Happy Early Birthday, Heather!

Since we are going to celebrate Heather's birthday tonight with dinner at Provino's, I thought I would go ahead and dedicate today's post to her...especially since I have to go to the ophthalmologist later today and probably won't be able to see the monitor clearly to post anything this afternoon. However, I'm not going to talk about birthday stuff today because I still need to try to catch up with the Christmas season. So, here goes...

Heather moved into a new apartment recently so she wanted some practical things for Christmas. I was able to oblige with a Revereware tea kettle and my dad added to the practical side of things with a bread knife, cheese grater, and a couple of travel mugs. It's always fun to start accumulating the necessities of life when you have a new place and I find great enjoyment in knowing that some of the things I don't really use much anymore (especially since Heather got me a darling teapot for Christmas last year) can be recycled to other family members. It seems to be a trend with us and I'm sure Giuli is going to end up with way more things than she will ever need if we keep this up.

In one of her more cryptic text messages before Christmas, Heather asked each of the family members to choose one of the following: cow, pig, or duck. Ded chose duck and I chose pig, having no idea what this said about our personalities or what ramifications our answers might have. Well, I don't have a close-up of the results but if you look very closely in the next picture, you will see our take on the Llama, Llama, Duck song as Ded and Giuli show us their ducks...ducks that shoot out laser lights and quack loudly...and Heather and Mary model their llama hats.



I received a Christmas cd by the Rat Pack (which I promptly told Heather to rewrap and give to Grampa - noted earlier in this blog - because I knew he'd love it), so I am awaiting my replacement copy and Ded and I are anxiously looking forward to Burn After Reading, which Heather had to order for us. The nice thing about this is that my Christmas season lasts even longer since I still have presents on the way.

Ded gave Heather a copy of The Importance of Living by Lin Yutang, a book he and I each own, also. I had already knit some goodies for her (note she is wearing the fingerless gloves) which makes it a little bare under the tree, but she has been happily warmer at work pre-Christmas than she would have been if I had insisted she wait for her handmades. Actually, I ended up making hats for Caitlin, Mary, and Giuli and gifting them before the holiday, too, so we really had a sparse amount of wrapped gifts.


Now, lest you think that we are boring and practical (heaven forbid) I shall note that my dad also gave Heather a copy of Bioshock for her Xbox. The thought of him negotiating EB Games just really amused us as he has absolutely no experience with anything to do with gaming. But he ended up with the right game and the right platform - Go, Dad!

This last picture is of Heather and Caitlin choosing their favourite scarves from a great collection that Giuli fingerknit for them. Once I showed my youngest how easy fingerknitting was, she couldn't stop doing it. I don't know how many she ended up making but, suffice it to say, she had lots of fun and her sisters reaped the benefits of her creativity. And, believe me, this family is nothing if it's not creative.

On the reading front, I'm tearing through the lastest Artemis Fowl, The Time Paradox, which I didn't even realize had been released in 2008. Ded gave it to me a couple of days ago as an early Valentine's Day present - a complete surprise. I'm about a third of the way through and so far, so good. On the knitting front, I have been working on a design of my own for a cabled chemo slouch hat and am nearly finished. It just dawned on me that I may not be able to finish it today since my eyes will be dilated - drat. I also need to take pictures of the ginormous blanket I made for Caitlin so I have something to post tomorrow for the continuing saga of Christmas 2008.

And, one more thing (I am feeling very Columbo-ish), I want to thank my buddy, KnittingDragon, who Plurked yesterday about a really cool knitting podcast he was listening to. (He also has a podcast, Sweaters for Dragons, and I'll have to talk about it in a future post.) I wandered over to CogKNITive--A Knitting + Psychology Podcast and promptly listened to 18 episodes until the wee hours of this morning. I guess you could say I'm enjoying it. Indeed, I am thoroughly enjoying it. The podcasts are only about 20 minutes long and are divided into four parts: the obligatory "what's on the needles/hook"; a "strategy for life" (great advice for dealing with our everyday issues like making lists, how to apologize, sleep on it, etc.); "something I really like" (in which Dr. Gemma, the author of the podcast, shares knitting as well as non-knitting favourites); and "blather", in which she shares with us her work experiences as a psychologist at a prison. Gemma is funny, entertaining, informative, and touching. You really don't have to be a knitter to appreciate this podcast so check it out. Remember the Reading Rainbow catch-phrase? Don't take my word for it...

Christmas with Darth Stevious

In the ongoing Christmas saga, our next character is eldest son, Steve, aka Stovie, aka Darth Stevious, orginator of "smooty" and "blurf" (and countless other wacky things like purple monkey dishwasher).

If you aren't familiar with Steve's ongoing, neverending project, please check out the website for The Saga Museum, particularly the blog postings in which you will be able to get a better idea of his part in this two-volume set which will no doubt make him rich and famous so he can support his mom in the manner she would like to become accustomed. Or, at least possibly attract George Lucas' attention and he'll invite us all to Skywalker Ranch. Yeah, right.

Steve is not usually difficult to buy for...especially when I end up in the right place at the right time and Gustave Dore is staring me smack in the face. Yes, right before Christmas, Ded and I were at Barnes & Noble and he found a gorgeous hardback Dore collection...which, amazingly, Steve didn't have. I became a Dore collector after Steve introduced me to him quite a number of years ago but I've only been able to find oversized paperback editions of such titles as Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the Bible Illustrations, and a couple others. Lately, however, we have run across these lovely editions at B&N at a reasonable price. I would provide a link here to show said book, but I can't find this particular volume online...go figure.

Anyway, Steve had hinted in his usual subtle way that I would be receiving an Otter for Christmas. Knowing that I am a Muppet fan and that I was trying to complete my Christmas DVD collection, one day he texted me to inquire if I had added Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas to my set. I hadn't been able to locate it at that point but he was lucky enough to stumble upon it! He texted me back that he foresaw an otter in my future and I should stock up on fish. Hooray!

Being a Hitchcock fan, Steve was also looking to complete a dvd collection of his own. Although I do take off points on the cool-o-meter for him preferring Vertigo over Rear Window, I picked up a copy of Vertigo for him at Borders. I had set out to find something good in the Doctor Who section, but Borders didn't have anything he didn't already own.

Interestingly, in my mom's extensive video collection (which we have been paring down and donating a lot to St. Vincent's Second Time Around store) I found a copy of Vertigo which Steve had apparently overlooked. So, just to be a smart-aleck, I wrapped the video and gave it to Steve for Christmas. I told him the DVD was too expensive and...well...sorry about that. Thus the confused look on his face when he opened the present. Yes, I gave him the real present, too.
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While we are on the subject of video tapes, I shall pull in Heather for a cameo appearance in this blog (although her post is coming up tomorrow). Steve won the award for the heaviest present when he gave Heather a huge basket full of Doctor Who tapes that he had collected since lord only knows when. Since he's been upgrading to dvd whenever the BBC decides to release another of the classic episodes, he is in the process of purging his extensive collection and now Heather has a whole lot of Who-viewing ahead of her.


I do apologize for the lack of knitting content here but I promise it will pick up again. I am currently working on a blanket for Caitlin and I shall post pictures as soon as it is finished. I'm probably over halfway there so give me a couple more days...then I get to start on Heather's!

Yes, I Have Been Knitting

Lest anyone think I had just fallen off the face of the earth, this is what I've been up to. The Giuli Slouch Hat is a design of my own which I think turned out pretty nicely. It's a tad smaller than the other two and I found a nice eyelet pattern in one of my Barbara Walker Treasuries to play with. I haven't blocked it yet, but I kind of like the effect that you get the way it is. Giuli called it a mushroom hat so I think it shall remain so.



The fingerless gloves were made for my pseudo-niece in Texas. She likes purples and I had this plum-coloured yarn which I think will pass for a reasonable fascimile of purple in a pinch. Once again, I rambled around through my many knitting books and found a fun pattern stitch to play with. She received her gloves today and, I'm happy to say, she loves them. :-) Now, I'm working on a pair for her mom.


I forgot to take pics of the black pair of gloves I made in a more manly style. Perhaps I can get a shot of them on their new owner and I'll post them. I did just a 2x2 ribbing on the top and the plain stockinette palm. The latest ones I made, which I need to put up in the Etsy shoppe as soon as I figure out how, are pictured here in a gray and creamy ragg colour. I think I found the pattern stitch in a sock pattern book.


Somehow I am thinking this is probably not the picture I'm going to put up on Etsy, although I'm sure Mary would disagree. If you look closely, you can see a smidge of the sewing nook in the background which Dad and I have been working on for the past couple of weeks.

I can't believe how close it is getting to Christmas. You would think that this is a movable holiday the way it always seems to sneak up on us. I have been getting a bit in the Christmas spirit by watching my seasonal DVDs. Ded bought me two the other day to help fill out my collection - yea! He got the original Grinch (which I watched last night) and Miracle on 34th Street (which comes on two DVDs - the second one has the black-and-white version, thank the gods). I'm pacing myself on the movies with two down and four to go. In Borders tonight, I saw the Charlie Brown Christmas DVD and nearly hyperventilated over it. I don't have it and I NEED it. Yes, yes, I do.

Okay, enough of that. Ded and I inherited a hi-def television last week so we played musical tv fun and games. We hauled my big ol' set up to Gainesville for Heather (which she now has to move in about a week when she relocates to her new digs) and Michael inherited her set. I'm still getting used to the screen - it is awesomely clear but just a tad smaller than mine. Playing San Andreas on it is a whole new experience, according to Ded, and I really enjoyed watching the Sarah Connor Chronicles on it last night. But the best was Prince Caspian. OMG It was truly wonderful! We kept commenting on how unbelievably clear the picture was. I'm sure this will eventually get old but for now, it just rocks.


On the school front, I ordered the entire set of the Key To... math series workbooks for Michael and Mary which arrived today. Better than words, I'll let the pictures describe the unspeakable joy of the kids when they saw all this mathematical fun awaiting them.





And then Mary unearthed the catalog that came with the math books...
So I leave you with this final look at all that Algebraic and Geometric fun that looms ahead of us.

Oh, yeah, I'm up to a Level 19 Barbarian in Knit Wars, too.