a free tea from Starbucks so I thought I'd give it a try this afternoon. The name of the blend I got was London Fog - and I have this to say about it. I'm glad I didn't have to pay for it. It was a tea blended with vanilla and steamed milk. I just didn't like it and I don't believe I'll try it again. No offense Starbucks - you're still my kind of place!

Museum of American History

With the possibility of leaving the area looming in the future, we decided to take advantage of a relatively nice Saturday morning and head downtown to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. It had been closed for a couple of years for renovations and has recently opened up again. We've been wanting to see it for quite some time.

This place is huge - and you really need several days to do it justice - but we did what we could.

On display are these Stradivarius stringed instruments and they were just exquisite. They were just beautiful, to say the very least.



Here is a picture of Seinfeld's puffy shirt (I'm sure we all remember that scene) and of course, Oscar the Grouch.



Here is Kermit THE Frog. The original Kermit. I'm sure you're wondering to yourself "Why is Oscar and Kermit here in the museum when we clearly still see them on Sesame Street?" These two are the originals - the first ones.



The day wouldn't have been complete without seeing the ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz. :)



We were going along our merry way and all was good. Then we stepped into the area about wars. I was doing well through World War II - learning some facts that I hadn't known before. But then something started to happen. We went on to the Korean War - the war my Father had fought in. Then on to the Vietnam war - the war that was going on when I was in high school and early college. It was actually a little hard to go through these displays. They were very well done and I had tears in my eyes. In most other areas of the museum, there were kids everywhere but not so much here. Everyone was pretty quiet and reflective. And it made me sad.

But then we came to this display.



These are pieces of scrap metal from the twin towers. I can't even begin to tell you how seeing this impacted me. It all came down to this. Everyone just stood there. There was nothing to say.

By the time we left that wing, I was pretty much done. It took a little bit of time to re-group. My kudos to the Smithsonian - what a powerful display! Well done!

The New Year

It's that time of year again when many of us think about New Year's Resolutions. I wonder what the percentage of people are who make resolutions. I wonder what the percentage of those people are who keep them?

The one resolution I made last year was because of Kendall. I said I wanted to read through the Bible chronologically in the version of The Message. Well, I didn't break that resolution, I just haven't finished it yet. I'm still working on it - so that is going to be a continuation for this year. I'd like to FINISH it this year. I really like reading the Bible this way and even though I know how it ends, I want to finish it.

So - am I making any other resolutions? Yes, I believe I will. I've thought about this a lot the past couple of days. I think we all want to make resolutions that we think are possible to keep - so I've tried to be careful in making them.

1. I need to drink more water. This year, starting now, I am going to take my Nalgene bottle with me to work and drink it through the day. That isn't that much water but it's more than I'm drinking now. After my surgery I really drank a lot of water, but I've really tapered off. Time to increase again.

2. I need more physical activity. Seriously. I need to get out and walk. So, with the thought in mind that I need to make this resolution something I'll keep, I guess I'd like to say that I will walk at least twice a week. I want to walk MORE - but twice a week would be ok for now.

3. Cut back on trips to Starbucks..........No. Not gonna do it. Scratch Resolution #3

That's really it for me - I think if I can drink more water and increase my activity, I'll be doing pretty good.

Honestly - I'll do my best - I really will. Stay tuned next year to see how I did.

Happy New Year!