Merry Christmas (a little late!)

Merry Christmas to everyone. Hope everyone had a good holiday. I got sock number one of my mother's socks finished. I am halfway done with the cuff of sock number 2. Will post a picture soon. When I'm done with that, I have my sister Lora's socks to knit and then I can knit for me!! Hmm, what will I do first? Perhaps knit that lining for the Noro roll brim hat I made last year that's not so warm when it's cold outside?

And once again, the weather forecast is for snow tomorrow. It's for 3-5 inches now. Maybe snowshoeing on Saturday?

My sister Donna (the internet-less one) was highly entertained by the ski masks on the Museum of Kitschy Stitches website on Christmas Day (we were at my other sister's house).

I love Christmas, but I am happy to be home. I don't sleep well in beds that are not my own. Besides that, Jeffy was home alone and I was worried about him. I also got a cold for Christmas that I am fighting off.

I am very sad about what happened to Benazir Bhutto. I really admired her.

Odds 'n ends

Polk Library (where I used to work) had their office party yesterday, which I attended.




I now work in the Music Department and Art Department and I am in charge of both their libraries. One would be enough to be in charge of because they both need major work.

I am the only person working in the Music Department today--everyone else is on vacation. I have locked myself inside the library (with my bosses' permission) because if someone should get any funny ideas, there's no one else around to assist me.

Since no one is paying attention, let the knitting begin! Yippee, it's the last day of work until the New Year. I am only working until 11:45AM and then I'm outta here.

The weather report better change quickly or I'm going to be pissed. We got all this lovely snow and if it rains it's going to melt. I WANT TO SNOWSHOE!

To all my friends reading this, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Yule and Happy Holidays.

I probably won't post until next week some time.

Tinsel redux

My sister Donna sent me this Christmas card:



This really happens. Enough said.

Welcome to Tinseltown

I just can't leave the Christmas tree alone. Last night I put tinsel on it:

We'll see what the cats do with it. I tried to not put it on the bottom of the tree, just close enough to it so it doesn't look too weird. Churchill was already interested, standing up like a gopher batting at a clump. I think he may have eaten a piece also. Time will tell if he did.... Jeffy just likes looking at it. He's a good boy.

Also, project no. 1 is now done. Knit Night was very productive last night. Witness:

Since the chance of my sister seeing this is extremely remote since she is not connected to the internet, here's a picture of the finished project no. 1. It is the "Waving Lace socks" from Interweave Press' book, "Favorite Socks", knitted in Lorna's Laces sock yarn. Project no. 2 is underway--socks for my mom.

Land of funny hats and other stuff

Here is a picture of the Christmas hat I made last year:



I made this on the bad road to knitting on a Knifty Knitter last year in December. It's made with (forgive me) Red Heart yarn, pailettes and jingle bells. It's not that warm, but it sure is festive!

Part no. 1 of item no. 1 of the Christmas knitting is getting a facelift. I made it a little too big, so un-knitting is taking place. It's actually going pretty good. It think I only have 4 more rows to undo before I can finish it again.

It's 31 degrees outside right now. It better not melt too much snow or this snowshoer is going to be unhappy next week when she actually will have time to snowshoe. Here's a picture of mine and Paulette's Iverson wooden snowshoes that we rarely wear (we wear modern aircraft aluminum snowshoes, which are much lighter in weight):



They were very happy to be out in the snow.

New sock yarn!

I just found this on another blog. Noro Kureyon has a sock yarn now!!

An example of Noro Kureyon sock yarn

http://www.simplysockyarn.com/Categories.bok?category=SOCK+YARN%3ANoro,+Kureyon+Sock+Yarn

Help--it's only a week away!

Oh my, I am almost done with part #2 of item 1 I am knitting for Christmas. Only 12 little stitches need to be joined to one another. Now I just have to start item number 2. I don't know if I'll finish it before Christmas, but I'll try.

Went to a meeting in Madison yesterday and got lots of knitting done during the meeting. Our union Director asked if he was at a Stitch and Bitch meeting. Hey, the guys bitch more than the women-so there!

Churchill feels underrepresented on my blog, so here's a picture of him drinking milk under the tree:



I'm not responsible if my hands suddenly start knitting at work towards the end of the week. They're feeling the pressure...

Lock me up

That's it--I'm officially insane. Why, you ask? Well, I was looking at Christmas cards at the store and I didn't find any I liked so far. I was making cards on the computer with a cool snowshoe photo on them that I took for thank you cards and I thought, "Wait a minute, I have a really nice picture I can use for Christmas cards!". They turned out really nice. The drawback is a) I have to print more and stamp them with a snowflake stamp and b) I don't have time for this.

The Christmas knitting will be lucky if I get it all done before Christmas. So much for making the gingerbread curtains for the kitchen. Maybe I'll get that done over my Christmas vacation. At least I'll have them for next Christmas that way.

Did you all see the new Holiday stamps from the US Postal Service? Take a gander:

They're perfect! Knitting stamps! The originals are machine knit, but who cares? They're KNITTING stamps.

Fun fur-ry tree

I found this on Stitchy McYarnpants website:



Behold the Fun Fur Christmas tree!! Not my taste, but hey, it's something to make with all that old Fun Fur yarn.

Here's the link to the pattern:

http://www.monster-yarn.com/fun-fur-xmas-tree-pattern.html

I can only take so much

This morning DPNgirl and Paulette were greeted by a 4 foot snow ball in our driveway courtesy of the city snowplows that must have come in the night. The street doesn't seem that much better and our neighbors had no such deposits in their driveways. Needless to say, we were not pleased. Make me late for work much? It made Paulette late to drive to Madison for a meeting. We love snow, but geez, can't the plow drivers pay attention while they are doing their work? What if I had been some little old or disabled person who needed to get out for some reason or for an emergency?

This in no way makes me want to move to a warmer climate, because I love winter. I just don't like the crap that gets deposited in your driveway by the plows.

Has it really been a week?

Oh my, has it really been a week since I posted? Either I have been busy or when I haven't been busy, I fall asleep. Such is life....

I went to Fox River Mall in Appleton on Saturday. NEVER go to any mall on a Saturday in December. I was okay while I was in Younkers. I was finding lots of good present material on sale and I was actually walking around singing with the store music. But then, I left the sanity of Younkers into this:

It doesn't look that bad on the picture--but trust me, it was quite the crowd scene. Suffice it to say I was no longer singing.

St. Nicholas (aka Paulette) brought me some good stuff this year on December 6. I got these lovely sock blockers--oh joy!

Still knitting on the 2nd part of present number 1. I am going to have to do much better if I am to get this knitting done before December 24, only 12 days from now. My, that looks so bad in black and white--12 days! The pressure is on now. I guess I will have to not take any more naps in the evening and forgo any extra partying--except for Knit Night. Anyone in a meeting with me from now on is going to have to put up with me knitting, for I am on a mission.

Holy Cow, the snow machine is on!

My goodness, this is the forecast for Oshkosh from the National Weather Service office in Green Bay:


Point Forecast: Oshkosh WI 44.02N -88.53W
7:28 am CST Dec 5, 2007Forecast Valid: 9am CST Dec 5, 2007-6pm CST Dec 11, 2007

TodayMostlySunnyHi 17°F
TonightPartlyCloudyLo 1°F
ThursdayChanceSnowHi 24°F
ThursdayNightSnowLo 21°F
FridayChanceFlurriesHi 29°F
FridayNightMostlyCloudyLo 7°F
SaturdayChanceSnowHi 23°F
SaturdayNightChanceSnowLo 15°F
SundayChanceSnowHi 25°F

Today: Mostly sunny, with a temperature falling to around 12 by 5pm. North northwest wind between 9 and 13 mph.

Tonight: Partly cloudy, with a low around 1. West wind between 5 and 7 mph.

Thursday: A 30 percent chance of snow after noon. Increasing clouds, with a high near 24. South southwest wind between 5 and 10 mph.

Thursday Night: Periods of snow, mainly before 4am. Low around 21. South southwest wind between 10 and 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of around 3 inches.

Friday: A chance of flurries before noon. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 29. West southwest wind between 13 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph.

Friday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 7.

Saturday: A 30 percent chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 23.

Saturday Night: A 30 percent chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 15.

Sunday: A chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 25.

Sunday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 14.

Monday: Partly sunny, with a high near 28.

Monday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 18.

Tuesday: Partly sunny, with a high near 30.

Where will we put it all? And when can I drive to Fox River Mall in Appleton to get some Christmas shopping done? I guess I'll have a lot of knitting time in between snow shoveling.

Snow!

It's snowing again. How lucky can we get? Now I just need to fit in some snowshoeing time. Last year we only managed to get out 3 times in the whole winter because of lack of good snow.

Picture of our house in the snow:

Picture of the iron urn in our backyard decorated for Christmas:

Knitting has been accomplished--a little yesterday and today. At this rate I'll be done with my Christmas knitting by next year.

Leftovers and lots of decorating

It's leftover time. Here's a picture of my turkey and crockpot mashed potatoes from Thanksgiving:

Mmm, nummy.

Our tree is in the house! Here are pictures of the tree after we cut it:

Who is that in the picture on the right hiding next to the tree? And notice we did get some snow for getting the tree. I even used the sled from the tree farm to slide down a hill.

The tree decorated:

Pictures just don't do it justice. Click on any of the pictures for a larger view! We also apologize to Al Gore. We tried to find LED lights for the tree, but there were none out there in multicolored.

The kitchen in full gingerbread mode:

Jeffy is resting after observing all of the decorating.

He's tired and so are we. Jeffy says that decorating all weekend is exhausting. He also hated the evil cleaning that followed.

It sure was fun putting all those decorations up while it was snowing outside. We had 7 inches by the time it was all done out there. The shoveling--not so fun. But I did get to use my snowshoes in the backyard while I was putting greens in the iron urn in the backyard. Snowshoeing on trails may not be far behind this year. Perhaps we'll even get to go during vacation between Christmas and New Year's! Be still my heart.