Saturday, December 22, 2007

Early Christmas

T and I pretty much pick out and buy our own presents, so there won't be much surprise when Christmas rolls around. I did get a couple of gifts I wasn't expecting, though.

My knitting friend Nancy gave me this cute little bumblebee tape measure from Lantern Moon.

Yesterday, I bugged out of work early and joined Margie and Amy at a 50% off sale at a local yarn shop. I looked and looked, not seeing much I had to have, and then I saw this:

It's a Jordana Paige satchel, the same style Carin and I armwrestled over when she visited last summer. And it was the last one in the store, and it was half off! *swoon*

Obviously, it became my little gift to myself.

It holds a ton o' stuff. In this picture, it has two socks, two scarves, and a shawl, and it still has room for more.

After realizing yesterday that I haven't finished any knitting projects in ages, I decided to suck it up today and finish the i-cord handle for the Blue Jeans Purse.

I'm going to add a lining to it, but knitting-wise, it is done. And darned cute, if I say so myself.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

[L a s t] [w e e k ' s] [w e a t h e r]

We had rain. We had ice. We had sleet. We had snow. We didn't have it as badly as some folks. Our power stayed on, and our trees stayed mostly upright.

A couple of days later, the sun came out and the ice glistened prettily.



Each day, the snow in our yard showed new animal tracks - deer, rabbits, squirrels, and who knows what else.

Off topic: I was involved in an online discussion recently about various types and sizes of memory cards. For the benefit of those involved, here is a picture showing the relative sizes. From left: xD card, USB drive (this particular one is a converter for the micro SD), SD card (also a converter), micro SD. The micro SD fits into the back of my cell phone, and the converters allow me to move the data (pictures, usually) to my computer. I need to do that one of these days, so you can see my picture of the back of Hillary Clinton's head.


[edited 26 April 2008 - I tweaked the title because I've been getting hits daily from people who really want to know how the weather has been. Not that I mind having them stop by, but it seems cruel to disappoint so many seekers.]

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Weird weather we're having

We started getting weather alerts on Thursday about the ice storm coming on Saturday. T and I were both off today, so we planned to hunker down at home with a pot of chili.

I heard it raining and sleeting when I woke up. That continued all morning, interspersed with occasional bits of snow.

We didn't bring the newspaper in until noon. By then, it was buried in the stuff.

It warmed above freezing in the late afternoon, and we decided to try going out for dinner. Our side street was still mucky, but the main roads were just wet, not icy. Parking lots still had a lot of slushy gunk, though. It was like walking through a Slurpee.

And yes, this is excellent weather for knitting - but I didn't take any pictures.

November is over, and so is NaNoWriMo for another year. This year (ta da!) I'm a Loser. I'm certainly not going to play the "I'm a winner just for trying" card. The requirements for winning are clearly spelled out, and I did not achieve them.

I'm not really upset that I lost, though. I knew going into November that there were a couple of extenuating circumstances that would make it tough to write 50,000 words. I did write just a hair under 20,000, which is still a nice hunk of writing. I went to a couple of write-ins each week, including one last night. I got to know some of the local Wrimos better. Most amazing, I unearthed some characters and situations that I would like to keep working with. Since I Don't Write Fiction, this is breaking new ground for me. So for those reasons, I consider the month's attempt a success.

Katie has her annual check up with the vet next week. I hope Dr. Lisa doesn't notice the laser implant in her left eye.