Happy New Year's Eve's Eve!

Hello there! I have not posted in a while because after the sweater finishing - I just had to leave the state and relax. Well, not exactly - but I did leave the state and I did relax. We went to H's parents and ate like crazy and generally had a wonderful time.

The week before we left Susan came to visit me - well she came to visit her brother, but I stole her away for a few days. It was so great to have my friend nearby again!! Hip Hip Hooray for soul-friends! I just wish I could have been a better host by cooking more and I really wish I would have had more than one day to take vacation from work and play.

It was my 1st Christmas away from home (I have missed all other holidays but always made it home for Christmas before) and I thought it might be weird... but my in-laws are so great and all of H's friends were home there wasn't too much time to feel lonely!

H even played me some songs from his beginner piano books from when he was a kid. hee hee hee. It was so cute I could hardly stand it. Here is a picture. I don't have many Christmas pictures - Teresa his sister was taking most of the group shots and I always think - oh it would be silly to take more than one... but then I have to wait for her to send me some photos.


Anyway - it flurried a few days - but no white Christmas was in the cards for us. We ate some Dim Sum in Cincinnati on Christmas day. We also went to Cincinati another day with Eric (one of H's friends) and popped into a vinyl record store called Everybody's records and a comic books shop before stopping to have lunch at an Irish Pub. Over the week's span I also caught two movies - Sweeny Todd and Walk Hard. I loved Sweeny Todd - I was impressed by everyone in it, Walk Hard was a lowbrow comedy and it had its moments, but I suggest renting not going to the theater for that one.

Oh and of course I knitted: I finished the mittens for the "subway mittens" pattern in the last interweave knits magazine... I still have to make the pocket for the metro card, but since I had not brought it with me, I didn't want to guess at its size. And I have to buy a button.

And I finished 1.5 socks. So I have that going for me as well.

Today has been an excellent day - our flight was one time, arrived early, and we got home before lunch. We took a nap, and now I am cooking some veggie lasagna in my slowcooker. Yes you heard that right - lasagna in the slowcooker. I have not tried this before but I have great hopes it will turn out great. The recipe is from "Fresh from the Vegetarian Slowcooker" by Robin Robertson if you are interested you can read more about it on Amazon here.

And I made some "one bowl chocolate cake" from the BHG cookbook. I add a handful or two of chocolate chips to it rather than adding icing. And I use vanilla soy milk instead of regular milk. Oh and I mix it by hand instead of with a mixer. But that is all I change - hahaha.

Well I hope this blog post makes up for the time I have completely ignored this blog over my vacation!

Sweater is finished

My Dearest Susan has been visiting all week - hence the lack of posts. Yesterday we had the whole day to spend together. We ended up hanging around in the afternoon and watching some of the office from Season 2. And - I finished my sweater!!!

Although not really - I want to add to the bottom a little bit more as when I sit down it leaves a gap in the back between my pants and my sweater. In the winter I prefer to be covered all the way So some day I'll have to unbind the bottom and add a little more.

Please ignore how bad my hair looks in this picture.

Half a sleeve, No cards!

I actually (for once) had a lot on my plate this weekend. I had to go to the dentist, mail out Holiday Packages, work on my sweater, and clean (for my coming-soon house guest). I also should have finished writing and mailing my Christmas cards, but I did not. Just one too many things on the to do list. Thank goodness shoveling or scraping my car is not on the list - we only got rain this weekend. One thing that does have me worried it the wind. The planes flying overhead sound really funny like the are struggling against the wind. Not a particularly pleasant sound.

I don't have any other pictures to add right now, but about 5 minutes ago I finished my 1st sleeve of the sweater. So here it is. I like this sweater, but the roll edge bottom is a little too rolly - it can roll up to about 4 inches. I must look into how to stop this and/or unbind it and add some inches because it is really rolling up too much. For some reason the sleeve isn't doing it that badly.

Anyway - I digress. Check out this progress!

A quick Post

Hey Everyone - just a quick post before I go get back to writing out my Christmas and Hanukkah cards (one set being early, the other late).

Anyway - it did indeed snow.
Here are some pictures (taking pictures in the dark is hard and I forgot to bring my camera places during the workday... so I had no choice). I leave when it is barely dark and return after dark... so options are limited.

Anyway - I love love love the way this picture came out - as I caught a snowflake falling and it actually looks like a snowflake, and the flash makes it cast a shadow. All by pure luck of course.

And here is another 'after dark' snow picture - the street lamp helped.

And here, I am sure is what you are waiting for - sweater progress.

A Flurry of Writing

I say flurry because I saw some this morning on the way into work. I saw a co-worker walking in the building at the same time as me and I called out "It's Flurrying! It's snowing! Isn't it beautiful?!?" and she just kinda looked at me like I was crazy.

But you know what? It was beautiful. It didn't stick to the ground, nor did it last more than 5 minutes, but there is something about the way snow looks when it falls that breaks my heart (in a good way). They were huge snowflakes.

And tomorrow we're supposed to get our first winter storm. I am much less excited about that because in VA that usually means some kind of ice or something. We'll see. Hopefully it will be pretty pretty snowflakes.

So this weekend we decorated our apartment. I say decorated in a loose term. We have no room for a Christmas tree or anything... but we did put up lights, garland and ornaments. We got the new LED lights and I have to say I love them. They use something like 1/800th of the electricity the normal lights do, and they stay absolutely cold to the touch - which I still find amazing. After 5 hours on - they feel exactly as they did before I turned them on. Here is what it looks like.

As for what else is new - I haven't really been up to much - been knitting on this sweater (my 1st sweater!!!) and it is taking a while because I am a very slow lace knitter. I am not good with the lace and even this simple pattern makes me rip back every so often. Anyway - I am getting there. I can't remember if I posted what it looks like but you can see pictures of the finished version over here. I am making the neck a little lower as I think I would be driven crazy by a turtleneck that tall.



And Happy Hanukkah to all my friends who celebrate! May it be wonderful and peaceful, and I wish you and yours joy and love!!