Thank Goodness!

Welcome to my disjointed world of, 'Thank Goodness!  The holidays are almost over and we can go back to our normal, boring lives.'

Christmas was great!  We'd planned to go all out with the lights and decorations.  We were going to make the tacky house light tour homes jealous.  But in the end, all we put up/out was the tree, a few Santa's tucked around on random shelves and the Advent candles.  It just may have been my all time favorite 'decorated' Christmas ever. 

It helped that our tree was GORGEOUS this year.  Mike picks our tree each year and when I say tree, I mean 'bush.'  We've always had 10 foot ceilings and he brings home trees that are barely 5 feet tall.  They're bushes, not trees.  But this year...  Thank you Lowes for having such bad service!  Mike went to Lowes, picked out a bush, then couldn't get anyone to wait on him.  He even had one Lowes employ continuously 'helping' by calling for cashier assistance to no avail (apparently you had to pay at a specific register if you were getting a tree. Or something.  Mike was ranting so badly I had trouble following the story.)  Eventually Mike got so irritated he walked out without his Christmas bush.  Google helped him find some side-of-the-road place called Willy's and he came home with THE most Gorgeous, full and perfectly shaped, 8 foot tree for $10 less than the Lowe's bush.  Of course, I didn't take a single photo.  Doh!

Winterfest

We never got to shoot down mistletoe or go to see The Nutcracker but Sarah and I did get to go to Winterfest.  We also got to go ride around looking at holiday lights... in her new car.  Santa brought her a new car for Christmas and delivered it a few days early since it was too heavy and took up too much space in his sleigh.  I don't even know what it is other than a black Mazda something or other and it has a hatchback, bluetooth and bright enough headlights that she can see where she's going at night.  It's a Huge improvement over her old car and she LOVES it!

Sarah's new car

I finished the Colorburst shawl and the Holly Berry Stash Buster shawl before Christmas but haven't blocked either of them.  I decided that Colorburst wasn't right for the person I was planning to give it to and Holly Berry was for me and there were more important tasks than blocking a shawl for myself.

#ChristmasEveCastOn

My #ChristmasEveCastOn project was another Reyna, knit with yarn from Urban Girl Yarns that I picked up during the yarn crawl this past summer.  It's the first time I've knit with Urban Girl yarn and ten stitches in and I was hooked.  Yarn diet or not, as soon as the budget recovers from Christmas, I'll be tossing a few more Urban Girl skeins into my basket.  And now I'm having a moral dilemma.  The Reyna was going to replace the Colorburst shawl but....  Now, I'm loving the yarn so much I don't know if I can part with this one either.

Christmas dinner went well.  We hosted it here and believe or not, I have never in my life hosted Christmas dinner before.  Well, not unless you count the year we had a freak ice storm, the roads were closed so we were forced to stay home, and a few neighbors came by because we had a generator and multiple grills.  I was a little worried about the normal pressure of hosting Christmas dinner plus the additional worry of doing it in an unfamiliar house with naughty elves who keep taking and hiding things.  But, despite not having access to  a single 9x12 baking dish, a cake pan or my Instant Pot, Christmas dinner was a success I think.

table top swift

As for gifts, I received the two things I was most hoping for.  Some $10 Walmart perfume (LOL, it really is my favorite!) and a table top swift.  I mentioned my umbrella swift woes once before.  I did a lot of fussing and amended my Christmas List to include a table top swift but I didn't think anyone was listening.  Apparently, they were!  Yay!  I was so excited I abandoned the family Christmas morning to play with it.

I finished the socks before the New Year rolled around.  Yay!  I'll never be able to wear them, at least not with shoes, but they are finished.  I don't know what happened.  I've knit 1,000 pair of socks with that yarn, on those needles and with that same number of cast on stitches and never had trouble.  This pair, however, is loose enough to put both feet into one sock.  And something went wrong on the toes.  One sock has a too-pointy toe and the other is wide enough to fit a brick into it.  Good Lord!  Oh well.  Looking on the bright side, I have a new pair of house socks that will keep my feet warm and will never be a danger to my circulation. 

Surprise!

And, because having three other large projects with deadlines and multiple smaller things on the needles isn't enough, I'll be starting the new year off with yet another large project on the needles.This one is for the grand-baby and I'm going to try to keep it a secret.  The baby shower is only a few weeks away so I will be busy, busy, busy knitting on it.

And after all that, thank goodness the holidays are almost over! I'm anxious to get past the sugar and the butter and move on to eating some fresh vegetables instead.  I'm also looking forward to spending my time knitting rather than baking and shopping.

Wishing you a safe, happy New Year!