Christmas is Over...

I spent this afternoon and most of this evening taking down the tree and the decorations. For the last few years, when my life was nuttier than it is now, I just jammed the decorations into any old box. That really played havoc with us this year, when I wanted to decorate. A box marked outside? Guess what - tree stuff. I wound up buying new garland for around the front door, along with new lights for the door and the windowboxes because I couldn't find them. I just found the old stuff yesterday. I tossed some of the old stuff out because it was ratty, and the lights looked like hell. So, I'm more organized this year.

I was really happy with the real tree this year. For years, we've had an artificial tree (because my husband said so - I didn't have too much say in it). My kids hated it, and so did I. We used the artificial tree for the years I was in school, because I didn't have time to really think about it. This year, they asked to have a real tree, and I said go for it, and they did. We wound up with an 8 1/2 foot Frasier Fir. Really, really nice tree. And the best part is, the cats stayed out of it. Every year they dismantle our artificial tree, but this year, nada. No cats in the tree. How nice was that? I didn't have to pick up ornaments from all over the family room and dining room, and branches off the floor.

I think I forgot to mention that I got a ball winder and a swift from some of the kids. I'm so happy - up until now, my ball winding has been to drape the skein over my feet, and wind from there. Very time consuming - it took about a half hour for each skein to be wound that way. So, when I had 14 skeins of Philosopher's wool to wind, I knew it would be a while before I could knit, even if I just wound one ball of each color I was using.

And, here is a picture of my current project. Rats. Why rats?? Well, I was this far along at least on Sunday afternoon, when I noticed that I'd left off two of the YO's, which make up the decorative pattern along the raglan sleeves.
Crap. So, I ripped it back. And wouldn't you know it, I had to rip back nearly to the beginning. I made the mistake in row 6. Double crap. So, I spent last night watching episodes 1-9 of Sex in the City on my On-Demand channel. It kept me up til 4:30 in the morning, which turned out to be a Good Thing, because I forgot I was on call from 3am-7am. Fortunately, I wasn't called, but staying up that late fouled up my day today. But, I am loving the blue and the yarn. The more I knit, the better I like it.

I haven't been on ebay lately, which is another Good Thing, because I haven't bought any yarn. It's about time the yarn diet started. My stash is not nearly as big as some others I've seen, but it is certainly big enough to keep me knitting for quite a while.

It was 74 degrees here on Saturday. Beautiful day. Felt so nice. I have a crappy car, and lousy tires, so I'm hoping we get minimal snow this winter. Today, we had a monsoon. I don't know how much rain, but we had a pond where our backyard used to be.