Breathe in...1..2..3..4...Breath out

Taking a little time to breathe this morning as I have felt like I have been on the "rocket-ship of life" lately - currently I have gotten off at the station, waiting to board the next rocket. But I find that I still have some time to make my connection, so I will update you on things...

The Computer seems to be on the mend...
Well, friends, DH wiped our little laptop's memory clean and rebuilt it from scratch. So, I am up and running again and can catch up with all of your blogs...as soon as I up date mine :) . However, my time spinning on the stationary bike - while typically the time I catch up on emails, blogging and facebooking - was spent by reading a couple of books I have had in my book stash for a couple of years and haven't taken the time to read. The first book was "Things I want my daughters to know" by Elizabeth Noble. Great book - sad though. About a mother who kept a journal while she was going through chemo, telling her daughters things that she never took the time to tell them. As the women are reading what their mother wrote after her passing, the book relates some of the writings to the women's lives they were experiencing at the time. It was definitely a good read and a tear jerker at the end! The other book: "Isabel's Daughter" by Judith Ryan Hendricks takes place in Colorado/New Mexico area and is about a daughter who was abandoned at birth by her mother and ends up finding out about her mother's life. Another good read! While it was nice to shorten my book stash, it is definitely nice to have the computer back!

Hockey travel...
I got back home this morning at 3am from a bus trip to Los Angeles (about a 7 hour drive) with Matthew (younger son), his hockey team and some other hockey moms & dads. We left at 2pm on Friday afternoon, as all the kids seem to have had the 1/2 day of school before the winter vacation. The boys sat in the back and the parents/coach in the front. On the ride down we watched: "Miracle on Ice," and "Remembering the Titans". Two very good movies to watch with a young hockey team travelling down to play 2 games. We arrived in Long Beach, at the hotel, around 9:30pm...checked in our rooms and headed off to bed. Saturday morning, after a good work out in the fitness room, I got Matthew up to enjoy breakfast in our room (brought a tupperware bowl of cheeriors, a bag of Hostess mini-muffins and Dannon yogurt with me...little money saving actions I have learned over the years). Because it is important to bond with the team, after Matthew finished up his 'breakfast brought from home' and I finished packing up the suitcases, he and I headed down to sit with the team and the parents to visit for a while before we loaded up the bus and headed off to the first rink for the first game. Saturday, the boys played two games at two different rinks...a nice lunch at Fudruckers in between. After the last game, which ended at 7pm, we loaded up, watched: "Despicable Me," and "Blind Side"...arrived back at the rink around 2:00am where I picked up my car and then headed home. While the bus ride down and back always has its time where it feels like "forever", the trip was fun and the boys played pretty well - even though they lost both of their games.

Next trip coming up...the evening of Dec. 25th the boys and I head back down to LA to the same hotel in Long Beach - both of them have tournaments down there. We will be down there until the 30th.

Winter Break...
As mentioned, the boys are on winter break and I am taking some vacation time off from my job...however, I don't see any relaxing in my future! In the mornings between now and Christmas Day, I will be working in *The Business* and in the late afternoons/evenings, I will be taking the boys down to the rink for a hockey clinic and team practices. *The Business* is going well and it is busy...lots of fruit arrangements to make between now and Christmas! Yahoo!

Stitching News...
Over the last few weeks I have been talking about stitching some "secret" ornaments. One, I finally finished and sent off to its receipient...and I heard that she received it:

The design is from Just CrossStitch 2010 Christmas Ornament edition.The design is called " 'Tis Red" and is by Lori Markovic of La-D-D. No...I didn't stitch it in red (the first time), but in a NeddleNecessities green overdyed color thread on a fabric from my stash. To finish it off I had some fun beeds from my stash of beads - from the days when I was beading. The person who received this ornament was Valerie of FogCity Dweller blog (my computer is still acting funny, so I can't get the link right now).

So, that is about it - that should catch everyone up for now. Take care and remember...

Live, Love, Laugh and Stitch often!

Lisa