Are We Done With 2017 Yet?

Larry and I had a scintillating discussion this morning about the relative merits of various bathroom vanity heights. That's right, folks, there's still one more bathroom to be redone! We'd hoped to put it off for a while, but we're tired of watching water drip through the living room ceiling when the kids take showers. What can I say? We've gotten used to the finer things in life, like not sharing one shower among 6 people. I feel like Eva Gabor in Green Acres: "Dahling, you can't possibly expect me to share my soap dish!"

Actually, I don't think she ever said that. But if she were living here with 3 or 4 kids, she might.

I've recovered from Christmas, you'll be glad to hear. I've spent this week planning my New Year's resolutions - so far I have two: watch more TV and spend more time knitting.

I have a feeling I'm gonna knock this out of the park, so to speak.

I've also been trying to plan the annual New Year's Day party. I dragged Larry out to Costco AND Aldi's last night - you know, Costco is wonderfully empty on Thursday evenings. At least, it's wonderfully empty on Thursday evenings when it is only 20 degrees out. We managed to pick up everything we'd need for the party, except of course for the 5 or 6 items I'll realize we are missing about, oh, 3 hours before the festivities begin.

So long as Larry doesn't start buying those vomit cheese balls again, we should be fine. FINE.

Today I went to a friend's house, who showed me the finer details of making a wreath out of large ribbons. I had seen her creations on Facebook and begged for her help, because - deep down - I've always had a hankering to be a decorative wreath sort of person.

We all have our dreams.

Let me just say here, though, it's way harder than it looks. And it takes WAY MORE ribbon than you'd think. The upshot being, I have a wreath that is about 2/3 finished. Anyone want to take bets on whether it will be finished before next Christmas?

In other news, it's been cold here. Oh, look, I took a picture!

16 degrees! And that's not even Celsius...

No snow, though. Susie is very angry with the weather gods. "What's the point of cold without snow?" she asks. I'm okay with it, because at least all the mosquitoes are dead. Or dormant. Whatever. Wintertime for me is the season I can relax in my anti-bug vigilance for a bit, as the sugar ants and even the centipedes disappear for a while.

My goal this week was to finish knitting all my UFO's (unfinished objects), but that turned out to be a little too ambitious. I did finish a gorgeous Crazy Cowl that's been languishing here for a while (no picture because it's someone's gift, sshhhh), and David's hat, and a cute buttoned tea towel that now hangs on the kitchen drawer handle and not on the floor, which is where all my dish towels of the non-buttoned variety end up.

See? It defies gravity.

So, in general, this week feels like a win. I'll take it.

Feliz Chanukah!

 I won't lie - by this time last night, I was seriously considering never hosting ANYTHING ever again. Not that we did anything extraordinary yesterday for Christmas - just had another family over for Christmas dinner in the late afternoon, a family I was thrilled to celebrate the holiday with. And I did let everyone in my family laze around for a few hours in the morning, because hey, I'm not a monster.

See? We opened presents and everything.

But after that? I spent pretty much the rest of the day ordering people around. It's not that the kids weren't helpful (hey, I didn't even TOUCH a potato, and there were 10 pounds of them to wash, and cut, and cook, and mash); but bossing people around is still work, that's for sure. Throw in the fact that I had to cook a few extra items I forgot to prepare ahead of time (hello, roasted brussel sprouts!), and it sort of pushed me over the edge.

I just don't know if I'm doing our annual New Year's Day party, is what I'm saying. I'm tired. On the other hand, the house is already pretty clean, so it would be silly not to.

I didn't even take any pictures of people yesterday. NONE. Way to go, Mom!

Speaking of photos, Brian won the prize this Christmas for the most awesome gift ever. He went through ALL the photos on my computer, dating back to 2009, deleted the duplicates and bad ones, and then uploaded them to my Google account. 12,000 PHOTOS, PEOPLE. He's my hero.

Larry, on the other hand, gift wrapped this and proudly gave it to me:

Yes, Virginia, that IS a shovel

Long-time readers might just be reminded of the windshield scraper Christmas. I certainly was. Larry redeemed himself, however, by also handing me a gift card to a local yarn store. This was particularly noble of him, considering that he has been literally tripping over bags and baskets of yarn in our bedroom lately. He also bought me some yummy chocolate:

I'm pretty sure Susie had a hand in selecting these

In return, the kids and I bought Larry a new TV. The boys sneaked out and bought it (with cash, so Larry wouldn't see it on the credit card) while Larry and I were at our annual Christmas cocktail party. Then Brian played sick when we went to Mass on Sunday, so he could stay behind and set it up and put a big bow on it. Oh, we're so clever!  We all giggled madly as we trooped downstairs to watch the Grinch that night, and were sitting expectantly on the couch as Larry walked in the room.

He didn't notice. He was busy trying to figure out where he was going to sit and had his back to the TV and we finally all had to shout, "Turn around!" Then, the entire time we watched the Grinch, we were exclaiming about how much better the color was on the new TV.

What I'm trying to say here is, we're a pretty simple family. And by simple, I mean boring.

I may not have any people pictures, but I have these:

Not-dead-yet flowers

FESTIVE, yet functional

I ate these darn things ALL DAY yesterday
(and, uh, today)

The week between Christmas and New Year's is the time to
complete unfinished knitting projects. I'm on it.

It wasn't until this morning, as I was sitting in my kitchen and reveling in the thought that I wouldn't have to cook AT ALL today, that I noticed I had overlooked something during the previous day's party preparation. Below is what greeted my guests as they walked into my home for our Christmas celebration:

If they were confused, they sure didn't show it.

Hostess of the year, that's me.

Aiming Low

I just bought 5 pounds of 12-Flavor Albanese gummy bears from Amazon. Prime delivery. Christmas is weird. LIFE is weird. I mean, what sort of questionable life choices lead to bulk buying gummy bears?

Seriously, though? These are THE BEST.

In other news, tonight I finished knitting a pair of socks and they are awesome. I still have to get to the knitting store to buy some yarn to make hats for the people I actually live with, but at least now I don't have to waste time driving all over town to find those gummy bears for the Christmas stockings.

Took me forever to get this shot - you're welcome

Really, Christmas might go okay this year. I guess I should buy a turkey or something, though. Man does not live by wool and gummi bears alone.

Larry took 3 of the kids skiing today, as a Christmas treat. He would have taken all 4, but Rachel declared she had no interest in the sport anymore. "What fun is it if you're worried about dying the entire time?" she asked pragmatically.

Hard to argue with that.

So she babysat a neighbor's child and I went to a friend's house where we were having a knitting/spinning extravaganza, as one does. I brought cookies, because December.

Pecan shortbread - and yeah, I'm pretty impressed with the photo, also

David and Susie made these, so I can't take any credit. I might just eat nothing else for the next 4 days, they're so good. Butter and sugar being the primary ingredients here, I don't think I have to worry about not being able to pack on those holiday pounds.

Achievable goals, people - that's what it's all about.

Christmas Macabre

Yesterday, after Larry took the package full of holiday treats and handknit items for the relatives up north and mailed it on his way to work, I sat in my house and congratulated myself on my unwonted holiday-gifts efficiency. And then?

I found the hat.

You know, the missing hat that I decided didn't exist and we didn't need because I was too tired to sit up all night and knit another one. Instead, I threw a hat in the box that Susie actually wanted and promised myself I'd find more of that yarn and knit another one for her before Christmas. Because I'm delusional that way.

So I was sitting there, with a hat Susie definitely didn't want, feeling way less efficient than earlier. I ended up mailing it today, and later I'm going to the yarn store and finding that darn yarn. So that's only 2 extra errands and one extra knitting project, all due to the fact that I can't see something sitting RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME where the rest of the hats were.

Not really feeling the merry today, I guess....and it doesn't help that my wrapping paper seems possessed. You see, like the rest of America, we're trying to get ready for holidays here, so I was wrapping presents last night. But I ran into a small problem:

Decapitated snowmen - festive!

The back side's no better - what were the odds?

Yeah, I'm thinking this would be good for a Christmas version of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," maybe. Or a new version of "A Christmas Carol," with headless snowmen instead of ghosts.

But definitely not good for that festive look under the Christmas tree, that's for sure...

A Mafioso Christmas

Turns out that hat knitting really takes away from blogging time. No matter, I've got - wait, only 4 hats done? What? No, I knit 6 hats, but one is for David and Susie took a liking to another one, so actually I guess I'm sitting up all night tonight and knitting a 5th hat.

Dang. I swear, I thought I had more than that.

Oh, well, who's counting, anyway, right? At least, we got the tree up yesterday and the lights put on.

Tree skirt by Auntie Kate, of the mad quilting skills

See that Santa thing to the left? One of my older kids painted that years ago - you pull on the string hanging down between his legs (I know, WEIRD) and his arms and legs fly up. It's really stupid and I will never get rid of it, because it reminds me of simpler times, when all my kids did for fun was paint silly wooden things from Michaels and no one had cellphones and streaming didn't exist.

It's a gosh darn ARTIFACT, people, that's what it is.

Anyway, my family was supposed to decorate the tree today, but no one did and I'm too busy trying to produce woolly Christmas presents to worry about it. So the only 2 ornaments on the tree are the two I put on there:

Beautifully hand painted by one of my amazingly talented friends,
but you can't tell because I am a lousy photographer

and

Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as a yarn ornament

I'm good with that. Slap a star on the top and I say we're done. I would talk at you more, but I have to make pompoms. I decided to put them on half the hats, so people have a choice. Rachel is actually the pompom savant around here, so I'm hoping to...uh...persuade her to help me out here. "Those are some nice-looking Christmas presents you got there under the tree. I'd hate to see anything happen to them" sort of persuasion, I mean...