Hotspur.us

A few years ago I thought I wanted to undertake one of those photo-a-day things (thought being the keyword here). I probably made it through two weeks before I admitted I was just not feeling it (also I’m lazy and disorganized). I toyed with several themes and none of them took.

After making it through a full year of taking a specific photo each Sunday (soon to be revealed under it’s own glorious post) and managing our whiteboard countdown, which required daily updates, I felt I was ready to attempt the photo-a-day project again. Once again I couldn’t find a theme I was in love with, so I figured I’d go with a no theme, theme. Expect lots of cat photos.

New Year’s Day, January 1, 2012

(Also, yes I know this is a Sunday and thus should merit it’s own Week, but work with me here.)

Chad’s a happy camper. After all, he survived The Christmas Plague of 2011.

 January 2, 2012

It snowed just a wee bit. Fortunately I still had several days off from work. Also, I did not leave the house this day.

January 3, 2012

Orlando decided she was going to sleep in a Christmas sock. Seriously, isn’t that the cutest little ferret nose you’ve ever seen?

January 4, 2012

Yes, I am a slacker.  I forgot to take an additional photo that had nothing to do with our Countdown to The Dark Knight Rises. Sue me.

January 5, 2012

So I saw a photo-a-day album called Where You Stand. The idea was to take a photo of your feet each day. You know, a different way to look at your day to day activities. This is Where I Sit (or more accurately, Where I Slouch).

January 6, 2012

I have a multitude of fun photo apps on my phone. One of my favorites is the Polaroid. And as of late, our kittehs love nesting in the attic. So kittehs + photo app = cute.

January 7, 2012

Chad and I went along with our friend Keith to retrieve his 5/5 cache The Beast of Briery Mountain. It would have been much easier to just use the chainsaw to fetch the ammo can.

January 8, 2012

It was time to start the laborious process of un-decorating. Fortunately I had some help.

Due to the Christmas Plague (which will forever be how I remember the end of 2011) this half of Team Kuclick did not make the trek to the Great White North to celebrate with the other half of Team Kuclick.

I’d say we suck, and we kind of do, but in light of not spreading The Plague across international boundaries and to a houseful of children, we think we made a grown up (but terribly depressing) decision to stay home.

Happy New Year!

2012 is sure starting out with a lot of coughing, hacking and general malaise. I can’t remember if that means it’ll go out with a bang or if we are just completely hosed.

We had a Christmas like no other this year.

First we opened gifts.

And shortly thereafter is when the Plague overcame Chad. He spent a majority of Christmas on the bathroom floor.

No picture of that. That would have been mean.

So here’s a random shot of Ping on top of some lovely Christmas loot.

Our socks made by Aunt Ramona (mine’s blue).

And a platter of various Christmas cookies. It’s a good thing Chad sampled a bunch before Christmas.

On the 26th I had to leave Chad in Palmyra to be taken care of by his Mom & Dad so I could return to Morgantown and go to work the next day. That was the plan anyway. I managed to get to Morgantown all right, but by morning the Plague struck me down.

Merry Christmas everyone.

 

December has rolled around again and that means a slew of things are going down. Around here at least one of those pressing matters is picking out my dress for the annual company Christmas Party (or as they call it nowadays Holiday Party). Typically I am so on the ball (you can really stop laughing now) that I’ve either been working piecemeal on a new dress or have been altering a vintage dress dug from the depths of a grandma’s closet.

Not so on this occasion. This year I thought I’d just wing it. And to be honest it isn’t that big of a deal to wing a formal party when you’ve got a closet full of fancy dresses like I do. Honestly, if you looked in my dress closet (yes, I have a closet for fancy dresses, what’s your point?) you’d think Chad and I lived a life of high society and formal soirees instead of tromping through the thorns and driving in the mud on old rutted out roads.

This year I had three dresses plucked from the aforementioned closet that were in the running. Chad was in charge of deciding which dress was the winner. And I’m guessing you will be able to decipher from the title of this post, which one was the winner.

Number One was a lovely green dress I’d made quite a few years ago.  It was made out of complimenting green materials and had lovely gold cording.  Also, judging by the fit when I tried it on this weekend, at the time of sewing I was either: drunk or quite a bit bigger than I currently am. Although it could also be that it was from a store bought pattern and as I have aptly demonstrated, I really stink at using a store bought pattern to produce a dress that fits me properly. VERDICT: Chad liked this one, but the dress was going to be a challenge to wear in a crowded room.

Number Two was a funky vintage number that had been my mother-in-laws. It was off the shoulder and floor length. Aside from the mirabeau around the top and bottom, it was pretty straight forward. This dress has been on the back-up list for numerous occasions and has yet to rise to the first tier.   VERDICT: it fit and it wasn’t offensive, but Chad seemed unimpressed.

Number Three was a Tiffany Blue dress with lots of pleats. So many pleats that when I claimed it from my Nun-nun’s closet I took it straight to the dry cleaners. Not because it was dirty, but because no way was I even attempting to iron those very sheer pleats.  I’m not sure the age of the dress, as I can’t locate (of course) the dated photo of Nun-nun wearing it, but it’s been around a while. VERDICT: Chad kept calling it “cute” which wasn’t really what I was looking for when it came to a formal dress, but he liked it so much that it was the clear winner in his eyes. So I grabbed a pair of over the elbow length gloves with rhinestones sewn on them (Yes, rhinestones. Which, according to Chad, hurt his hand when he attempted to hold my hand.), a pair of shoes that kind of worked and away we went!

P.S. The images are in a slideshow, be patient.