Happy New Year

You know how I feel about resolutions. I did pretty well last year in my "Don't read comments on Facebook posts" resolution, and when I didn't, I really was much happier. Then I kind of backslid, and decided maybe humanity isn't all that worthy of saving should aliens come, but I'm going to try harder to keep this one.

Anna decorating herself.

Our tree in it's natural habitat, before the murder.

Christmas and New Years were pretty low key around here. We actually cut down our own Christmas tree for the first time (Anna wasn't along, or we'd have heard about murdering trees.)  It was fun.  They take you out on a trailer and give you a saw and you have at 'er.  Finding one that worked was a bigger challenge.  So we picked one.  And I said, "I don't think the trunk is straight".  And Nicholas says, "What do you have against gay trees?"  So of course that is the one we got...and it was crooked the whole time.  And man, did it shed needles.  You couldn't SEE the tree skirt, and I had to empty the vacuum 4 times to get them all up (and this was December 27th.  It's not like the 4th, as in most years).

Our decorated tree. You can't see the lean from this angle.

Emily decorating.

So we went to my parents house and Brian's mom's house on Christmas Eve and then hung out here Christmas Day.  I did get a Nintendo 3DS with Animal Crossing: New Leaf, so that is exciting.

New Years was quiet too.  There isn't a whole lot to do here (although DJ Jammin' John was at Mickey's Tip Up with Karaoke in Kellner.  Sorry we missed it.  Not.) so we stayed home and had a nice meal and ate nice snacks (although my retro fondue pot did not function.  I definitely want me $2 back.) and played Monopoly with the kids (Brian won). So that was New Years.

And yesterday-I did something I wanted to do for years and never got around to.  Thora asked me to join her in the Downton Abbey MKAL, but we are using stuff from our stash (because we can't afford another $54 on a kit...).  Of course, her stash is all documented and nice on Ravelry; mine is not.  So I went up, got everything out (that was out anyway, because I was going to at least organize the damn thing this week) and started putting my stash up on Rav.  It took hours, and I till have cotton yarn to get up there (and stragglers from the closet, under the bed, behind the door, etc etc) but it's up. I have a lot of beautiful yarn. And a lot of stash knitting to do this year, especially socks.

Going to try this for the MKAL

And I did find something to use for the MKAL-it takes 800 yds of fingering weight (and of course, all my beautiful sock yarn is only 410, and there is only one skein of each), so I am going to try to swatch tomorrow morning with my sportweight woolese and see if I can make it work. I have 4 balls (about 1300 yards) so it should be enough. Probably huge, but we'll see what I can come up with when swatching.


I have also decided that after I use up some of my sock yarn, I miss Opal and Regia and the whole "self striping without any work" thing. When I first learned to make socks, I LOVED it.  Then I kind of "outgrew" it and wanted to expand to patterns and lace and cables and...now I see the beauty of it just being there to mindlessly knit.

Oh and the best news of all?  I found my swift and my ball winder (in two different boxes) buried in with yarn and other fiber-y tools. So I can get my winding on. Here's some other great finds:

I found misc. needles. And the first book I learned to knit with

A beaded scarf about half done. I figure I messed it up and put it back in the bag. At least I didn't pitch it in the corner.

One sock. The rest of the yarn in a bag. No pattern. Way too small for me. So I'm going to try to finish it and wing it.

Some of my gorgeous sock yarn that is undone and needs to be wound. Woohoo ball winder/swift find!

I don't know what this is. I think I bought it at IRIS. It's gorgeous and soft. And I wish I knew what it was.

And today I am going up to Appleton to hang out with my friend Shelly and catch up on watching Downton Abbey from last season and knit and just hang out. It will be nice, and I need more of that in my life. But I need to be motivated to do it, since I don't have any friends here and it's easy to get into a rut.

I'm going to knit with this bad boy today while I watch Downton

So whatever 2016 brings, I am hoping for the same prosperity and maybe in a different place. I hate change and "not knowing" and feeling like I have no control of my destiny. So it's a little stressful for me right now. I need more knitting, less video gaming. More water, less soda. And more tea. We all need more tea. :)