Winterfest

Why am I talking about Winterfest on the day we break a February heat record?  I'd planned to show off/laugh at the completed pumpkin sweater this week but I never got around to taking photos.  The weather has just been so spring-like and beautiful on my days off, I haven't been able to force myself into a worsted weight sweater.  So...

Instead of modeling the pumpkin sweater, I've been knitting on my Winterfest sweater.  If you don't remember (and why would you??,) I started the Winterfest sweater in November, 2021.  I was a vendor at Kings Dominion's Winterfest that year and decided to knit a sweater with the help of the kids who came through the booth.  I'd ask them their age and pull that many yards off the skein of their choice and then I did my very best to knit them in the order they were chosen.  It was a fun way of entertaining and including the kids while the parents shopped and it made for a, let's call it, exciting sweater.  

It's definitely colorful!

The sweater is a simple ragland, knit with a zillion different colors of Palette on US 1 (2.50) needles.  The sweater was pretty loose on me in 2021 and I pray it still is.  I haven't tried it on since pulling it out of the UFO pile.  At this point, the goal is to finish it, not necessarily wear it.  Part of me thinks the sweater is too colorful and hideous while another part of me is hopeful that the asphalt gray waist ribbing and sleeves will calm down the wild colors.  Winterfest ended and I ran out of kids to choose the next color so I decided to go wih a neutral dark gray, again, hoping the gray will calm the sweater down a bit.  The third part of me just wants this beast finished. off the needles and off my To Knit list.

Whether the sweater fits or not, I just want it done.  I've knit on it too much to quit now.  I can't fathom how many stitches this giant, beast of a sweater already has in it nor do I even want to think about how many more stitches I still have to go.  Once that waist hem is completed, I still have the sleeves to knit.  I'll probably still be knitting this thing in 2024.

Good grief!

I hope that wherever you are, you are also experiencing beautiful spring weather, although maybe not as warm as it is here today.  We hit 81 degrees, beating the previos record by six degrees!   Of course tomorrow will bring normal temperatures and it will be back down below freezing by tomorrow night.  Nothing like spring in Virginia!

Anyway, hope you are having nice weather and your knitting is going faster than mine.

First Snow

 Gosh, it's been a while since I blogged.  Do I even remember how??

I hope you had a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.  Our Christmas was pretty low-key and New Years was spent at Winterfest.  At least, mine was.  It's over now though and I've been busy putting things away and cleaning up the mess I created preparing for and dealing with Winterfest.  Good grief, what a disaster my craft space was!

We are having our first snowfall of 2022 and this photo makes me think of the Wizard of Oz.  I don't Miss Gulch will be riding her bike today.

I sure am glad we cleared out our Winterfest booth the day before this storm hit instead of the day of as originally planned.  On Monday, I was wearing short sleeves, shorts and walking around barefoot outside in the rain.  On Tuesday, the temperature dropped, all the rain froze and the snow came.  A typical Virginia winter.

Believe it or not, those are color photos, taken around noon.  It was near white-out conditions for a while.  A very good day to stay inside, clean up and reorganize my craft space.  Tomorrow, I'll go back to knitting.

Christmas Gift Knitting

The Christmas gift knitting continues so no knitting photos today.  Not even black and white ones.

We had a visit from Jack Frost during Winterfest this past weekend.  Everyone in our booth loves it when the various Christmas charecters stop by for a photo op and to say Merry Christmas.

But back to talking about knitting...

Boy!  I am so far behind on the knitting schedule.  So very, very far behind.  But, I've revamped my calendar, made a detailed plan, and if I don't have a single interruption and I can manage to focus on the knitting rather than the Hallmark Christmas movies, I think I can get it all done.  All it will take is zero interruptions and a small Christmas miracle.

And, since I'm so far behind on gift knitting, I'm even further behind on the Winterfest sweater project.  I'm actually now two full, gallon Zip-lock bags of yarn behind.  Two very, very full gallon bags.  Luckily, that sweater doesn't have a deadline.  Well, actually I guess it does now.  A little boy stopped by the booth this past weekend was quite concerned about when it would be finished.  He wouldn't settle for "a long time from now."  So, I now have the deadline of March, 2022.  And a six year old boss.  😁

Winterfest knitting

 The Winterfest sweater is coming along.  Slowly.  Very, very slowly.

I can't keep up with the stripes on a nightly basis.  Sitting outside at Winterfest, my hands get so cold and stiff I can't knit with any speed at all.  I'd gotten caught up last week and started fresh this past Friday night but...  I now have a gallon ziplock bag crammed full of yarns waiting to be knit into sweater stripes.  

Two things are amazing me about this project.  One, is how many nine and ten year olds there are visiting our booth.  I'd bet eight out of every ten kids are either nine or ten.  I find that mathmatically weird.

The other thing that amazes me is that I can remember what order I'm supposed to knit each of the little balls of yarn crammed into that ziplock bag, although half the time I have to ask the kids how old they are multiple times.  I can't remember where I parked my car, where I set my phone down, my kids' names (only occasionally,) or what I ate for breakfast but I can remember what order the colors go and even which little ball of the same color goes first, second or third.  It must be a knitter thing.

I'm pleasantly surprised how okay the colorful sweater is looking so far.  I fully expected it to be THE most hideous mess of color but it's not.  It's sort of like those scrap sock yarn blankets where all the wild colors that clash horribly somehow just magically work when put all together.

And in the event I ever participate in another Winterfest or attempt a similar sweater, I think I'll knit the year into the hem for posterity.  Of course, my fingers will need to thaw out enough to knit to the hem...

On a different note, we had a few visitors at our booth Sunday night.

Mr. Peppermint and Miss Candy Cane stopped by.  And admittedly, Mr. Peppermint is not really his name.  I have, of course, forgotten his official name but I do remember that his lady friend is Candy Cane.

This couple is John Dough and Ginny Gingerbread.  And no, Gingerbread is not Ginny's official last name.  I've forgotten it too, but personally, I think Ginny Gingerbread sounds okay so I'm going with it.  

And last but not least,

I have no idea what these folks' names are but they walk past our booth frequently and always give us a smile and a wave.  I call them The Christmas Couple.  The Mister reminds me of Mr. French from Family Affair.  And yes, I'm definitely showing my age with that comment!

And now, now I'm off to knit a few Christmas gifts for family members and then knit a few thousand sweater stripes.

Stripes!

I have either lost my mind completely or had a wonderful, fun idea.  I'm hoping for wonderful and fun.

I have a bunch of, as in, a whole dresser full, of Palette from Knit Picks that I'd like to use up.  Or at least make a noticable dent in.  So I thought I'd knit a striped sweater.

And that's where the craziness kicked in.  I decided to take as many different colored skeins as I could cram into a large container with me to Winterfest.  While the moms are shopping in our booth, the kids can look through the yarn and choose a color.  Then I pull their age in yards off the skein and use that yarn to knit the next color stripe.  

And to make it more fun, I plan to post updates weekly?? Maybe every other week??  I haven't really decided that yet.  We'll just have to see how quickly the sweater progresses.  Since the kids seemed interested in seeing photos of their color choices knit up, I am hoping to post more frequently on Instagram.   

I think letting the kids choose the colors will make a fun and interesting sweater while taking the decision making pressure off me.  I'm going to do my very best to keep the stripes in the order the kids pick out but I may occasionally have to apply a little artistic license.  For example, three kids picked out the same color, one after the other Sunday night.  And one of those kids was 16 and the other two were both 10.  That would have made 36 yards of one color - so I decided to break them up a little.  But other than instances like that, I'm going to do my very best to (1) not influence the kids' color choices, and (2) keep the yarns they choose in the right order.

Wish me luck and a wearable sweater. 😊

Oh, and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!  I'm having a hard time believing it's Thanksgiving already.

Tomorrow

 So, the Winterfest booth isn't looking like much yet.  

But by tomorrow....

Winterfest starts tomorrow night so we have our work cut out for us today.  

If you're local, or feel like traveling for that matter, come experience Winterfest and make sure to stop by our booth in Artisian Alley.  Our booth will have a little bit for everyone.  Besides my knits, we have a paper artist & painter, a fabric artist/sewer, a many talents but mostly baby item maker and a jeweler.  And our booth is right beside the "Cupcake People."  I don't know their actual name but they seem to be fairly famous within the park and everyone just calls them The Cupcake People.

Wish us luck with the set up.  

Let there be light

It's been a very exciting week around here.  Remember our power outage problem this past summer? 

The power company finally got back out here to replace our street light.

Can you call it a "street light" when it lights up a private driveway??

Anyway...

The  power company people showed up and replaced our light.  They apologized for it taking so long for them to get back out here.  Apparently they are very short staffed and we'd been on the schedule four different times but each time, a car had wiped out a power pole somewhere else and that repair job took presedence.  Understandabley.

But it sure is nice to not need a flashlight to get from the car to the door at night.

So, in other words, I did Winterfest admin stuff all weekend and haven't even picked up the knitting needles in three days.  Yikes!

Next week

I am totally panicking!  Winterfest starts next week!  Okay, granted, today is Tuesday of this week and Wiinterfest officially starts on Saturday of next week so there's really almost two weeks but...   Aack!  I'm so not ready! 

I really am freaking out a little bit.  It will be okay though.  An hour or two into the first night of Winterfest and I'll calm down and chill out.  Hopefully not literally - it is an outdoor, night time festival in December!  Another Aack!  But mainly, I just don't like not knowing what to expect.  I've never done anything close to something this size, I'm shy and introverted (I know - based on my ramblings here, who'd have guessed that right? But I am,) the festival runs 26 nights and did I mention it's outdoors, at night, in November and December?  What have I gotten myself into??  Aack!

But as one of the Hallmark Christmas movies said, fear is just another form of excitement.  I'm not afraid, I'm excited.  

Yeah, I'm excited.  That's it.  Excited.

And I will be very, very excited when I finish knitting four more f-bombs and reach my inventory goal.

I've been having trouble meeting my inventory goal with these f-bombs because every time someone sees me knitting them, they want one.  No, that's not correct.  They want five!  They seem to be selling faster than I can knit them.  

I sure am glad I discovered Brava from Knit Picks.  The first few bombs I knit, I was using some horrible, by-the-pound acrylic from the big box craft store.  It was horrible to knit with.  It was stiff, made my hands ache, and it clung to my fingers weirdly so that my gauge was, well, let's just say, not consistent.  But thankfully I gave Brava a try.  It is also worsted acrylic but knits up more like a nice wool.  It looks like wool too.  It doesn't have that flat, solid black tone that many acrylics, specially the cheap ones, have.  And Brava is inexpensive.  Actually, yardage wise, it's within pennies of that horrible by-the-pound skein I bought.  

Ooh!  AND, I just noticed - it's on sale!  I think I'll be stocking up.  Hayden probably needs a few more hats and sweaters.

Back to Knitting

I took a mini break from the Winterfest knitting but I'm back to it now.  Thankfully!

I was feeling a little bit burned out on Winterfest knitting, or more like, I just felt like I needed to knit for me for a day instead of for Winterfest.  So I spent two days needlepointing. Ha!

And then there were a few days with family medical problems.  Nothing serious but...  Actually, it was serious, but nothing a few Epi pens couldn't fix.

And I had my class reunion.  It was a blast!  It was my 41st reunion.  Odd number I know, but our 40th got postponed due to Covid.  Our school was so small (and is no longer in existence) so every person who ever attended, the parents of those students, and every teacher who ever taught there was invited.  I am SO glad I wasn't the one in charge of tracking down all those students who only attended for a year or two 40 - 50 years ago or the numerous teachers who'd moved away, got married, got divorced or whatever other reason made them difficult to find.

The reunion ended up being so much fun!  Many of my old teachers were there, the boy I had a major crush on and hadn't seen since 5th grade was there, as well as most of my classmates and lots of old friends.  The food was awesome and the band was great.  It was a lot of fun.  

But the fun distractions are over.  Hopefully the medical emergencies are over too.  And it's time I refocus on Winterfest knitting.  

...So here I am, eating all the Halloween candy (again!,) watching Hallmark Christmas movies and knitting f-bombs.  Lots and lots of f-bombs.

What have you been up to?

We're gonna need a bigger tree

 

We're definitely going to need a bigger tree!  

Guess that means I need to pause the mini mitten ornament knitting and go root through our storage units to find the Christmas stuff.  

It's starting to look like we may still be in this house for Christmas anyway so Mike can't complain but so much when I start dragging boxes of Christmas decorations in before Halloween. 

Meanwhile, I'm focusing on knitting mini mittens this week for Winterfest.  Thank goodness for my over abundant Wool of the Andes collection.  My love of buying random colored skeins is coming in handy!

And... Writing this post reminded me of the book, The Mitten.  Nana better be buying a copy for Hayden and adding a pair of mittens for her to the knitting list.  Actually, these ornament mittens might actually fit her. I'll have to check that out.

Baskets of Socks

The needles have been busy but that doesn't mean I have anything interesting to show you.  So...

A basket of socks.  Beaded socks for the Winterfest booth.  

Winterfest is quickly approaching.  Just about 30 days to go.  And I'm starting to freak just a little bit.  I've never participated in anything so big before and the nerves are building.  It also means I'm knitting/crafting the same things over and over and over again... So you get a basket of beaded socks.  

But hey - those socks are packaged and tagged and ready to be placed lovingly in the booth.  One less thing on the to-do list.  Only 40,000 more things to go.

It's not all knit, knit, stitch, stitch though. I take occasional moments to hang with Hayden.  She's turning out to be a bit of a tomboy despite her love of pink and unicorns.  She loves collecting sticks and rocks and playing in the mud.  She also likes to walk out to the road (Don't worry - we carry her when we get close) to wave at the cars and trucks going by.  I've been trying to teach her the "Hey truck, please honk your horn" arm movement but she just waves, usually with a stick in her hand.  Many of the trucks honk and wave to her anyway.  I was afraid the honking would scare her, but she just giggles and grins and waves back.  And every time a car passes she says, "Bye."  It's so sweet and so adorable.

And now I have to go knit and stitch some more.

What have you been up to lately?

On and off the needles

My knitting has been all over the place lately.  The pinched nerve in my back is still pinched and I'm still taking massive quantities of extra strength Tylenol and the occasional muscle relaxer.  And, CBD gummies.  I'm not sure I want to admit that here, but they are legal and they were purchased at a real store and I'm over 18....  A friend suggested I try one because the massive quantities of Tylenol and muscle relaxers aren't solving the problem.  They help, but I still can't sleep or walk properly because of the cramping and spasming muscles.  Anyway, the CBD gummies actually help.  It may all be in my head but they do give me some relief.  Each gummy takes 20 minutes for me to feel and the sense of calm and relaxation lasts for about an hour.  The muscle relaxers simpley make me foggy headed for hours on end and only half-way help with the muscle spasms for about 30 minutes.  

Anyway, the result of all that is that I have another orthopedic appointment this afternoon and I can't seem to concentrate on any one project for more than a few minutes.

The lack of concentration has produced two F-bombs (poorly photographed as usual) instead of the planned 15 to 20.  I plan to list them in my Etsy shop and to sell them at Winterfest.  They seem so silly but everyone who sees one seems to want one, or more, to give as gifts.  Apparently lots of people have siblings and co-workers who would appreciate asocially acceptable way of dropping the F-bomb.

And two Christmas gnomes rather than the 20 or more I want to have on hand.  These guys are simple but extremely fiddly to knit.  I'm not 100% sure I'm going to ever make 20 of them.  But I did buy all the supplies so maybe when I'm not so foggy headed...

And I started a glove/mitten/fingerless glove during Sunday's football game.  I haven't decided what exactly it's going to be yet.  I'm also not sure if this will be for me or the shop.  I'm supposed to be concentrating on knitting for Winterfest but...  I really like this color.  It's an unusual green and I love anything tweedy.  "Tweedy" is a word, right??  The yarn is City Tweed  Artichoke, it's DK weight and should knit up relatively fast.  

Well, that glove would knit up fast if I only put down the cookies and picked up the knitting.  Again, it may be all in my head, but CBD gummies give me horrible junk food cravings.  At least I'm blaming the gummies and not the fact that I am Seriously sick and tired and totally over this pinched nerve nonsense.  I'm really not sure if it's CBD or pity party junk food cravings that I'm experiencing.

Anyone else out there tried CBD products?  What's your experience been?
 

Soggy

 We're having a very wet and soggy day today.

I'm afraid we've swum for the last time this year.  After Ida blew through last week, we had a few cooler days and the pool cooled down to 78 degrees.  Since then, we've had a few cooler days, several more rains, and it's supposed to be in the mid 50's several nights this week.  I imagine the water is even chillier now.  As long as the wind didn't blow, 78 degrees was okay once you got in and adjusted to it but much cooler than that and.... Well, no thanks!  I'm a little bit sad.  Actually, I'm a lot sad.  But I do have fall fever so...

I'm not even showing knitting photos today.  For the last two or three months I have knit nothing but furry headbands and cowls, a granny square baby blanket and beaded socks for Winterfest.  I feel like I've made 1,000 of each.  In reality, it was no where near that many but I have filled a Rubbermaid tub with finished items.  Well, the creating part was finished.  I hadn't woven in a single tail or sewn the ends of the headbands together... 

So for the last two days, I have done nothing but sew headband ends together and weave in yarn and cotton string tails.  I could have shown you a picture of the resulting pile of little bits of cut off yarn/string but I figured you wouldn't be that interested.

One thing you might be interested in though is The Vampire Knitting Club series by Nancy Warren.  It's part silly comedic vampires knitting, part mystery/detective stories.  So far, I've only read the first two in the series but I very much enjoyed them and think you will too.  There's also nothing scary as far as the paranormal stuff goes.  No need to fear if you are sensitive to that type of thing.  If you read the series, let me know what you think.

And suddenly, the last line of each paragrahp is centered and my computer won't allow me to correct it.  Dang it!

Fable Fur

 I really should be medicated, if not institutionalized.

It's July in Virginia and I've just knit a stack of Fable Fur cowls that measures almost twelve inches high!

And now I'm knitting matching Fable Fur headbands.

Now, don't get me wrong.  Fable Fur from Knit Picks is a delight to work with.  It's incredibly soft and it doesn't shed like mohair.  But it's furry.  And it's July in Virginia which means it's hot and humid HOT and HUMID outside.  It's even hot and humid inside because the a/c just can't keep up with the 10,000% humidity.  The Brazillion rainforest has nothing on a Virginia summer!

If you are interested in finding out more about Fable Fur, visit Knit Picks' website. They have some more beautiful colors that aren't pictured above and I notice they have another sale going on.  

Something else I'm excited to discover about Knit Picks is that they seem to have changed their shipping procedures recently.  For years and years, it seemed my orders always went out on either a Monday or a Friday and arrived on my doorstep about five days later.  Then a year or so ago, it started taking a lifetime to receive my orders.  Sometimes it would take as long as three weeks and frequently, the packaging would be damaged.  Like, smashed with holes in the boxes, damaged.  I stopped purchasing from them as often.  But thankfully, my last few orders have arrived much quicker and in excellent shape.  In fact, my last order was faster than an Amazon order!  I ordered it on a Thursday night, it shipped the next day and was at my post office on Saturday! It would have been on my doorstep on Saturday but our Saturday mailman is a little lazy.  He won't get out of the car to put the package on the porch so he takes it back to the post office and you have to go pick it up.

Okay, advertising aside, Fable Fur really is awesome to work with.  It knits up quickly, only takes one skein to knit a cowl and I can get two, maybe three headbands out of one skien.  I haven't actually tried that third headband yet.  I'm knitting all these cowls and headbands for my Etsy shop and for the craft vendor booth at Winterfest.  I'm so focused on building up my inventory, I haven't wanted to waste time attempting a third headband.  The only thing worse than knitting with faux fur in July in Virginia is running out of yarn and having to frog faux fur in July in Virginia.

And yes, I could dig out my yarn scale and figure out if there's enough for that third headband but that would involve going into my unairconditioned storage area.  And that's probably not going to happen!

Knitting with birds

So, last summer, there was a carpenter bee (I have always called them bumble bees and have just recently found out they are two separate beings) that would come say hello to me every day when I was sitting on the deck.  We got so used to each other that he would land on me and crawl around and I was mostly okay with it.  He even took a nap in my knitting bag a few times.  

This summer, I don't have a bee friend.  Instead, I have goldfinch and hummingbird friends.

Yeah, he's very pixilated.  Sorry.  We are friends, but it's a new friendship.  He comes to see me each morning but he doesn't trust me enough yet to allow me to get a decent photo.

I can't even begin to get a photo of the hummingbird.  Every afternoon he flys up about two feet from my face, hovers just long enough for me to realize what's happening, and then he's gone again.  

I am really going to miss the wildlife here at this house when we move.  And no, we don't know so when that will be but it will be soon.  Well, soon-ish.  We are feverishly working to clear out all the junk from the house and fixing the things that need to be fixed so we can put it on the market.  And once that happens, our search to find a house to buy will turn into panic mode house hunting.  I can't say I'm looking forward to the experience. 

Thankfully, I have my knitting to keep my mind occupied.

And boy do I have knitting!  I finished the granny square baby blanket.  It's being modeled on the new deck railing.  I finished the blanket much sooner than expected.  I sort of went into knitting panic mode because...

I thought I'd mentioned that I was going to be a craft vendor at Winterfest this year but I don't see a post about it so I'm not sure if I never wrote it or if I deleted it some how or if it's there and I'm just blind.  Who knows.  Who cares.  The point is, I'm going to be a craft vendor at Winterfest this year.  I am excited and I am in TOTAL panic mode.  I've never participated in such a big event before and I'm slightly terrified.  But also very excited.  And very, very busy knitting for it.

Currently, I'm focused on knitting faux fur cowls and headbands.  I should have chosen something else to focus on during the summer months but I already had most of the yarn I needed and the projects knit up fast.  I wanted to quickly feel like I was making progress.  ...So, I'm slogging through knitting with faux fur in July and August.

I'll be sharing the Winterfest booth with several other artists and to get some practice working together, we participated in Ashland, Va's 4th Friday celebration last week.  Even though we didn't sign up in time to be advertised, we still had a decent amount of foot traffic and sales.  

In fact, 4th Friday was so much fun, we've decided to participate each month leading up to Winterfest.  If you are local, come check us out.  We have a nice, varied selection of items for sale because we have a jeweler, a seamstress, a paper artist, an all round crafter and my knitting.  There's something for everyone and it's never too early to start your holiday shopping!

Meanwhile, I have a few thousand items I need to go knit. 

More Potholders

 I just can't stop!

I've made a few more potholders that I need to get listed on my Etsy shop.  

Okay, question for the grammar police...  "In my Etsy shop," or "on my Etsy shop?"  It would be in a shop, but on Etsy/the web.  Which is correct?  I really should have paid more attention in school.  But hey - in my defence, the web didn't exist back in those days so my lovely English teacher, Mrs. Hall, never taught me "in" or "on" an Etsy shop rules.

I really am excited about these extra large potholders.  The cotton loops are SO much better than the kids' ones from the big box craft stores.  Besides being a much better quality and color, they are bigger and make 8 - 8.5 inch potholders instead of the little 5 or 6 inch ones.  These are big enough to protect a whole adult hand and they make fantastic trivets.  I'm just 100%, completely obsessed with making potholders!

It's a good thing I'm so obsessed with weaving potholders.  I'm going to need to make an awful lot of them over the next few months.  I've signed up to be a craft vendor at Winterfest.  Remember me talking about Winterfest?  Winterfest is the big Christmas/winter holiday event at the theme park where I used to work.   I'm very excited.  And a little bit nervous.  It will be fine though.  I'm sharing a booth with a few friends.  Sales or not, we'll have fun.

Oh, and sorry for skipping this past Tuesday.  I was busy hanging with my best girl.  Poor Hayden, her molars are coming in and they are giving her a fit!  Plus, she wasn't very happy that Nana was interrupting Paw Patrol to take selfies.

Catching Up Part 4

I can't believe it's January 28th and I'm still talking about Christmas.  Just goes to show how far behind I actually got.  Sheesh!

Despite all the December problems, I actually had a lot of fun.

It was the park's first Winterfest and working it was a joyful experience.  It rained RAINED practically the entire month of December (except for that rare blizzard we got) which was disappointing, but when the weather cooperated, Winterfest was a blast.

We had Craft Day in the office and made paper snowflakes and ornaments for our tree. Some of us were much better at cutting out snowflakes than others. The tree's star was made out of money straps.

I had told my boss that I needed two nights off during Winterfest.  One so that I could attend Winterfest as a guest and attempt ice skating, and the other to recover from the broken leg I was going to have from attempting to ice skate.  Being the good boss that he is, he complied.  (Although he did tell me I could work on crutches.)

Luckily, I did not break a leg.  Or any appendage, for that matter.  But I'm also not sure you can call what I was doing 'skating.'  Sarah and I were crying laughing at my pitiful attempts, which were made even more embarrassing by the fact that no less than 98 employee friends happened by and waved or shouted out to me as I 'skated' around the rink.  But despite the resulting sore muscles and embarrassment, we had a great time.

Next, we made our way to the living nativity scene so that I could pet the camels.  You actually got to pet and feed the camels!  (And goats, donkeys and a cow.)

We did a little shopping while we were there and we each bought a few gifts.  Okay, okay.  I bought things for myself.  They had quite a few small artists/creatives set up craft-fair style plus all the park shops that normally sell t-shirts and stuffed animals were selling Christmas decor and giftables.  I was quite impressed with it all.

I fell in love with this paper Christmas tree but couldn't begin to afford it.  It's made entirely of rolled up paper.  One of these days, I'm going to dig out all my scrapbooking paper and attempt to make my own.  (I knew there was a reason I was hoarding keeping all those boxes of paper.)

Winterfest was a blast but eventually our feet began to hurt, the skating muscles started to catch up with us and thankfully, it was closing time.  (Yeah, we had to leave because the park was closing, not because we were out of shape.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

Since I didn't have to spend my second day off hanging out in the ER, Sarah and I took our annual Christmas lights tour.

We hit all our usual stops, got out and walked around at the James Center, and found several new houses that had been added to the Tacky Lights Tour this/last year. (Christmas, 2018.  I really should have shared this a lot sooner.)  And, I'm proud to say, we didn't get lost.  Past years, we've always ended up lost in some neighborhood and it takes us 30 slightly panicky minutes to find our way out.  We may have finally mastered the use of a GPS!

Three on Thursday

I have a pretty long stretch of work days ahead of me so I thought for today's Three on Thursday post, I'd remind myself why I love my job.

1.  I LOVE playing with the money!  It's my job to make sure all the money is accounted for and safely stored each night.  I'm not 100% positive that my boss appreciates me calling it "playing with the money" but that's what it feels like.  I love counting it and strapping it and putting it in little stacks.  I don't even mind (much) when it comes to me wet and I have to iron it to get it dry.

2.  This year, we have Winterfest and I can NOT wait!  The park is going to go from...

Kings Dominion, photo courtesy of hamptonroadschurch.com

to...

Kings Dominion Winterfest, photo courtesy of wtvr.com

this.  There will be a zillion Christmas lights.  (Have I mentioned how much I love Christmas lights?)  Santa and Mrs. Claus will be there.  (Have I mentioned how much I love Santa?)  And the fountains are going to freeze over and be turned into an ice skating rink.  Have I mentioned how bad I am at ice skating?  Have I mentioned that I'm about 99.99% sure I'll break a leg?  Have I mentioned that I don't even care!  I can Not wait for Winterfest!  I'm more excited about Winterfest than I am about playing with the money each night.

photo courtesy of mentalfloss.com

3.  I love the people I work with.  Once, I was having a problem with the printer and my boss walked by and asked "Having PC Load Letter issues?"