by Diana on November 30, 2008
in Life
It seems almost funny to me that I could have spent most of my life dedicated to a sport and rarely talk about it nowadays. It all started when I was a kid…When I was about eight or nine, my best-friend-in-Florida took me ice skating with her. She had been taking ice skating lessons and had a few skating dresses, so, she let me borrow one, and we both wore skating dresses to the rink one day and had a blast just being kids. When I moved away from FL, we found out there was a new ice skating rink that had just been built in town, and I started taking figure skating lessons, too. At age ten, I started with group lessons, where you learn the basics (and I mean very basics) of skating and figure out if you want to pursue the sport more.
I had so much fun with the group lessons, I quickly moved on to taking private lessons two or three times a week. Two or three times a week turned into six days a week, twice a day on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On those days, I'd arrive at the rink between 6:15 and 6:30 am so I could warm up for a private lesson. Some days, I'd sleep in my practice outfit so I'd have more time to sleep and less time to get ready. I'd be on the ice at 6:45 am with my coach asking me to "go ahead and work on those double-axels."
I never did land that double-axel, but the sport permanently changed my life for the best. I learned about hard work, patience, dedication and so many more things than I can even name in one sitting. I made some of my best friends through skating practices – through triumphs and tears – through the best and worst of each other.
Now that we've all grown up and moved away, we hardly see each other. Some times, we will happen to skate the same sessions over holidays – when we're home visiting family, etc. It was the coincidence of seeing my old skating buds over holidays-past that prompted me to call an impromptu reunion over Thanksgiving weekend.
The photo above is one of the few I have from skating days long gone. My skating-friend's father gave it to me a couple years ago.
Oddly enough, of the five of us who showed up for the reunion, all four of us from the photo were there. We decided to re-create the photo for fun. The difference in the years these photos were taken is at least twelve years, though I can't remember when the first photo was even taken.
It has been mostly through the magic of Myspace and Facebook that we've been able to find each other. I even used Facebook to create an event for the reunion. I wonder if the original creators of those sites ever imagined how useful their ideas would be.
Either way, we had so much fun at the reunion. It was so good seeing everyone and catching up. We're already planning our next reunion and we're hoping that more of our old skating friends will turn out for the next event. Till then, I'm hoping to hit the ice and get some good practice in and brush up on my skills. I doubt I'll be skating at 6:45 am in the morning any more, but we'll see where the road leads.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I fully expected to continue posting over the holiday weekend and though I remembered my camera battery charger, I totally forgot the little cord that connects the camera to the computer, so I couldn't download any photos. Alas…
So, I'm behind a few posts, but I'll probably just do a bunch over the next day or two to catch up. I also have some posts from a few weeks (or months) ago I need to work on, and I'm hoping to get those up soon, too.
We pulled up to my parents' house last Thursday close to 1PM, and I was fully prepared to spend the rest of the day in the kitchen with my sister. See, my mom is a nurse and works every other Thanksgiving (same deal with Christmas), so she was working on Thanksgiving till around 4PM. Sissy and I planned to cook our Thanksgiving meal, however, when I got to my parents' house, I was informed that the turkey had been prepared by mom that morning, put in the oven by sis at 12:15PM, and that a couple other dishes had already been pre-pared. Oh, and sis had already baked two pumpkin pies and peeled the potatoes – sweet and yukon gold.
We did find a nice sweet potato casserole recipe online, which we decided to try out, click here for recipe, and I actually got to help make it this time.
I especially liked the recipe because it didn't contain cinnamon, which I'm slightly allergic to. I can eat cinnamon, but I only go for it when I really, really want something with it…like those cinnamon rolls at the mall…mmm…haven't had one of those in awhile, actually, now that I think about it. Anywho, this was the BEST sweet potato casserole I've ever had. It's definitely worth trying, if you're interested.
Mom came home in time to get cozy in some PJs and help wrap up dinner.
We had quite the set-up for our Thanksgiving Dinner: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, two kinds of cranberry sauce, corn…
…and this was our first year trying out the ole Green Bean Casserole. I have to say…I was quite impressed with the taste of the casserole. No wonder people make this every year…it's
delicious! The French onions on top really make the dish. We used the recipe on the back of the French Onion can, in case you need a recipe. *Update – Just found the recipe online at Frenchs.com (
click here) if you want it now.* For some reason, we had diced red onion in our casserole…not sure if the can had a different recipe than the online one or if mom just added those in for fun. They tasted good either way.
We, also, had some delicious challah bread, thanks to my friend June who baked me a loaf. We also had a couple slices of rye bread my sis brought back from Panera…even though I told mom we didn't need any bread since I was bringing the challah with me. I guess it's good to have options, though.
Even Bails got in on the action. We snuck a wee-little piece of turkey in his dog food. He waited very patiently for Mr. Chic to give him the "ok" to eat it.
As seems to be the trend, we ate way too much food, but enjoyed every bite. I'd like to say we saved room for dessert, but we didn't. I had a slice of pumpkin pie a couple hours after dinner when I was able to fully enjoy it. It was the perfectly sweet ending to another amazing Thanksgiving.
What did you eat for Turkey Day?
I cannot take any credit for coming up with this idea, but can I tell you I saw the cutest way to organize knitting needles and crochet hooks? I saw this idea when I was visiting my local yarn store awhile back and knew I had to replicate the idea at home to keep my needles and hooks in order and where I could easily find them.
Supplies Needed:
- Glass Container (or whatever type of container you want – clear containers show the glass stones better) – I got mine from Michael's
- Smooth Glass Stones/Pebbles – I got some pretty, turquoise stones, also, at Michael's
- Your knitting needles and/or crochet hooks
To Set-up:
- Take the glass container, tilt partially to the side, and carefully and very gently place a handful of smooth glass stones in the bottom, releasing the stones near the bottom of the container.
- Continue to carefully add more and more stones to the container being careful to place the stones as close to the bottom of the container as possible. If you drop them in from high, you risk breaking/cracking the glass container.
- When all the stones are in the glass container and fill the container about 5-6 inches from the bottom, stick your knitting needles, crochet hooks, scissors, pens, etc into the stones.
Voila! This is currently the "centerpiece" of my coffee table. I'm sure it will eventually move to the craft room, but it's pretty handy with the crafting season upon me.
How do you store your knitting needles and crochet hooks?
I was thinking today that I should round up all my WIP's and take a photo of them just to show myself how many of them I actually have…and to prove that perhaps I should focus on finishing one of those WIP's rather than starting a new one.
Instead, I decided to start on a new scarf idea I have in mind for a Christmas present for someone. The scarf is a going to be a simple garter-stitched scarf that I'm planning to add lots of tassels to. I found this Paton's Melody Quick & Cozy yarn at the yarn shop, Yarns Etc., I visited this past weekend and thought it would make a great scarf present. Besides being a pretty cobalt blue, the yarn is also very soft and should knit up quickly since it's a pretty bulky-weight that I'm knitting on size 15 needles.
It's been almost a year since I've knit anything, so I stopped by the yarn shop tonight after work to get some quick knitting refreshers from the nice girl working tonight. Sadly, I needed help to remember how to cast on to make sure I was remembering the right way to knit and purl. The girl was very helpful and kind and luckily, I hadn't completely forgotten how to do these basic knitting techniques. It's like you always hear – knitting is just like riding a bicycle – you never quite forget, but sometimes you need a push in the right direction. At least this garter-stitch scarf should be good practice for me, eh? And since most of those other WIP's are non-Christmas presents, I'm going to worry about getting to those later…probably after the holidays.
