Hope you all had a great Christmas, if you celebrate. We had decided it would be a "low-key" year, since we're trying to buy a car. So I bought Mark Stephen Colbert's new book and a talking Family Guy pen (Stewie) and a chocolate bar. He bought me a calendar and some Ghirardelli and some squishy cream-colored baby alpaca/silk laceweight. Yes, the boo entered the LYS. The one next to Whole Foods, not the one in the big old house. (Poor thing would've been lost in there.) And as the shop was busy, he was not even acknowledged by the employees until he went up to pay. (Does this surprise anyone who's ever been in a yarn store?) If they had helped him, though, he definitely would not have bought me cream-colored laceweight anything, so maybe it's a good thing.


Buckingham by Bristol Gallery Yarns. Yummy. I'm not a shawl or stole person, but I do like my pashmina and I enjoy the challenges of lace knitting--so these will become a very nice scarf. I'm still deciding between two patterns, but I probably won't get to this until March so I have lots of time to change my mind.


Speaking of lace knitting, I finished my Wisp! It is so gorgeous. And other than the fussiness of working with Kidsilk Haze it's actually a very easy pattern--you don't even need to purl. And this color! Fabulous!

Yeah, anyway, we're getting a car. A 2005 Corolla with low miles, ideally. We're test-driving one tomorrow morning, and if we like it and if the AAA mechanic gives it the OK we're going to buy it (to replace Mark's '93 Escort, which is in its twilight years). It's gold, which isn't my first choice, but it's better than tan. :) The weird thing is that the car is at the dealership I worked at eight years ago, right after my first misguided attempt at grad school. Things have changed so much since then! There probably aren't many people around who would remember me, but the internet sales manager's name is too familiar to be a coincidence. We shall see. So wish us luck!

Warning: non-holiday content follows.

Thought you might enjoy that this week. Things are a little hectic here, but not because of the holidays--I have some crazy stuff going on at work, and this little outreach thing I'm doing may be more trouble than it's worth. We're planning to look at some cars this weekend--but we're getting the loan through this credit union Mark just joined through work, and he needs to take care of the preapproval. Of course he's dragging his feet. If it were wholly up to me we would've had a new car six months ago. Grr...

Now that she's received my last package, I can reveal that Rose was my Secret Pal spoilee. I had a lot of fun shopping for her. There was much petting of alpaca, believe me. :)

I did broach the subject of the Hot Cocoa Swap with the boo...he got kind of grumpy about it and said we already had plenty of hot chocolate in the house (which is true). So I think I'll need to pass... There is supposedly another Virtual Vacation Swap coming in January--maybe he'll be less cranky by then. Plus I have a huge raise coming next year (forty percent...I'm still kind of amazed), so maybe some of that extra money can subsidize a swap.

The holiday knitting is finally over, with the last mini-stocking I worked up yesterday. I did manage to finish something for myself last week, if out of necessity because it got cold.



A little pattern I picked up in NYC, and the perennial orange yarn--which I believe has finally found its home in this little project. Anyway, now that I'm done knitting for other people I can finally finish my Wisp. I only have one repeat left, then lots of blocking. It really is lovely...

Behold the holiday knitting.



For reference, that's a pretty big chair. I'm still truckin' on a few minor items, but am basically done. Now we have to do the actual Christmas shopping, which would be less intimidating if Mark would help me make a list.

Also, I'm feeling a lot better, and I got called to do some very minor outreach-type stuff with a local company I've really wanted to break into. Time to whip out "O don fatale". :)

I always get a cold every year around the first of December, and this year is no exception. It really hasn't been horrible, and I'm mostly through it, but it did inconveniently coincide with a Messiah performance. Luckily the cold never affected my singing voice (my speaking voice, on the other hand, is baritonal right now). But this week is very low-key for me--my plans are to fully recuperate, clean the upstairs bathroom, put away much laundry, and craft my little heart out. My charity knitting is done (though I may decide to fringe the scarves), and my Christmas knitting is done except for one or two pairs of mittens, a baby hat and some ornaments. I do have to create a new tree skirt (I destroyed Mark's mother's in the washing machine last year), but I have two yards of red fleece that will very quickly become a basic tree skirt. I guess I should embellish it, but I'll need to sew things on if I want to avoid last year's debacle. (Why I thought a forty-year-old felt tree skirt with glued-on felt and rickrack and incredibly bleedy red tassels would survive the washing machine is anyone's guess.) I may or may not be in the mood to do this.

Continuing in my total nonsequitur manner, I mailed out my last Secret Pal box on Friday. I hope she likes it! Speaking of swaps, NH Knitting Mama has linked to a new one: the Hot Cocoa Swap. Looks fun! But this time I will run it by Mark before I join. :)

In migraine-related news, the doctor wants me to switch BCPs, but I have to wait until we receive our new insurance information before it can be ordered. Wish me luck with this one.

I guess I'm still a little logy from the Actifed last night...can't think of much else to post right now. Pictures tomorrow, perhaps? I have made some yarn acquisitions, after all--some of which from a quick trip to the Outer Banks after Thanksgiving.