Hi Everyone,

Hope your Christmas was great. Mine was wonderful. We went to the motel like we do on Christmas and got to see 3 of the granddaughters haven't seen for at least 2 years and longer for one of them. Had a great time. We always do the dice game and fight over the presents we want. Lots of fun. It seems like everyone is going to try and stay at the motel next year.

Santa's Mitten Maids went great. Thanks to all who donated. We had 135 children this year.

Came home and started to work on my laundry room/pantry. I had overloaded the shelves and they were looking like they were going to let go so I reinforced each shelf and put on new shelf paper. Rochelle came home with me and has been a great help. I got one side of the room done in 2 days but ran out of steam today so will start the other side tomorrow.

It looks like we've got about 3 inches of snow so far and the wind is out of the northeast so we will probably have lots more. Hopefully the kids won't have a hard time driving up here tonight.

So far no entrants for the Bread & Soup Contest. But we will still have a good variety of soups and breads for the Sled Dog Races on January 8th. We will be ready to serve at 11:30am. We will be serving all day. The awards for some of the races will be a 6pm. We will stop serving about that time.

Have to go play Wii with the granddaughter. Have a good weekend.

Take care,
Julie

Here it is only a week til Christmas. I hope all of you are getting everything done you wanted done. I have been in a panic thinking I was leaving for the cities on Wednesday and how was I going to get everything done before then. Last night I looked at my school calendar and realized that school isn't out til Wednesday so I won't be leaving for the cities until Thursday. So I have gained an extra day so that will help now things don't look quite so bad.

Well we got the Santa's Mitten Maids presents all wrapped. We ended up with 135 children this year. Thank goodness for all the elves that turned out to help wrap. It sure makes the project alot easier with help. Kathy Peterson is already trying to find out when the stores open on the day after Christmas so she knows what time she has to be in town to do her mega shopping. She is lucky and has elves to help her on that day also. Lots of people seem to think that Kathy and I do the Mitten Maids single handed but we could not accomplish everything that gets done with out all the help we receive. People who knit and crochet hats and mittens, the ones that have a nice basement and allow us to store everything there, to the wrappers and last but not lease are the ones who donate money to make it possible for us to do this project. Without all of you there would be no Mitten Maids. Thank you very much for helping us to do this great project.

I must admit that I haven't done the Wii as faithfully as I should. It will be easier after Christmas then I won't have so much going on.

I'm hoping Rochelle will come up with me after Christmas. I want to clean all the shelves in the laundry room and it would be so much easier if I had a helper. I even tried to bribe her that if she came and helped that I would go snowmobiling in the afternoon with her. Hope it was enough of a bribe.

Well I had better get busy and finish what I have to get done today.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Very Blessed New Year

Take care,
Julie

I can't believe it's been so long since I've blogged. It has been pretty hectic for me trying to get things done for the craft shows. I made two batches of jam this week for the craft sale, one was Rhubarb Strawberry and the other was crabapple butter. Last craft sale is tomorrow in Deer River. Hopefully it will be a good one.

Next on the list is clean up the house enough to walk through and get things ready for Santa's Mitten Maids. The elves have done all the shopping and it is up to me to get all the family names and children ages etc so that we make sure we have presents for every child in the family. We will be wrapping on the 16th instead of the 18th. Once Kathy and I have the toys sorted for each family then we know if we've bought enough batteries and the misc. stuff. We will be providing presents for about 115 children this year. Presents are given out with the Holiday food basket from Second Harvest Food Shelf.

After that is done then I rush around to make sure I've wrapped all the presents I've got hidden here and there. I've cut down on my list alot so really don't have much to do. Then I go to Steph's for Christmas. Hopefully this year it won't snow so the rest of the family can get there.

I bought one of those WII game things with the fitness board. Started doing it tonight and I think it could kill a person. Sometimes would like to tell the little person who is my trainer to stuff it. It is much better than trying to walk on a tread mill. I started out taking it easy so I will want to keep on doing it. I have to get rid of the spare tire around my middle. Shows what happens when people are so good to you and help you with your wood pile.

After the first of the year I need to get started on my soaps. My inventory is quite low and I have 6 new fragrances that I haven't soaped yet. I've also decided that the kitchen needs to be painted. I think the last time it was painted was when Steph graduated from high school. That was sometime in the early 90's, so it definately needs some fresh paint. So that is the plan. I'm hoping by telling all of you that I will actually get off my duff and do it.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Take care,
Julie