1. I am full of knitting success! Yesterday I finished Mom's Christmas present, nearly a month early. Here's the Ravelry page, though it's more of a reddish-purple eggplant than in that photo. It turned out pretty well, but I'm worried that it might be too small despite knitting a slightly larger size than her measurements. And tonight I ( Read more... )

Our very rare and treasured White(!) Christmas came and went. Overall, a fairly good one, aside from some unpleasantness that involved a Swiffer and rubber gloves. To commemorate the day, here are two low-quality iPhone pics: ( The ham loaf, and a dog in a Snuggie. )

So, I'm now in D/FW (technically the midcities), and everyone's freaking out that IT IS SNOWING OMG. Hell, it's a top trending topic on Twitter. It's coming down fairly hard and actually starting to stick a bit. I must say that it's rather cool to have a White Christmas (Eve) for the first time that I can remember ( Read more... )

Time for the saga of my Christmas knitting. ( In which a sweater goes from Large to XXXL to Small in just a few hours. )

Well. I am officially halfway through the school year. Overall, it's been a fairly good one -- certainly better than last year. The past week was quite a challenge, though. The next time someone jokes/snarks about how many vacations teachers get, I'll challenge them to spend the week before winter break with a hundred and fifty 11-12 year olds ( Read more... )

1. Wow, thanks for all the snowflakes! Seeing them lined up on my profile page is a lot of fun. :)

2. ( Girly TMI. I mean it. )

Right now I am inordinately proud of myself. I headed down to IKEA this afternoon to get a housewarming gift for a friend, and I noticed that they were already marking down all their holiday decor. Their theme this year is a bit too reliant upon oddly-shaped hearts, but they still had some great deals. So, I bought a plain wreath and lots of ( Read more... )

1. Today I took a deep breath and braved Publix for pre-Thanksgiving grocery shopping. It wasn't too bad on Tuesday afternoon, but the portents of holiday insanity were visible. For the hell of it, I decided to attempt my first-ever pumpkin pie as a hostess gift for my friends. I bought supplies for two pies, so I can use the first as a trial ( Read more... )

I loooove yams. They are the best thing about autumn dining. Yesterday I made a few requests in various places for Thanksgiving sweet potato recipes, and people replied with some great links! It looks like yam dishes fall into two camps: the traditional casserole with a sweet crust of brown sugar and/or marshmallows, or a "healthy" roasted dish ( Read more... )

Last night was ... odd. I went to dinner with some friends, but backed off of New Year's Eve festivities because I didn't feel like going to a bar. I came home and prepared to ring it in on my own, which suited me just fine. But right at midnight, I suddenly wanted to cry. Even got a bit teary-eyed. Not that it had been a BAD year or anything ( Read more... )