Pre and Post Thanksgiving

Before Thanksgiving, I am like the Grinch of Thanksgiving. Instead of being thankful for things and people in my life, I become acutely aware of something I don't have. Throughout the year, I'm routinely grateful, thanks mostly to my job, which gives me constant reminders of how different my life could be, so then when suddenly everyone and everything is so focused on being thankful, I'm not. This used to last for several weeks until I figured out what was going on. Knowing is half the battle and it gets better every year. This year, I spent lots of time outdoors getting some exercise. Thanks to DVRs, I saw no holiday commercials to bombard me. I think both of those helped my frame of mind.

Thanksgiving day dinner was at the inlaws, who live over a couple of hours away. My MIL thinks dogs have cooties and can't stand it if one touches her. We were not about to leave Katy home alone all day so Shauna was going to stay home with her. I figured since I wasn't into this at all anyway, I should stay home. It ended up that we both did. Husband went to his folks where he pretty much cooked the whole dinner. I had to run to the store for a few forgotten items and I didn't want to cook so I stopped at Cracker Barrel to get my dinner. It was the only place I saw open. They were VERY friendly to me, seeing someone getting a dinner for one (daughter had food at home) to go on Thanksgiving. I kept wanting to say "But....but.....but.....it's ok! Really!!" It was quite an enjoyable way to spend Thanksgiving and it suited my mood just fine.

Saturday we had a turkey dinner here for us and my son and his family. The inlaws ended up coming here for that at the last minute. Husband cooked another entire feast. He kept reminding me that he LIKES to do this. He made this and he doesn't even like cheesecake!



I enjoyed getting things ready for the dinner here.



So now it's time to think about xmas. I do much better at xmas than Thanksgiving, but I don't like being rushed into it and thank goodness again for DVRs to avoid commercials. I don't really like shopping and I hate malls. Yay for online shopping.

And the weirdest thing of all, I want it to snow!!

Lace, Weight

The lace valance is now off of the needles. It needs to be blocked and hemmed, which I will eventually get around to doing. The pattern suggests blocking by soaking it and pinning. This is Knitpicks Shine so I'm wondering why it says to do it that way. Is it because it's not 100% cotton? I've always just used a steam iron on cotton before. If I decide to do the soaking, I'll probably wait until after xmas to see if I get these Blocking Blocks They are on my xmas list. Here is a pic of it in it's before blocking bunchy glory. I only needed 4 skeins to do 4 repeats.



Speaking of cotton, enabler Hesira did it again. She pointed me in the direction of this sale. She is either an enabler or psychic. What she wasn't aware of, that I know, is that right before she sent that to me I was contemplating a few things. I was looking ahead to when I plan to quit my job (YAY!!) and thinking I will have no yarn budget for a while. I was thinking I have plenty of lace and fingering weight yarn to last me a very long time. I was thinking I should get some thicker yarn because knitting only with tiny yarn is not optimal. I was thinking I should decide on a yarn to use for the Dickinson Pullover. The organic cotton seems to be exactly what I needed. I just ordered 25 skeins of the forest color.

As a note to myself mostly, I hit a different goal. I've lost 10 lbs without feeling deprived at all. It's all about lifestyle changes. I was thinking losing about a pound a month may be the way to do it and keep it off. I don't dwell on it, I just occasionally weigh myself to see what's happening. What I have done is mostly eliminate fast food french fries (except for the once a month craving that must not be denied). Those things are evil and dangerous. I know if I eat them any other time, I will once again have to go through fry withdrawal, but now I don't miss them and don't feel deprived. Husband went through a nutrition program at work and has started thinking healthier. Don't get me started on how he was able to lose about 5 lbs in 2 weeks just doing that. Another thing, if I want a cookie, I wait until I want it bad enough to go to the trouble to bake some. If I want ice cream, I go and get a dose of the good stuff, and I want it less often. And finally, getting a bit more active, which was pretty easy to do when you start from zero :) Anyway, I figure in 2 more years, I will have achieved my goal. If it's this easy, I can wait.

My knitting mojo has returned.

I finally found my groove with the lace curtain pattern. I can now unknit a row of it faster than I was knitting a row at the beginning. It's a very simple lace pattern. I blame sleep deprivation for my earlier troubles. I should have it finished in a couple of days.

Which led me to start something new in my subconscious effort to never finish anything. I started on my first top down seamless raglan using this.


I'm making it a V-neck with 10 row stripes. I'm still undecided as to whether it will be a cardigan or a pullover. I'm thinking the yarn will make it too warm to wear inside so maybe a cardigan/jacket would be more practical. A pullover would mean much less messing with edges though.

I knit so much on both projects yesterday that I need to rest my hand today. I think I will bake something instead!

I was able to resist the Knitpicks sale until Hesira posted pictures of her new acquisitions on Flickr. I followed a few of my rules though and only ordered discontinued sale items instead of everything that caught my eye. Among the items I ordered is some yarn to remind me of trees.

I plan to knit scarves with leafy designs with these yarns, but it's pretty far down on my list so who knows when I will get around to it.