My Christmas shopping was figuratively done before Thanksgiving (that is, I knew exactly what I was buying), and officially done within the week following Thanksgiving. That included two Barnes & Noble gift cards for Jake’s nursery school teachers. I thought it was a great idea — one that they could use themselves, or if they preferred they could use it to buy a book for school. Well, yesterday one of the notices in Jake’s backpack was about teachers’ gifts.
Month: December 2006
Sing it with me…
All by myse-eeeellllph. Don’t wanna be… All by myself. Anymore.
OK, so it’s not entirely true. The husband has a meeting tomorrow in the Boston area and I need to work both today and tomorrow evening, so he and the boys are staying overnight at my mom’s in the western part of Mass. and she’s going to watch them while he’s at his meeting. That means that I have tomorrow morning and early afternoon all to myself! This means that I get to sleep until 6:30, maybe even 7 (I’m just crazy, aren’t I?). Theoretically I could sleep later, but I’m so used to getting up at the crack of dawn, that I will be surprised if I sleep until 6:30, honestly. But then I can watch morning news shows instead of Noggin! I also have big plans to mail out two swap packages and most of my Christmas cards. I also plan on leisurely browsing through Sephora and a couple other non-kid-friendly stores, as well as enjoying a lunch out, during which I will not have anyone smearing food on me or throwing food at me. And then I get to see my cuties sleeping all snug when I come home in the evening. It will be a good day 🙂
Mismatched Pairings
One of the fun things about having a party is the random assortment of leftover food. Of course, that means that you can eat totally random things and call it a meal. For example, for lunch I’m having vegetable spring rolls and mini quiches. I might have some crackers and cheese spread too. I know — I’m just crazy aren’t I? LOL…
What a weekend!!!
Oh my goodness. There is just so much to write about that I am actually going to have to use subheads, I think. Let’s begin, shall we?
She Said Yes!!! And Happy Birthday!!!
Not only was yesterday my little brother’s birthday (well, little… he’s 29!), but it was also a very exciting day because the night before he asked his girlfriend Kathy (Noah’s godmother) to marry him! And she said yes! I am super excited for them (I also got to help pick out the ring a couple weekends ago when we went shopping on Black Friday!). Mike and Kathy are perfect together and I’m so happy that she will officially be part of our family. Yay!
I Got My Purse!
First I just want to tell everyone what a great swap partner Tracy is! She had knit and mailed my original bag at the beginning of November, only to have Fed*Ex lose it en route. I felt terrible for her, but she wanted to reknit the bag. It arrived safely in New York on Saturday, as you can see, and I absolutely love it! It’s just my style, the colors are perfect, and she included some great goodies too — cicular needles, two balls of pretty magenta/dark pink yarn (I see a lacey scarf being made out of this!), a notepad, and a yummy lemon candle.
Tracy, thank you so much for all of your work and effort. I appreciate it so much!
Greatest SP9 Pal!
I have been totally spoiled this weekend. First the purse, and then two packages from my SP9 partner. What an amazing early Christmas present! Two books that had been on my wishlist (I’ve begun flagging projects I can’t wait to start), and five (five!!!) skeins of gorgeous Knit Picks yarn. I have not had a chance to order from them myself, but I’ve heard/read about how great their yarns are and I am so impressed! I can’t stop petting the ball of Panache (a blend of baby alpaca, cashemere, silk, and merino wool). The colors are all gorgeous and I would have picked them out myself. Now I really have motiviation to finish this Irish Hiking Scarf so I can start on fun new projects! Thank you so much! You made a great weekend even better!
Par-tay
Our wine-tasting party yesterday was a lot of fun! There were just a couple of Drew’s friends here, as well as his brother. The food was a hit, we had just the right amount of wine, and everyone had a great time. Plus, there’s camembert leftover, which is always a good thing 🙂
And now it’s back to the old grind. I have kind of a busy week ahead of me (but I guess it’s always busy this time of year, isn’t it?), and I really need to finish up my Christmas cards! Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be enclosing photos this year. The family photo we took (the same one in my sidebar), was shot in lo-res mode by accident, and the quality is kind of crappy for prints. I hope no one will be upset. We plan on getting a a portrait taken at an actual studio in February, so our relatives will just have to sit tight for a couple months. OK, I just realized how late it is already and I need to start getting things organized for the day.
Christmasy Cloths
I knit both of these for the Winter Wonderland Dishcloth Swap. The first one is a pattern called “Dish Pan Bubbles” from the January issue of Creative Knitting. I fell in love with this pattern and I like how it turned out, but I have to tell you… those K3TBLs were a bitch. Sorry, but there is no other way to put it. Maybe I was knitting a little tight, but I had a hard time with those.
The other cloth, a snowman pattern, is one I whipped up this afternoon. The pattern is from the Knitted Kitty Dishcloth Group. Easy and straightforward. The one I wanted to do is the reindeer cloth on the group’s home page, but I didn’t have enough brown in my stash. Too bad because it is so freaking cute! I’m hoping to do one more dishcloth for my swap pal, then package them up along with some goodies and hopefully she’ll get it before Christmas.
Advent Calendar
Shannon wanted to know what our Advent Calendar looks like, so here it is! We bought it a couple years ago at The Christmas Tree Shop. You can stick goodies in the pockets, and then move the snowflake to the corresponding date.
The Disorganized Party Planner
I love planning parties. I really do. But I just feel like we didn’t have enough time to think about this wine tasting party we’re having on Sunday, and I’m throwing it together without as much thought as I usually put into things. Luckily, it’s going to be very low-fi. There are only 7 adults (including Drew and myself) and 4 kids, so I’m not too worried. I just wanted to come up with a more creative menu, but I’m sure this will be fine:
Vegetable Spring Rolls (from Sam’s Club)
Mini Quiches (from Sam’s Club)
Roast beef on crostini, dab of horseradish
Fruit, cheese, and cracker platter
I just need to think of a couple fun, kid-oriented appetizers. Maybe pigs in a blanket? (At the end of August I remember reading an article in the NY Times that said they were incredibly popular at posh cocktail parties this summer, ha!) I think I might make a small batch of punch and buy a container of sherbet for the kids’ “cocktails.” I think it would be fun to have this little scoop of sherbet melting in their cup.
As for the wines, I think we might do the Hayman & Hill Cabernet Sauvignon as well as their Chardonnay. We are huge fans of both. Typically, I don’t love chardonnay, but theirs… well, I’m sure I could kick a bottle of it pretty easily. Over the weekend we tried the Duo Cabernet-Merlot blend. It was decent, but I wasn’t in love with it. It is also the first wine that I was able to describe as having “a hint of beet.” Seriously! Not in a bad way, but it had this earthy/sweetness thing and Drew and I were throwing around thoughts and suddenly I just looked at him and said, “Beet. It’s beet!” And he was like, “Holy crap, you’re right!” That was kind of funny. Anyway, we won’t be tasting people on that. Again, not bad, but for the price point there are plenty of other Chilean wines I’d rather drink. We need at least one more wine. I think Drew had a couple ideas, but I don’t remember what they were. So I guess in all reality I’m not that ill-prepared. But I feel like I am.
Knitting Bling
A few weeks ago, my SP9 hostess asked all of us in her group to knit a dishcloth, and she picked four random winners of the people who met the challenge. I was one of them! Last week I got these gorgeous stitch markers in the mail. How pretty are they? Thank you!!!
No More Talking Fishtank
The title sounds crazy, right? Well, we have a 30-gallon fishtank, and when the water gets a little low, the filtration gets all noisy and splashy and it eerily sounds like people talking (especially if you happen to be really tired like myself right now). Tonight it was driving me absolutely crazy. I just put Jake to bed and I was cleaning up here in the kitchen and I had to go into our bedroom several times to listen to the monitor to see if he was calling me. He wasn’t, but damn if it didn’t sound like it. It’s happened to both Drew and myself — one night during the summer we both swore we heard muffled conversations (like if you’re eavesdropping at a party). Of course, it really was just the fishtank when we got up to check, but still… Freaky! So anyway, back to tonight. Right then and there I added water to the tank and it is so much quieter and so much more pleasant, and I won’t have the creepies when I’m trying to fall asleep tonight.
Jesus was a Jedi
We have one of those Advent calendars that have the pockets that you can stick little trinkets in. Last year was the first year using it and Jake loved it *so* much! I like it because we decide what goes into each day (allowing us to minimize the amount of chocolate he gets, LOL!). The first day we gave him “Mickey’s Twice Upon A Christmas,” which is one of his favorite Christmas movies so far. The second day he got a Spiderman candycane that I found at Christmas Tree Shops (so cool — a red and blue cane with a nicely decorated Spiderman gummy attatched). Today’s was “the big one,” though… one I’d been waiting for, really, since last year: the Playmobil Nativity Set.
I currently have a glass Nativity and I’m hoping that for next Christmas I’ll save enough to have the Willow Tree set, neither of which are good for little kids to play with. At the end of last Christmas season I thought about this little cloth set that Hallmark had, but some lady grabbed the last one before I got to it. It’s just as well because this set it so much fun! We had a great time putting it together and setting all the people up. Plus, it’s a good way to tell him the story behind the Nativity (this year we are really trying hard to stress the religious aspect of Christmas and drive in that it is *not* just about presents).
Of course, Jake if four and is incredibly imaginative and loves role-playing. So after we had gone through the Biblical story I left him to play with the Playmobil Nativity as he saw fit. He decided they all were going to be Jedi Knights. (Virgin Mary was even weilding a light sabre!). Yup. Jesus was a Jedi. Makes perfect sense to me 🙂