Life is chugging along...

Life is short.

Each year passes more quickly than the previous one. It's easy to deny yourself many of life's simple pleasures because you want to be practical. Forget about practical and decide instead to be a joy collector. Always be on the look out for gifts without ribbons. God is strewing them across your path right now. His gifts come tagged with a note:

"Life can be wonderful. Do your best not to miss it!"

Enjoy what IS before it ISN'T any more.

~Barbara Johnson

Here we are - December 14th...hard to believe that the "big man", the man in the red suit, will be making his appearance in 11 days and I just don't feel very ready for that moment. It seems to be sneaking up on me this year and the panic seems to be rising. The tree is up, the ornaments in place and the lights are twinkling. However, the boys' wish list needs to be looked over and the famous chocolate crinkle cookies need to be made. Just need to find the time to make those things happen. I am sure that I will get it all done to the best of my ability, in between all of the activies :)

Hockey News...
We got some great news on Sunday...Robert, who tried out for the Pre-Select NorCal Camp (hockey) was selected. On Saturday, 35-40 Bantam aged (birthyear 96) boys  from all over the Northern California area tried out to be selected to represent NorCal - only 6 forwards, 4 defensemen and 2 goalies were selected to move on to the next selection process. What is this all about? Well through a process of several tryouts (NorCal Dec. 11, California/CAHA Jan 28-31, and Pacific Districts in early spring), a U14 National hockey team is created to play in a high level tournament over the summer, where there will be scouts from different junior leagues as well as schools will be watching. Last year Robert tried out, but due to having bronchitis, just didn't perform up to his potential, thus didn't make it through the first cut. This year he was healthy and had a wonderful tryout and, thus, was selected. We were very excited for him. So, now we fill out all the paperwork and pay for the next set of tryouts and see how things go the end of January. In the meantime, we have a few tournaments and hockey clinics to get through first :)

Stitching News...
As mentioned before, I have been working on a few Christmas Ornaments as surprises (so I can't show them yet)...just about finished stitching them and should be able to finish them in order to have them in the mail shortly. Then it will be back to stitching Family Sampler.

Well, that is about it right now. Hopefully DH will be able to get my little laptop cured of it's virus so that I can be back in business...multi-tasking on the stationary bike. I miss reading everyone's blogs while biking. Keep your fingers crossed that the computer will work again.

Take care my friends and remember...
Live, Love, Laugh and Stitch often!

Lisa