Time Travel Backwards with Me...

...as I attempt to summarize the holidays. Let's start with New Year's Eve, since it's the freshest in my memory bank.

Ded and I wanted to go to a movie for NYE and decided to kill two birds with one stone by taking Michael with us and going to see Valkyrie. Thus, Michael gets to count it as history class. We drove out to Mall o'Georgia (with me working on Caitlin's blanket in the car on the way) and ate at our regular haunt, The Farmer's Basket. This is one place that we can actually fill up the bottomless pit known as my son without breaking the bank. And it's meat and veggies, not fast food.

So, while we were eating we noticed that the cleaning people began putting yellow tape around the food court area (suspiciously looking like crime scene tape, hmmm...) and we joked about being stuck inside. Actually, it turned out that the mall was closing at six, which was really strange but it was NYE, so okay. I guess it was a not-so-subtle hint that the stragglers were no longer welcome. We figured we would kill some time since we still had about an hour before the movie started, so we sauntered back outside to visit Barnes and Noble. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I found the doors already locked. They must have closed at six, also! How rude. A trip to the mall without visiting a bookstore just doesn't qualify as a real trip. So...

We went back to the mall area and decided to make sure the theatre was not closing early just to spite us. Fortunately, no problems there so we got our tickets and decided to go on in since by now it was about 30 minutes until showtime. It certainly wasn't as much fun as it would have been to hang out in the bookstore, but at least it wasn't crowded. Basically, we sat there and texted each other until my phone died. And, yes, of course we were sitting right next to each other but still texting. Duh!

The movie was very good and I'll admit that, even though I knew the plan failed and they didn't succeed in assassinating Hitler, I still got caught up in the whole thing and cried at the end. Now I'm going to read the book.

So, it wasn't even ten o'clock yet when we got out of the movie - certainly too early to head home, right? We had decided that we just might wander into another show for a double-feature evening but I had to get myself pulled together first. I was emotionally exhausted after the first movie and there was no way I could just switch gears and be ready for a comedy. So, we sat around for a bit and then decided to catch the 10:25 showing of Yes Man. It was enjoyable and the ironic thing is that Terence Stamp was in both movies.

Oh, yeah. While we were killing time before we saw Valkyrie, we also popped in for a few minutes to see Bolt in 3D. There was a box of 3D glasses at the door, so Michael and I grabbed them and went in. We only watched for maybe 5 minutes, tops, but I don't know if I could handle an entire movie like that. I think my eyes would start bleeding after a while. Of course, we were standing on the side of the theatre in the aisle so maybe it's easier on the eyes if you are looking straight at the screen and not on an angle.

When the second movie ended, it was a few minutes until midnight so that was pretty good timing. We avoided a few drunks on the road and began our journey back to Snellville when Michael and I decided we were hungry so, why end our evening so soon when we could go to Waffle House for a while? Perhaps we can start a new tradition of hash browns on New Year's Eve at the WH. Why not? Unfortunately, since it was pretty cold outside, I decided that two cups of coffee would sufficiently warm me up...yeah...and I didn't sleep that night either. Or that morning...whatever it was. But even with a lack of sleep, it was still a fairly low-key but fun holiday evening.

And on that note, I'll close this morning's post. Hopefully, I'll finish the holiday posting this weekend when I go further back in time to Christmas.


But first, how about a picture of Giuli's new shoes that Santa brought? Aren't they awesome? I think I want some, too!

A Christmas Movie Update

Remember last month when I posted my favourite Christmas movies? Well, I have been amassing a nice collection of them on dvd and here is what I have so far and what I still need to complete what I consider the perfect assortment of Christmas nostalgia.

First, these are the ones I own that I have watched so far:
White Christmas
Miracle on 34th Street (in black/white, hooray!)
Charlie Brown Christmas
Muppet Christmas Carol (twice, so far)
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (twice, also - and this is the original one)

I own, but haven't watched:

It's a Wonderful Life
The Hogfather

I already know this is going to be arriving from Santa (aka Darth Stevious):
Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas

So that leaves only The Christmas Toy, which is probably going to have to be ordered. Not bad, considering I started the season with only White Christmas, Muppet Christmas Carol, and The Hogfather.

And, for those of you with inquiring minds, Terry Pratchett (the awesome British fantasy writer) wrote The Hogfather and it is, as are all his books, fabulously entertaining, funny in a lovely warped way, and features my favourite character, DEATH (who speaks all in CAPS). If you haven't read anything by him, please run out and buy The Colour of Magic (it's the first in the series) and quickly read it. Then post your review here.

Today's knitting went much better than the previous debacle. I had no problem with the shortie fingerless gloves I'm making for Lynn. One is finished and I'm at the thumb on the second one. I anticipate finishing before I go to bed. Giuli helped me pick out yarn for a couple more projects which must remain hush-hush and I hope to start on them as soon as I finish the gloves. Especially since one is a Christmas gift.

I had fun today with Giuli as we tackled the yarn closet of DOOM over at my dad's house. My mom had a closet that I filled with boxes of yarn from various and sundry stash places around her house. There are, no kidding, hundreds of skeins of yarn - all acrylic - and I'll be making good use of it for charity projects now that I've found Pine Ridge Reservation to donate warm knitted things. Giuli and I actually organized the Red Heart Super Savers, dividing them up pretty much by colour and reboxing them, stacking them in front of the 3 foot high stack of those giant pound skeins of Red Heart. And then there are the boxes of miscellaneous brand yarns that comprise maybe another 6 or 7 boxes, at least. When everything is packed into the closet, which is probably 3 feet deep and 3 feet wide, the boxed and bagged yarn comes up about 5 feet high. Oh yes, and that doesn't include the two boxes of yarn that we took to my house today. When we had it all out on the floor, Giuli wonderered if Grandma has pulled a heist at the local Wally World.

Well, I'm off to knit again so I will leave you with Happy Hannukah wishes this week. I dropped off some Hannukah chocolates at my chiropractor's office today. My dad had bought a bunch of stocking stuffer candy for the kids and he handed us 4 little bags of the foil covered chocolates that look like coins. Upon close inspection, I found that, instead of coin markings stamped on the foil, there were dreidels and menorrahs. So I thought I'd pop over to Captain Chiro's office to share them with him. He was appreciative - tomorrow I have to run back over there and take something to Joanie for Christmas since I don't want to discriminate. :-) Also, I need to have him take care of my achey back, so I'll be killing two birds with one stone.

No pictures today but tomorrow I should have another pair of finished gloves to share.

Finally Finished!

Last night was a Kill Bill-athon. We watched both movies and I knitted for about 4 hours. So, around 2am or so, I finally finished my socks and promptly slipped them on, was grateful for the chilly weather, and slept in them. Lots of sock-y happiness! And, lest we forget the reason I knit more often socks of the toe-up category, let us take a look at the amount of yarn left over from this venture.I kid you not - this is how close I cut this. I had originally planned on 6 rows of ribbing, but changed it to 5. And, since I always have problems getting the bind-off stretchy enough, I used a needle several sizes larger to see how that would work. Lo, and behold, I got a perfectly stretchy finish. Those of us with less-than-svelte ankles appreciate a truly elastic-y top to our socks.
On the scarf front, let's take a look at how far along I've come. I think I worked on the scarf through Kill Bill I and the socks through II. I didn't want to slight either project, you know.

My Knit Wars status certainly took a leap during that knitting frenzy but I am becoming quite obsessed with making sure I keep accurate records of my time. Last night, I even pulled out the stopwatch. Can we say OCD much?

Another one of my obsessions is blog reading. My list here is by no means a fraction of the ones I follow - rather like the neverending blogroll. Of course, when I'm visiting someone's blog, I have to take a look at who he/she reads, and then I might end up reading five or six new ones and...well, you know how that goes. I'm almost afraid to put my actual list here because it might be longer than my blog posts. There are so many incredibly talented people out there that I just can't resist looking at all those fantastic creations. Thank goodness I can knit while reading them all...and thank YOU for reading my blog.