Fast away the old year passes . . .

Hail the new, ye lads and lasses . . .

The years seem to come and go more quickly, the older I get. So does my winter break! It takes the entire break just to regroup. Forget actually getting stuff done around the house! The holidays take up the first part then I need to recover and get some sleep! This year was busier than most because we had Bird's graduation party. It was fun though. Now I can only hope that he can get a better job before those student loans come due. Speaking of jobs, Ems lost hers so we will have to help her out a bit.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I've decided that I am going to seriously try to not buy stuff. I got some nice things for Christmas and I really just don't need anything. I may make one more yarn purchase for something that cannot be knit from stash:

I typically would not attempt a coat, but this is chunky yarn. The actual stitch count is the same as one of my usual sweaters so it should take about the same time to knit. The one issue I see is that the "plain" parts of the sweater are done in seed stitch. That might just drive me crazy. I'll see if the sale yarn I want to get is still available on my next payday. If so, then I will get it. If not, then it's not meant to be at this time.

The only other things I can spend money on:

Gifts
Consumable items that I use regularly--In other words, no browsing around Sephora for new eye and lip colors. I have a ton of stuff already.
Notions and patterns which enable me to use my fabric and/or yarn stash
School items --which are usually reimbursed anyway.

Here are some of my holiday FO's:

First--the Struan hat I made for Bird:




Details:
Pattern: Struan by Ysolda
Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted in Blue Graphite
Needles: Size 5, 16 inch Addi's and Size 5 Brysun D
P's
Here's Ems' Struan:



Same details except the color which is called Shocking Pink!

I just finished the Fawn Earflap Hat for Ems:




I'm not exactly the best model for it. It will look so much better on Ems!
Here are the details:
Pattern: Fawn Earflap Hat from the book Boutique Knits
Yarn: Twinkle Soft Chunky in violet
Needles: Size 15--16 inch Addis and size 15 wood DP's

I love everything in Boutique Knits. They are all accessories and all of the styles are different and a bit edgy. Now I have to finish my Silken Scabbard. That will be a priority.

My secret pal sent me some nice goodies for Christmas:

I love the cable stitch mug from Starbucks! The green tea and chocolate covered almonds are going straight to school!

I got some nice things for Christmas from the family as well. DH got me the Cole Haan boots I've been wanting for over a year. They appeared on Ebay brand new, in my size and a fraction of the original price: The leather is like glove leather. The shaft of the boot is woven leather strips. They are stunning and the photo just doesn't do them justice! DH also got me this:
I've been dying for the Ally McBeal boxed set. The problem is they aren't available in the US due to some copyright issues with the music. You can get them on Amazon UK but they are not the correct format for players in the US. This set is a region free format and they were ordered from Hong Kong. I need to try them out to make sure they are okay. The reviews were good so I hope these work! I watch dvd's when I sew. I've watched all 6 seasons of Sex and the City and I'm now almost done with season 4 of Six Feet Under. Ally McBeal is next!

I've been cooking more during my break. I'm trying to plan meals better so that I don't waste money on food that doesn't end up getting used. Last night I made pizza from scratch. I used to do this all the time. Trader Joe's has pizza dough which I was using, but I decided to go back to making my own. It takes literally 5 minutes in the bread machine. It mixes and rises in the machine over a period of a little less than 2 hours so I may start making it the night before.This is before the pizza was cooked. I like this dough recipe because it is easy to hand stretch. Here is the recipe for a thin 14 inch crust:

Pizza Dough

2/3 cup warm water
1 1/2 Tbs. olive oil
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups bread flour
1 1/2 tsp. yeast.

Put all ingredients in the bread machine pan in the order listed and set on dough cycle. When the cycle is finished, stretch dough to fit a greased 14 inch pan. Put desired toppings on pizza and cook for 15 - 20 minutes in a 450 degree preheated oven.

My pie was topped with Arrabiata sauce, 4 cups of shredded mozzarella, vidalia onion, yellow bell pepper, black olives and Trader Joe's precooked spicy Italian chicken sausage. We only ate half of it and will have the other half tonight!

It's back to the old grind tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to getting up in the dark. I've been keeping my preferred hours of going to bed around 2 a.m. and getting up around 9:30 a.m. If only I could keep those hours on a normal basis!

Happy New Year to you all!

I'm running out of time for the
Bushism of the day:
You know, I'm the President during this period of time, but I think when the history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so, before I arrived in President, during I arrived in President." --George W. Bush, ABC News interview, Dec. 1, 2008

Kitty Cam: Both Samantha and Harley have enjoyed the Christmas Tree!

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care . . .

I put out my decorations last weekend and finally got around to putting my fresh greens around the house. We have a huge holly tree that has more berries than usual this year. Notice all the stockings? All 4 kitties and Elvis (the turtle) have them. It was really crowded when we had 6 cats and pet rats in addition! I had to hang 2 stockings on some of the hooks!

I decorate in 3 phases. The Christmas stuff goes up the first weekend in December. A week and a half or so before Christmas, the tree goes up. The first week in January, the Santas and other Christmas stuff gets put away and the rest of the snowmen come out. You may have noticed that part of the snowman collection graces the mantel. They will stay there until March. I will put more snowmen out when I put the Santas away!

Here are a few more of the decorations:

This is the creche that my Dad made in the early 1950's. I've had to do a little restoration. It is surrounded by antique bottle brush trees. They are my new favorite thing and I've been collecting them for a couple of years now.

More Bottle Brush trees!

Wooden Victorian Carolers on top of the china cabinet!

Snowman hurricane lamps on top of the bookcase!

I went to Joann's for the super sale yesterday and I picked up a couple of patterns and some fabric. I specifically went for this Simplicity pants pattern which got really good reviews on Pattern Review. This pattern has all kinds of fitting tips and separate pattern pieces for slim, average and curvy fit.

It is pictured with two pieces of stretch fine wale corduroy. I typically don't care for corduroy, but this is a very fine wale and it is really stretchy! I will actually use it for some pants from the Burda World of Fashion magazine. It ended up being about $2 a yard!

I stumbled on this pattern:

It is a Project Runway Simplicity pattern. There are long sleeves that have rouching along the seem and I will make it with those. I decided that it needed a slinky knit so I found a leaf green rayon/lycra knit:


Then today I stopped by the other Joann's in my area only to find that they were going out of business! So I picked up some sale stuff.
First I have a stretchy satiny suiting in leaf green to use for a skirt from Burda WOF and a brown herringbone polyester suiting for some dress slacks--most likely that Simplicity pattern pictured above:


And there was one piece of a herringbone stretchy denim which I will probably use for capri's since there is probably not enough for full length slacks. I also picked up more wool suiting. I already had enough of this for a skirt, so I thought I'd get some for a jacket as well.


I hope to devote more time to sewing after Christmas. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it!

DH and I got our Christmas Tree today. We ended up getting the first Noble Fir that we saw! It's unusual to find the perfect tree so quickly. We've gotten Noble Firs the last couple of years and I really love them. They are similar to Fraser Firs but less blue in color and the branches open out more. They last a good long time! It's sitting outside for the time being. Tomorrow we'll cut some off the trunk and put it in water then in a few days it will come in the house where we will let it open up. Since we are going to Pittsburgh on Thursday, we figured that we'd bring it in on Wednesday. It will have a few days to open up and we'll be able to decorate it when we get back!

Bushism of the day:
"Amigo! Amigo!" --George W. Bush, calling out to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Spanish at the G-8 Summit, Rusutsu, Japan, July 10, 2008

Kitty Cam: Harley naps in the one little sunny spot he can find!

Bad Blogger!

That's me! I've been neglecting my duties here lately. I guess there have just been too many other duties that have gotten in the way! I won't go into that. I've been busy with work/social things so this will be a quick "what's been going on" type of post.

Last Saturday, several things happened that made me very happy. First it snowed.

It was just starting when I took that photo.
I ran out to the grocery store and the snow started falling when I was on my way home. By the evening, the ground was white. I got home to find this:

A fire! We haven't used the wood burning stove in a few years but DH bought some wood. Nothing says "winter" quite like a roaring fire, snow and turkey soup on the stove. That was the third thing that made me happy!

You know it's winter at our house when you see this:

We put our snowguy out in November. Actually we usually put him out on Nov. 11 because that is when we have gotten our earliest blizzard. It was Nov. 11, 1987--Ems' 4th birthday. We got a foot of snow! We went to Chuck E. Cheese that night for her birthday dinner and we were the only people in the place except a handful of vets that were in town for Veteran's Day. So we always put SnowGuy out in hopes that he will bring us another blizzard. He's been slacking the last few years.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here. I found this little tree on Ebay and had to have it.

It's a musical bottle brush tree from the 1950's. It is 12 inches tall and it plays "Silent Night." We had one just like this when we were kids. It sat on the piano. I remember that it was the only thing that I wasn't allowed to play with. Whenever I would go to wind it up, my mom would take it away and wind it for me. I think she was afraid that I would overwind the mechanism and break it. I always loved that little tree. It rotates. My brother has the original one so I found an exact likeness.

I've been working on a few projects which I cannot share at this time. Once Christmas is over, I will share them. I've gotten to the point on Silken Scabbard when I need to try it on. I've gotten to the waist and I need to determine how many increases to do over the hips. I hope to finish it over winter break.

One little project I will share is my new t-shirt! Someone at work ordered staff t-shirts. You could get either a polo shirt or a baseball jersey type shirt. Neither of them appealed to me. I like my skinny fitted tees. I decided that I would create a shirt specific to my being a music teacher so I came up with this:

I have my school initials and the word "staff" right under the music staff. I liked the pun. My students have all commented on it. I've decided that next I will make a Thermofax Silkscreen of the design and use white ink on a green shirt. Fortunately I had the foresight to snag the old Thermofax machine we had at school when we were renovated 12 years ago. The machines had become obsolete as copiers, but someone has devised a way to make silkscreens using them. The refurbished machines are now selling for $900. I haven't checked mine to see if it works, but that will be something I will do over winter break.

The other thing I did last weekend was to tweak my hair color. I get my color professionally done, but it gets dull in between. Ems is able to get the same demi color--Paul Mitchell Shines-- at Davidson's since she is a beautician student. I added a little more red and it is more of an auburn now.


Speaking of Ems--she is certainly her mother's daughter! She's been getting into the Pittsburgh spirit by remaking some thrift store Steelers' sportswear:

How much fun is that!

This week has had its share of social functions. My knitting group had a cookie exchange on Wednesday. There were about 25 of us who each made 7 dozen cookies. We had goodies to eat and our hostess printed up cookie cookbooks containing the recipes of all the cookies that were shared. She also supplied colorful tins for us to take our goodies home in. This is our second annual exchange and it was a great success. Tonight DH and I met up with two other couples at the Ram's Head. It's fun to go out with grownups. That is one of the pleasures of being empty nesters. We've decided to do this on a regular basis and we've already pencilled in a date in January.

We have a winter weather advisory, so I have to go do my snow dance before going to bed.

Bushism of the day:
"The best way to defeat the totalitarian of hate is with an ideology of hope -- an ideology of hate -- excuse me --with an ideology of hope." --George W. Bush, Fort Benning, Ga., Jan. 11, 2007

Kitty Cam: Harley and Mike know how to chill on a cold snowy day.

All is bright!

Christmas was fabulous! It was a nice leisurely day, which is what family holidays should be. We got up and DH, me, Bird and Maddy and our special Christmas breakfast in the dining room then we opened out stockings. We decided to wait to open gifts until later when Ems and KC were here. We went to DH's sister's house and had a wonderful brunch and did gifts with the extended family there. It was a fun time. I'm particularly glad to see everyone has scaled back the gift giving. We get to a certain age and we just don't need any more stuff! I'm at the point where I need to get rid of stuff! Em's and KC met us there then we all came home and opened all our gifts. I had requested gift cards from DH. I would like to get some black jeans from True Jeans and I'm just not quite sure which ones to get until I call for a consultation. If you have trouble getting jeans to fit, you need to visit True Jeans at the link above. They are in the Boston area and when I was there last summer, I served as a fit tester. Never in my life have I ever been able to try on jeans and have them fit perfectly! This is definitely the place to get great jeans. There were other gifts, too numerous to mention--Except the one from Ems and KC. They covered a hat box with satin and ribbons and filled it with all kinds of goodies and a little handmade "Snow Day Survival" recipe book. They also made Limoncello! After gifts, Maddy and Aslan left when Maddy's parents came to pick her up. Then the rest of us met up with KC's mom and brother and went to the movies. We saw National Treasure which was a good lighthearted movie for a family outing. I still want to see Sweeney Todd and Charlie Wilson's War before I go back to school.

The kitties are very relaxed today. They were really riled up with Aslan was here. I came in Monday to find Mikey here:

The cats never get on the sideboard. I think he felt safer there--like he knew the dog couldn't reach him. He also got on DH's desk amidst all the junk and stayed there all afternoon. They have been hovering all day, very relieved to have peace and quiet and the house back to normal.

I am spending today doing nothing! It's raining and not the type of weather I want to go out in. Tomorrow I will take Bird out shopping for a suit and dress shoes. I think I may go looking for a new coffee table for the family room as well. Our current one is a total reck!

Tonight I have knitting group at Borders and it will be good to be with the girls! Speaking of knitting, I finally finished my tree jacket!





Details:
Pattern: Tree Jacket by Zephyr Style, Size XS
Yarn: Tahki Savoy; 52% silk, 48% merino; 109 yards per skein; 8 skeins, color 104 Olive Green
Needles: Addi Turbo size 8; 16 inch, 24 inch
Modification: Pattern knit exactly as pattern instructs except the lace pattern was modified to K3, K2tog, YO, K1, YO, SSK.
This kept the pattern from twisting.

This yarn may be one of my new favorites. It is incredibly soft. I wet blocked it which made the stitches all meld together and helped create a really even fabric. I'm really pleased with this one and I know that I'll get a lot of wear out of it!

Right now I have to finish Hannah for Ems which I'm making out of pink cashmere. I'm not sure how it will turn out. The yarn label indicates that the yarn is a bulky weight. To me it looks like worsted--particularly when compared to the Malabrigo bulky that I will use for my Hannah hat. Hopefully Ems will like it!

That's it for now! I will spend the afternoon watching a Homicide marathon. I record that show everyday and I have 3 episodes to watch!

Bushism of the day:
"I'm the commander — see, I don't need to explain — I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president." —George W. Bush, as quoted in Bob Woodward's "Bush at War"

Kitty Cam: Mikey found DH's desk a great place to be incognito!

Have yourself . . .

a Merry Little Christmas. Let your heart be light. . . So goes the song that I'm listening to at this very moment. As a musician, it is music that truly puts me in the holiday spirit. Nothing de-stresses me more and nothing touches my heart more than the music. I have managed to avoid feeling stressed this holiday season. I come in from work and crank up the music while I complete some of my holiday tasks. Favorites? Well--I absolutely love the Cambridge Singers. They are a traditional chorale from England, conducted by the one and only John Rutter. Their CD's contain traditional Renaissance motets and traditional carols from different countries as well as Christmas pieces composed by Rutter and his arrangements of traditional carols. The first time I heard his arrangements of Silent Night and O Holy Night, I was literally moved to tears. I love his concept of a choral sound, his use of moving harmony parts and his typical instrumental grouping of strings, oboe, flue, French horn and harp. This music sends my soul soaring to heights unknown! I don't think my family appreciates these CD's the way I do. My other favorite Christmas albums include Mel Torme, The Manhattan Transfer, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Diana Krall, and Harry Connick Jr. We have a tradition at our house of listening to A Billboard Christmas when we open our gifts. This started when the kids were little when we played the cassette. I was delighted to find this one on CD. It has all the pop favorites including--yes, I hate to admit it--Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer and the Chipmunks Song! As you can see, we have rather eclectic musical taste!

So I got up, fixed my latte, put on Mel Torme and did some flower arranging which included this:
I also did two small vases in the living room. I had ventured downtown Silver Spring to the huge Whole Foods their on Friday after work and went nuts in their flower dept.! I have no clue what the white things are but they looked nice and wintery with the red roses. I also put fresh greens and holly around the house as the stuff I had put out a couple of weeks ago was dried up!

Speaking of Friday, Pheelya, Tracey, a former work colleague, Ems, KC, Josh (one of their friends), and I met at the Rams Head for happy hour! They have the best specialty martinis there! Last night, while decorating the tree, I attempted to replicate one of them at home. It's close but I have to tweak it. It is called a Pamatini. Here is my rendition:

2 oz. Pama (pomagranate liquer)
1 1/2 oz. premium vodka
1 1/2 oz peach schnapps
2 oz. pineapple juice

Place in shaker with ice; shake well, strain into martini glasses.

I think it needs a little less pama and vodka--perhaps reducing each by a half an ounce. The color was a little darker than the ones at Rams Head, but it was pretty darn close!

My other favorite coctail is a Pear Cosmopolitan. Ems turned me on to those. Basically you just order a cosmopolitan and ask them to make it with pear vodka. Here's my recipe for those:

3 oz. cranberry juice
1 1/2 ounce Grey Goose Pear Vodka
1 oz. Grand Marnier
Lime juice (optional)

Place in shaker with ice; shake well, strain into martini glasses.

That Grey Goose pear vodka is wicked stuff! And I mean "wicked" in a good way!

I have to wrap gifts today. I started yesterday. I got a phone call and when I went back into my bedroom to resume wrapping, I found this:

Needless to say, it was the usual suspect! I guess Greg thinks we can't see him there! Who knows what goes on between those little feline ears! In Greg's case, not much. He's a lover, not a thinker!

We will be changing some of our long standing traditions this year. We always go to the children's mass on Christmas Eve then to the Olive Garden for dinner afterward. We've done this for about 18 years! Bird and Maddy won't be getting in until late Christmas Eve so they won't be able to join us. Hopefully Ems and KC will be able to. If not, then we will start some new traditions. I'm so glad we are flexible. I've watched relatives get very upset when traditions cannot be kept because children grow up and go their own way. That's part of life. I feel so fortunate that my children actually want to spend time with us. I don't want to pressure them for the sake of tradition. This time of year is about treasuring family. Traditions are secondary.

I always tease Bird by putting clean sheets on his bed, turning them down and putting a mint there. This is because he comes home and we don't see him. I typed up a little card that said "Turn down service provided by Mom." Please call the front desk if we can provide any more service. Refer any complaints to Dad."

I probably won't blog until after Christmas. We have a full day that day and we hope to go to the movies as well!

The tree looks nice, but I still need to add more. DH collects Hallmark ornaments whereas I like handcrafted ones and often purchase mine at galleries. As the Crazy Cat Lady, I have a lot of kitty ornaments on my tree. I also collect snowman. I leave you with some photos of my collections:












Two other favorites:
A fairy made out of Polymer Clay and feathers:


And one with a political twist:


Which leads me right into:

Bushism of the day:
"I want to thank you for taking time out of your day to come and witness my hanging." —George W. Bush, at the dedication of his portrait, Austin, Texas, Jan. 4, 2002

For bonus "W" holiday "humor" go here.

Kitty Cam:
There are three kitties basking in this photo! Can you find them?


Merry Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight!