Three. glorious. days. off.

I have learned one vital difference between working in an academic library and a public library. In an academic library, there are no patrons during the holidays. Literally. Even though I would work during the couple of weeks around Xmas and New Years, since there weren't any classes, the library itself was closed. In a public library, especially a public law library, the holidays bring in people who are their "best." This past week was especially tiring, because one my co-workers was out for a couple of days with strep so it was just me and my boss, who is the most intelligent, funniest, and down to earth woman that I know (Why yes, she does read my blog. Why do you ask?). I feel like I have survived a hazing of sorts this past week, since my six month probation finally comes to a finish next week. Woo Hoo!

I have been meaning to write a nice, long post about my Xmas weekend. But, frankly, I'm out of the mood to write a nice, long post, which would also require a nice, long photo shoot of all the goodies I got. So instead, you're going to get things in drips and drabs (or whatever that expression is).

First, I have to tell you about the sugar cookie house. A couple of years ago, my hubby and I got married in early November. Because weddings cost a small fortune and use up all of your vacation time at work (and in my case, thanks to gallbladder surgery two weeks before the wedding, all of my sick time as well), we decided that it would be best to stay home for the holidays rather than travel to family. So we decorated more than normal (because it never seems worth the effort to decorate and then be out of town for two weeks, just so the cats can enjoy a tree and some lights) and made a cookie house. I had never made one before, because I don't like gingerbread, but my hubby enlightened me to the fact that we could make one using sugar cookie dough. It was lots of fun and pretty yummy.

Anyhoo, long story short (sort of), since we weren't going out of town for Xmas this year, we decided to make another cookie house. We baked the pieces on Thursday night, but waited until Saturday night (Xmas Eve) to actually assemble the house. Because we were going to use colored m&ms for different things (a pool, landscaping, etc.), we spent some time sorting out the different colors among bowls. I felt like quite the rock star roadie! Then we spread frosting along the bottom of our house base. And, finally, it was time to take the house pieces off the cookie sheets and assemble! Note to selves: it's best to remove the house pieces from the cookie sheets immediately upon cooling. Otherwise they stick to the cookie sheet and break into tiny pieces when attempting to remove. Here is a picture of our final house from that night...

Oh well! We've decided to attempt this again after my hubby gets back in town and make it a birthday cookie house, since his birthday is on the 16th.

At least our tree decorating looked a little bit better than our cookie house. We never have finished unpacking from the move, since we're going to begin house shopping and hopefully moving again quite soon. But we did put up our little table top tree on top of our tv.

Do you like the snowscape scene along the bottom? And check out my black and white sheepie ornaments sitting in the "snow" next to the snowman!

The Goods
One of the many gifts that I got from my hubby was the Deluxe Librarian Action Figure set (with shushing action!). I already have the Librarian Action figure (with shushing action!).* But this one comes with a library backdrop, a desk, computer, book cart and stacks of books! (Yes, I am a dork)

I love the fact that the deluxe version comes with action figure dressed in red, while the non-deluxe has her dressed in blue. One of these days I'll have to find the box where I packed my other action figure and put them into the set together.

I also love the fact that the books have real book spines and titles on the covers.

*When I bought my Librarian Action Figure, I bought a second one to keep in the cardboard box, just in case I had the opportunity to meet Nancy Pearl**, the librarian depicted as the action figure. And, as luck would have it, I came this close to meeting her! While I was in my last year of school, I was the Secretary of our student chapter of the American Library Association. The chapter is responsible for bringing in speakers throughout the year and Nancy Pearl agreed to be one of our speakers. Unfortunately, scheduling conflicts kept coming up between us and so she never did get to come to our school. Darnit!

** I'm aware that my name is the same as the action figure's real life model.

Quality time

My hubby and I had a fun Xmas. Lots of great gifts, tons of food, hanging out with my family. I plan to tell you all the details, however... my hubby is leaving tomorrow to see his family over the next couple of weeks. So I'm actually choosing to spend some quality time with him today, rather than spend a couple of hours writing out a long blog post (that will inevitably be eaten by blogger). I promise a real post is coming soon!

By the way, I have a question for Typepad users. I'm thinking about switching over, and have been looking at the different levels that are offered. If I go with the middle level (aka "Plus), how much control do I have over my blog and posts? It says there is a template builder, but I'm not sure what that means. And, can I update the html within my posts like I can with blogger? Is it a big deal if I can't? I'm used to doing it with blogger, because I don't like how it inserts images and stuff, so I usually insert the code myself. But Typepad might be more user-friendly. I can't decide what to do. Help!

Taking the easy way out

I had a stressful week at work last week and right now I have hot pizza waiting for me. So I've decided to post some knitting insights that my brother-in-law Brad sent to me recently. (Sorry SAMIL! I think you'll enjoy this though!)

I find at this time, I need to comment on two strange and overpowering impedimenta I have observed amongst the knitting community. Tearing out, and cozies.

The tearing out had me baffled for a time, as I watched my loving wife industriously work on her knitted kitchen cloth. She started with this ball of yarn, and over the day it would decrease in size, which I took as a good sign of progression, only to come home and find the ball of yarn had grown in size. At first, I thought she had been cranking out a drawer full of kitchen rags, and fully expected to find it difficult to close said drawer. But on closer inspection, found no new rags present. I observed the same activity with a sweater she has been busily working on, proudly showing me the front panels, back panels, side panels, access panels for maintenance, all sorts of panels, only to see the panels suddenly disappear, and the balls of yarn to reappear again. I figured she must be mass producing panels for future assembly, probably in some plant in Mexico or something. But on further inspection, once again, no crate of sweater panels was evident for future assembly. On questioning this phenomenon, I was informed she had “torn out” the offending panels, and was redoing them. On asking why she had “torn out” the panels, I was told she had dropped a stitch, or something along those lines. I offered to help her find it, but was summarily rebuked.

To further confound me (something all women do naturally), I was told that she was casting on with a twenty four inch abby turbo.

“Turbo?” I asked, perking up at a familiar word.

“Not the truck dear.” She replied.

“Twenty-four inch rod for casting?” I asked, thinking I had deciphered another meaning.

“Not fishing dear, the knitting needles.” She replied, as she busily tore out another wash cloth she had been working on. “I commented to N.... the other day how I had to tear out this wash cloth over seven times before I was able to get it right.”

“So...... you made it, then tore it out again, because something was wrong?” I asked.

“Yes! I showed it to you! Don’t you remember?” She asked.

“Well.... Of course I remember!” I said, thinking back to a wash cloth she had shown me, pointing to something on it’s surface and complaining loudly about something having to do with a missed something or other.

Then it hit me! Like a revelation directly from heaven! You gals are totally missing the boat here! We guys have it down to a science, but you gals are just skirting the edges! You want to know what it is? BRAGGING RIGHTS! We go out fishing, and come back telling all our guy friends about the “One That Got Away!”

“Oh yeah! I had that sucker running hard! He was pulling the boat across the lake! It was all I could do to hold on, when that mother broke the surface like a nuclear submarine coming up! He snapped that fifty pound test like a wet noodle, then spit the hook back at me! Almost took out my eye!” We might understate.

“Really?” Another would ask, almost impressed.

“Yeah, no s..t!” The first would reply.

“Hey!” Another would interject. “I was using minnows like him for stinkin’ BAIT! Let me tell you about a REALLY BIG ONE that got away!”

And so it would go. So I would like to humbly suggest at this time, you begin referring to your tear outs, not as tear outs, which is rightfully reserved for muscle cars, but as “Shadow Knitting!”

Now, whenever you get together to subtly intimate you have knitted twelve sweaters, thirty two wash cloths, a dozen gloves, and untold baby caps, you can simply say...

“I cranked out twelve shadow sweaters, thirty two shadow wash cloths, a dozen shadow gloves, and untold shadow baby caps! Top that!”

So there it is, you heard it here first: “Shadow Knitting!”

I would include pictures, but Shadow Knitting (tm) doesn’t allow such things.

Right! Now I would like to talk about the second item that has been vexing my sensibilities lately. Soap Sacks! For the life of me, I can’t fathom a soap sack. Once you put a perfectly good bar of soap into one of these things, you have instantly rendered the soap entirely useless. Company might show up, and wanting to use some soap, won’t touch the soap in the sack, because it might be a simple bathroom decorative item, so they leave it alone. If you know its supposed to be used, you won’t, because once you use the soap, its all wet, and you won’t put it back in the sack, cause that would ruin it.

So one of the big questions I have is, do you take the soap out to use it? Leave it in and use it like one of those luffa things you females are famous for using, or just let it sit there as a decorative device, gathering dust.

Now, I gotta admit, I could see the real value for something like a hammer sack, but a soap sack? Sorry, that one just eludes me. Maybe you could make up for the whole thing and at least use a bar of LAVA pumice soap.

By the way, I could really get behind a “sack-o-hammers”, but a “sack-o-soap”? Sorry, it just doesn’t make it for me.

P.S. All references to “kitchen rag” have been changed to “wash cloth” per instruction.

Poor guy. I just don't have the heart to tell him that there's already a technique known as shadow knitting.

Secret Pal revealed

I got to officially find out who my secret pal was! It was Michelle, who I think has the best blog name. To reveal herself, she sent me a final gift. Wanna see what she sent me?

It's Noro Big Kureyon for a kitty pi bed and yummy chocolates (I've had these before and they are GOOD)! I'm wondering if I can get the kitty bed done by Xmas and then I can give it to them as one of their presents. (Yes, I get my cats Xmas gifts). Penny in particular loves kitty beds.

(That's her catnip banana, in case you're wondering) Anyhoo, I'm thinking the gift will be for her.

On a completely unrelated note... I know that several knitters wanted to know what pattern and yarn I used for the preemie hats (Which just barely fit the babies, by the way. We've requested modeling photos, but we're thinking that the new parents might have their hands full right now.). In any case, I used the Spiral Preemie Cap pattern and I used Debbie Bliss cotton cashmere. And in case you're wondering, I just weighed the yarn that I had leftover from one of the hats and it looks like the hat uses about 16 grams of the 50 gram ball, so you could probably get 3 hats from one ball.

XXX

Saw this on Nathania's blog and had to create my own...

Bondage Nan!

My mom must be so proud.

When the MIL speaks...

the DIL listens. My mom-in-law made a subtle request to my hubby today that I update my blog. (Knowing my mom-in-law, I'm guessing the request wasn't actually subtle.) (And to my mom-in-law, you know full well that I married into a family full of smartasses. ha,ha!)

By the way, I don't actually have anything in particular to blog about tonight. I've had several migraines over the last week, so while I had stuff I wanted to blog about, I haven't wanted to be on my computer. So be prepared for a rambling post.

As you know, the Secret Pal exchange has come to an end (and if you didn't know, or don't know what I'm talking about, well... pretend like you do). I haven't actually revealed myself yet to the people I had yet (I was an "angel" for one person). I just sent off one of my reveal packages today and the other one will go out soon. I'm a little behind schedule, can you tell? The nice thing is that I'm not the only one. My personal Secret Pal was planning to send out a package to me with her info in it this week, I believe. Something tells me that we're not unique. :-)

Speaking of packages I sent out, I sent my brother-in-law two caps that I knit for his new preemie twin girls (No, you haven't missed anything, I haven't blogged about the babies yet. So, guess what? My brother-in-law had two preemie twin girls born last month!). Here's a picture of the two hats.

Wanna see a picture of an orange wearing one of the hats?

I don't know why, but this amuses me immensely.

And speaking of packages I haven't sent out... I still haven't done the drawing for the raffle prizes for the 3 Day Walk. Sadly, there's only 4 prizes, and they're nowhere as nice as the prizes that bloggers like the Yarn Harlot give out for charity fundraising, so this whole thing is going to be very anticlmactic for whomever finally wins one of these items.

In addition to two finished objects (they might be tiny little hats, but they're done!), I finally got gauge on my hubby's sweater! Now I just need to find my Vogue Knitting issue that tells me how to do the German Knitted Cast On that I want to use, and I'm ready to start it (I realize that there's an online "tutorial" for this cast on, but I prefer VK's version of explaining it). I know my magazines are packed away in a couple of boxes, so it shouldn't be too hard to find, so hopefully I can get started this weekend. And, since Karen asked a while back, here's a picture of the sweater.

The pattern is the Echo Lake Cardigan in the Summer 2003 issue of Interweave Knits.

Speaking of comments (there are lots of "speaking of's" tonight, aren't there?), thank you for all of the compliments on my Nothin' But a T-shirt! In case you're wondering, I did make it out of the Rowan Calmer that the pattern called for. It's truly the yummiest yarn! I'm even thinking of making Tempting 2 in the latest Knitty, because it calls for Calmer. I also like the pattern for Tubey in this Knitty, which is made in my other favorite yarn, Cashmerino.

Ok, I think I'm all rambled out. My next post may or may not be more structured. I can't make any promises.

Let me explain

I'm a smartass. I come from a family full of smartasses. (And, as luck would have it, I've married into a family that is also full of smartasses. Dinner with us can be a lot of fun.) As a result of my smartassness (don't give me that look - it really is a word), I tend to assume that others are the same as me. So, when I posted the picture of my mom's "finished" sweater, I figured that folks would say, that Nancy is such a smartass, it's gotta be joke. And when I started getting comments about my mom's amazing sweater, I thought, hey, people are playing along. How fun! But then, I started thinking, hmmmm... what if some people don't think it's a joke. And when Ashley posted her comment asking if she was the only who got the joke, I figured maybe I better set things straight. So, the truth is... that my mom really did knit that sweater!

See, I told you I was a smartass. Ok, ok. No, she didn't knit the sweater. When she saw it at the store and it matched the color of yarn she was learning with, she couldn't resist. (Kind of a long story, but my hubby told my mom that she wouldn't have to fly in a glider with him if she manages to finish knitting a sweater before he gets his license. So, the joke was, see I finished a sweater before you got your license, so now I don't have to fly with you.) . As my hubby said, if you've gotta explain the joke, it's not funny.

Speaking of my hubby's glider license, here's a picture from his first lesson back in October (finally, huh?).

He should be ready to solo in January. Yikes!