I wanted to wish everyone who reads this blog a Merry Christmas, Blessed Yule, Happy Festivus, or Happy Holiday season! I hope everyone has a wonderful time with friends & family… and eats waaay too many cookies.
I am looking forward to the baked ham & mashed potatos waiting for me at hubby’s grandmother’s house this afternoon… and watching my son go nuts over the gifts that Santa (and his guest elf from the West -thank you friend!) and the relatives have brought him.
(I’m using the schedule feature of WP to send this post automatically since I’m going to be way too busy with family/holiday stuff to actually post on time.)
Have you seen The Story of Stuff yet? Very informative and interesting… just thought I’d pass it along especially considering that its the “season of stuff”.
I’m happy to report that with the exception of my son’s few gifts from Santa and the 2 sticks of lip gloss that I bought for the cousins (before I realized that I had handmade headbands that they would like..) that everything else I’m giving out this year for Christmas is handmade. Most of the family are getting bags of white chocolate dipped pretzels (assuming I stop eating them all… yum.) and the women are getting soaps from Etsy sellers and handmade earrings from my bead stash. I really wanted to make an effort to find things that wouldn’t “collect dust” and could be used up.. leaving no waste. (mmmm.. pretzels…)
I’m really hoping for gift cards for Christmas this year - I love getting to go out to eat or to buy coffee.. and I would really love one to a ‘big box’ store so that I can replace 2 appliances that are not long for this world. I really cannot live without my microwave.. and its been near death for over a month. Every time I walk into the kitchen the number “4″ is showing on the screen instead of the time.. and when I try to press buttons only certain number combinations work. I’ve been microwaving things at strange times (2:22 or 1:11) and just hoping that it hangs in there until we can purchase a new one. It is about 10 years old and was bought at a yard sale.. so I’m thankful it lasted this long. The other appliance that is on the fritz is the waffle maker.. which just doesn’t want to cook the waffles dark anymore.. so I think part of the heating element went out. We love homemade waffles here at Chez Mousie and they usually become dinner at least once a month (we also are big on pancakes & french toast for dinner too.. yum) especially during the winter.
Tomorrow is all about baking cookies, making chocolate cupcakes for Christmas Eve at the in-laws, and replacing the dipped pretzels that I’ve eaten tonight while sitting in front of the computer. Have a great holiday everyone- my next post is going to be an automated one set to post on Christmas since I’m going to be traveling around Atlanta for 2 days to do the in-law stuff. 
I thought about resurrecting this “Fake Isle” hat as a Christmas gift but I’m not entirely sure that the intended receiver will even like it.. and its Silk Garden, which isn’t something that is in my budget often (it was a destash gift) that I am willing to just toss it out to whomever and hope they don’t use it as a dust rag. At least in digging it out I was able to get an accurate progress shot for Ravelry and my new progress bars! I have been waiting for my shot at testing them (you have to be ‘approved’ for the Rav- Magic to work between your project list and your blog) and spent all of yesterday trying to install them.. until I realized that the error was really stupid (it helps to HAVE works in progress to show on said “progress bars”.. duh.) and boom.. they worked.
Here at Chez Mousie its been computer and website fun for the last two days. After my Zen-Cart shop screwed me out of shipping for the LAST TIME - I shut the whole site down for “maintenance” while I called the creators of the program nasty names and wished terrible things upon their mothers. I decided that no matter what Etsy throws at me during the coming year that its probably better than dealing with my impossible Zen-Cart shop and made the decision to trash the whole thing and start over with a general site ( I am paying for the .com for the next year already) that links to the shop blog, Etsy, has a gallery so folks can see stuff I’ve made, and doesn’t make me want to tear my hair out. Hubby is in the process now of dealing with my impossible wishes making my ‘new website’ all pretty and beating the code into submission. I’m paying him in chocolate cupcakes and candy coated pretzels and hoping to “go live” with the new site shortly.
Oh yes, and Christmas break came early at the House of Mouse as last night Munchkin sounded like he was coming down with the plague. I sent him to bed with the promise that if he was ok in the morning he could go to school.. but he woke up sometime in the night and came in to my room to tell me he couldn’t go because he was “snuffy”. I kept him home so that he would be well for Christmas and he spent the day in his new “army guy” pjs (christmas from my folks which came in mighty handy) laying around the house.
Somehow I’ve managed to lose an entire week and I can’t stop thinking that Christmas is still about 2 weeks away.. I’m going to blame my wrist injury for that one. I am doing much better (look- capital letters & punctuation!!) which is proof that it was probably just a bad sprain rather than a fracture and I’m definitely taking that lucky break. I haven’t yet tried to knit and I’m limiting my computer/typing time so as to not injure it further - I have a habit of re-damaging things because I’m in a big fat hurry to get back to life. I wanted to thank everyone for their nice comments and even an offer to knit for me- y’all continue to wow me with your generosity. I’ve decided though that I will knit Munchkin’s hat as soon as I’m able and that he’ll end up with more than enough to open Christmas Eve (with the in-laws) and Christmas morning (Santa’s unwrapped toys & my parents gifts which usually come via UPS and that I’m hoping were mailed in ample time this year….)
If you’ve been here at my blog around Christmas time in the past.. then you’ve certainly heard me grumble about our pathetic Charlie Brown-esque fake tree and my hatred for said shrub. No more! As you can see.. this year I was gifted (thank the in-laws and their hording issues..) with a 7.5 foot, very realistic looking fake tree that I had to stand on chair to put the tree topper on and take off some of the back branches to fit into the space by the fireplace without blocking entrance to the guest bathroom & Munchkin’s room. I am so happy that I finally have a tree that resembles the beautiful live trees that my family had when I was a child (minus that lovely smell which I’m replicating with some gifted Yankee Candles..) that I can’t stop staring at it and sighing.
I’m actually READY for Christmas this year which is a far cry from my usual last minute knitting, gift shopping, freaking out nightmare that comes with it being 4 days to holiday family festivities.. and it feels nice to have basically nothing to do but make cookies & chocolate covered pretzels this coming weekend and decide on what this years “hot dish” contribution to the family dinner will be. I’m supposed to be cleaning the house b/c we’re supposed to have company but I’m really hoping to get out of that one. Munchkin starts his “Holiday Break” on Thursday at 3pm and I can’t wait to not have to get up at 6:30AM for an entire 2 weeks!!
Feeling a void inside? I know what you’ve been missing… headless blogger photos! I hacked my head off of this one thanks to a really really bad hair day.. and fighting with the self-timer function on the camera. There is no pattern to this scarf.. I simply cast on 10 or 12 stitches and knit garter stitch using size 17us needles until I ran out of both balls of yarn. The yarn was Gedifra Tagliato that I got for my birthday when I was in PA a few years ago… I just could never figure out what to make with it or get the gauge right. Its a huge, chunky, fuzzy scarf that ended up not really being entirely warm. *sigh*
Other than this scarf.. I haven’t knit anything in quite a while. My hand and wrist has been giving me problems again and I’m not willing to do any more damage to it.. and seeing a doctor is pretty much out of the question. (insert rant about the US’s lack of gov’t health care here)
I have been hoping that I would suddenly be smacked upside the head by the “spirit of the holidays” and get to decorating the house (there are TWENTY DAYS until Christmas.. eep!) but so far.. no luck. Usually I’ve at least considered putting up the tree by now.. but this year I couldn’t care less about any of it. Hubby will be camping this weekend and I’ll be home with Munchkin for 2 days.. so I thought about putting some Christmas music (we have those satellite music channels on the tv… I assume ONE of them is holiday music) on, lighting a fire in the fireplace, making hot chocolate, and getting my butt in gear with some help from the Munchkin. Yes people, I’m FORCING myself to be festive… its a new low. Anyone want to come over and help me staple antlers onto the cat? **
** Its a reference to the movie Scrooged- I’m not really going to staple the cat’s head.
