Back at the ranch . . .

Back home from holiday travels, I find I am tired of having too much stuff and too little time. I shall be tending to that, I think. Right now I'm off to the post office and to see some family. I have goodies to deliver from the folks on the other end of the holiday travels.

Seriously, though. I need to go through things and clear some out. This needn't cut out the knitting time, I think, but I should spend some of the knitting time moving other things out.

I was given a wee little serving dish as a holiday gift, and I was alarmed to face the fact that I haven't been entertaining at home. Thankfully I had the presence of mind not to confess this aloud. And I'll concede that some of this is the natural result of urban life and a bit of job imbalance. There's something to be said, though, about the spectre of the Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome. Things must change before I find myself really living that pattern!

There's probably more to do with the fact that several friends are incredibly allergic to the feline factor. Ne'ertheless, clean and clear, I say!
Happy New Year, if I'm not back before the switch to 2007!

Holiday Knitting

Not the Grinch, nor Scrooge, this knitter managed to do just enough holiday knitting to make herself content and to have a few things to send out. Mind, some are being sent out now, and the nautilus hat was a skein of yarn. (Worked out the specs on that one with my mother.)

A good day for easy knitting

So on my way to finishing up paperwork, I found that someone had plagiarized whole papers: one chunk of this set of paragraphs, one slice of that set of paragraphs. One brief paragraph could be original, but that's one paragraph in a couple papers.

Ugh. I'm going home to make up some fuzzy feet for my friend's daughters. I have the shoe sizes. I have the foot measurement chart. I will make tea. I will knit huge feet.

More knitting, less paperwork

That's what I want for Christmas....
Sneakily, though, I've been doing knitting when I should be doing paperwork. I have a little stack of knitting growing in the to-be-finished pile - a little seaming, a little grafting, a little end weaving.

However, less blogging, more paperwork....

Pictures are accumulating in the camera, such as they are. No photobucket until Paper Mountain is complete this week.

Holiday Treats

Made these mitts (Knitty's Fetching)a bit earlier and finally finished the neckwarmer to go with it. This will be a gift for someone who worked with me on a project earlier this fall. Have to send it out shortly. Altogether, the set used nearly two skeins of Rowan's Tapestry. I'd had too much leftover from the one skein after doing the mitts, and picking up a second skein wasn't actually enough for a hearty scarf after all. Hence the slit for passing through the scarf end. Added on the ruffle as a means of giving the ends more body. Keeps it from being too matchy-matchy a set.

a shadowy year in the neighborhood of the Great Towering Textiles

2006: Month by Month

[via the daily purl ]

Instructions -- Copy the first sentence that you posted in each month of 2006.

January

Since there was very little traffic in to see my cheerful holiday kitsche, I give evidence that I decorated.

February

My mother will be sharing these words aloud this week with children.

March

I've been absent from the blog.

April

I've had a lovely hour's romp through blogs with flashed stash.

May

I'm late, I'm late, no time to say hello, goodbye, I'm late I'm late I'm late ...

June

So Thursday, when I kept myself away from all things work, I cheated on my socks.

July

Summer brings an odd assortment of knitting whims and a lot less computer time.

August

Such adventures since I've been gone.

September

There are Fetching mitts (Rowan tapestry is interesting....) in this long weekend of knitting, and 6 or more inches of colorwork knitting on the Equinox whatsit on the Interweave Knits Fall 06 cover.

October

During the heat of the summer, I do rather yearn for fall.

November

I do, at long last, have some postable knitting pictures.

December

Need a lot of push to tackle the tasks ahead.

December Drive

Need a lot of push to tackle the tasks ahead. There's work to finish with very clear, hard deadlines just ahead. There have already been several events to attend. Need a lot of get up and go, need to push on through. However, no matter what speed I go, it starts to seem as if there's no time for anything. Yesterday I managed to sweep and do a bit of mopping. I have an embarrassment of laundry to do. I did some knitting but have more I'd like to do.

And that's the kicker: more I'd like to do. I continue to try to convince myself that I don't need to do it all. My baking is holding the line: I chopped up dried fruit and gave it a good sousing of Asbach Uralt. Nothing but good brandy in my fruitcake. I'm going to wait until the paper work is done this week to think about what December knitting I can do vs. the knitting I foolishly think I'd like to do. Foolishly, I say, because what I'd like to do becomes crazed, as the drive toward other finish lines looms. I forget that I wanted to do them and think I must.

So I'm holding a drive for clarity and moderation. I've a bowl full of drunken fruit. I have a tiny bag of current knitting. I have a bag of papers to grade. Right now that's all I need, so the rest will have to be clear space. The desk at home is clear. The desk here I'll clear before I go home. My floors have been cleared of the 3rd cat. (Amazing how much there was to sweep yesterday! Appalling. But I digress.) Just need to keep on clearing those decks.

Here's to a successful drive.