finishing up and tidying up

I've been working away this weekend at my UFO's and I've finished the hand-warmers, just in time for the weather to warm up - typical me, but I know I'll use them on cool mornings when the steering wheel is a bit chilly or the office has the AC cranked a bit too high, so I'm not worried.
Here they are finished and basking in the sun -




There are little things I don't like about each of them, but they're picky things that no one will notice but me, so I'm not going to fret over them.

Then I found a rounded decrease toe that I liked and finished my Thermal socks! I think they look great:


I even wore them out yesterday, and they fit great too!

Then, I have finished knitting my semi-secret baby gift, but I still have to stuff it - so pictures will be coming soon on it I hope. I spent all morning and last night looking for the 'rattle' part I had bought to put inside it, and I can't find it anywhere, so this may take longer than I thought.

Last weekend, Mike and I went to see the Old Crow Medicine Show, and it was really fun! It does remind me that I'm getting older, as I wished for earplugs half-way through the show as the music got to be really loud. I think the show would've been really great in an outdoor venue.

I have today off from work and have been straightening (might as well as I searched for the rattle thingy), and organizing and cleaning. Now I just need to figure out what to have for dinner - any ideas?

trying to figure out where the time has gone

I can't believe it's already Jan. 13th! (Happy Birthday Stefan!!)

When I said I wasn't going to feel guilty for not posting, and not make excuses about why I hadn't posted, I really didn't intend to drop off the blogisphere. As you can see I meant to post a few days ago, and didn't have access to the pictures that went with the post, (a typical excuse for me not posting) but I really feel like the days and weeks are flying by! I still feel like it's somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas not the beginning of 2009!

So what have I been doing? Well, Mike and I have been doing some deep recycling/cleaning over the past weeks, and gave away 6-7 large boxes full of clothes and other things that we're no longer using. It feels really good to 'clean house' and let go of things. If you read my blog, you know I go back and forth with this concept - this time, this stuff needed to go, and it was good to let it go.

I have also signed up to do some volunteering and teach knitting/crochet at a women's shelter and unwed mother's house. I'm excited to be doing some teaching and working with people again. Not that I don't work with people at my current job, but it's over the phone, and just not the same thing. I went to one last night, and pulled out my crochet hooks, which I haven't done in a while, and it reminded me how much beautiful stuff can be created with crochet. You may be seeing some soon because of it.

Speaking of my current job, we're moving offices to a new spiffy place that's a bit closer to home -so, shorter commute, yeah! (only by about 10 minutes - but I'm still excited). In the move I also got an upgrade to my computer, so yeah again! It really doesn't take much to keep me happy. At the moment, there's no power or internet, so we're all working from home. I like this concept, but in reality, I think I like having the option to do this rather than wanting to do it all the time. If I ever did have/want to work from home, I think it definitely helps having worked in the office with most folks first, so when I call them for stuff I know who they are - then it's almost like being there!

I've been working diligently on my 'thermal socks' as I call them, or the Faceted Rib socks as they're know to the rest of the world.
They're from The little box of socks, and I just love the pattern. I finished one, but don't like the toe - see the decreases form a ridge up the middle of the toe, and I think it breaks up the pattern and would bug me (there's a matching one on the bottom too) if I wore them with anything closed toe.

So I'll be ripping that out and figuring out a new toe. I haven't had time to explore that yet, so I've stared on the second to keep from 2nd sock syndrome. I'm about 3 inches into it.

I have a handful of other projects with yarn and pattern ready to go. They were things I was thinking about over/before Christmas that I didn't get to, and now that I've taken the deadline away, I'm not as worried about them, but that makes me in no rush to finish them either.

I do have one more baby project from the last set of babies, and hear that I need to plan for another 2!! coming up in about 9 months (different people) I'm not at liberty to say who these potentials belong to, as I don't have complete clearance yet, but when I do I'll be bragging no doubt.

I took my newly converted knitter to It's a Stitch shop b/c it's closer to where she lives. I'd never been there before, and it's a cute little shop. They've got a small, but nice selection of yarns, and the staff was very nice. My knitter friend bought some beautiful yarn that she wants to make into a cowl, so I'm working on finding her the just perfect pattern. Something not too complicated, (although she's a quick learner), but fun. She's very good about being a one-at-a-time project knitter, we'll see how long that lasts!

Off to enjoy the warmish weather - especially compared to most of the rest of the US. There are some things that I really enjoy about SC, and the weather is definitely one of them!!