A Lovely Christmas Day

Hello to all of you! I hope everyone who celebrated Christmas Day had a good one. Ours was lovely, and since we had no reason to go outside into the bitter cold, we just hunkered down and stayed cozy in the house.

I wanted to show you this decoration of ours. About ten years ago, my niece Liz and her husband Greg sent this to us for a Christmas gift. In theory, it's supposed to have a light inside and light up when the tree is turned on, but we've never gotten around to that. But we really love it, and every year, it is lovingly placed under the tree for all of our celebrations.

The kitties had a wonderful day, with their gifts and the boxes, wrapping, and ribbons from everyone's gifts. They got treats as well, and by late afternoon they were all passed out asleep. I'll share some of those pictures later, but suffice it to say that Santa treated them well, and clearly had them on the list of those who had been good all year.

The Tim and I are both back at work this week, which on the plus side is good because it means we have income, but on the minus side, I just think everyone should be able to have the week between Christmas and New Year's to enjoy. Sadly, I do not run the world. I mean, could we at least have been given Monday? Nope, not in this universe. We obviously both survived, but both reported a long boring day. 

Tomorrow morning I have an appt for a bone scan, bright and early. I'm hoping it goes as usual, so I can have plenty of time after to get to work. Usually it's not something that takes long, either wait time or for the actual appt, but you never know when will be the exception. At least tomorrow is my last day of work for the week, so my time is all my own after that. I'm looking forward to it.

I actually did a Christmas Eve cast-on this year. Late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, The Tim took a nap, so I decided to cast on a sock. I pulled out the Advent skein I bought from the Freckled Whimsy, and got started. I never have time to do a stripe-a-day during December leading to Christmas, because I'm busy with other stuff. But at least I have gotten these started while it's still Christmastime. 😊 Right now, I have the cuff and two stripes, but when I make a little bit more progress, I'll share a picture with all of you.

And that's the news from here. I hope you are enjoying a good week, regardless of any celebrations you may or may not observe. Take care, and I'll check in again soon.

Lost Weekend

Ugh. I am sick, sick, sick.  Nothing life-threatening, just annoying and exhausting.  The Tim had a bit of a cold last week, but it didn't really do much and was gone pretty quickly.  I had some sniffles early in the week, but kept feeling a little bit more icky each day.  A while back, we had planned to be in Baltimore this weekend, but had to cancel those plans due to The Tim's work schedule.  I had decided originally that I would just go ahead and take the Friday and Monday off work as originally planned, and work on some of my own stuff, enjoying an extra long weekend.

So much for those plans.  Thursday I woke up and thought, well, I'm getting that cold.  But Friday when I woke up, WHAM it had hit me!  Sore throat, headache, cough and congestion, the whole thing, soon followed by laryngitis.  I called my dr to ask for some cough syrup, and the good news is that in a very unusual development, she gave me the Good Stuff right away!  But that's really the only good news from the last few days.  I will probably stay home tomorrow as planned, but I am wondering if I should try to tough it out and stay home on Tuesday instead.  They are predicting heavy, all-day rain on Tuesday (left over from Hurricane Florence), and I'm not looking forward to slogging around in that.  Anyway, we'll see.  I'm lucky because a cold is my worst problem, but it is still frustrating. 

Anyway.

One of the things I had planned on doing was finishing a pair of socks I'm knitting for one of my sisters.  I am really close, and was hoping to have them completed by today.  But I have neither the energy nor the focus to even knit.  So they will have to wait.  I did have it together yesterday long enough to soak and block a swatch I'd made and immediately forgot about when I couldn't find my blocking mats. 

Before going any further, I'm waiting until I can trust my brain cells, but I *think* I have the correct gauge, which would be nice.  It doesn't matter today anyway, since I am still not able to knit without having to tear it out and start over once I'm feeling better.

******

In other news, Hamlet is getting more used to the cats every day.  Not that he was ever aggressive towards them, but you could tell he was perplexed when they would try to rub against him,  or try to cuddle with him.  He just had no idea how to react.  But the other day, he let the Koodle lick his ears, and yesterday he and Jack had a nose-to-nose moment.  Also the other day, he was even brave enough to sleep on his pad, though the Koodle was already there!

Baby steps, right?

OK, I'm calling it the end now - this has already taken me about 45 minutes to do, and I think I will take my cough syrup and see if I can take a nap.  I hope your weekend has been better than mine!

Easter 2016

Well, it's Easter Monday - overcast and misty rain here, and a little bit cooler than it has been.  Which is fine for a day at home (I always take Good Friday and Easter Monday off if I can).  Time to do some laundry, and get ready for the regular routine again.

We had a great Easter weekend.  As usual, my niece Amanda and her husband Patrick came from Baltimore to celebrate, and also as usual, we had a blast.  Saturday of course was spent creating our Inappropriate Easter Eggs.

We managed to do some personalized eggs for the kitties and Dug, but got carried away and forgot to make any for ourselves!  Oh well.

 Political eggs, from top: Sanders, Trump, the KKK (I didn't quite get that one, but I didn't make it), Sanders again, and Lyin' Ted Cruz (that's what it said above the picture)

Pop culture eggs, starting with the yellow one:  Caitlyn Jenner, the Pope, Pretty Little Liars, Richard Simmons being held prisoner by Paul Giamatti (I didn't understand the Giamatti part, even once explained), and Oscars So White.

The RIP eggs, from top to bottom:  Abe Vigoda, David Bowie (the other side had Alan Rickman), and the Supreme Court.

So as you can see, a fun and inappropriate time was had by all.

Yesterday morning, we all opened our Easter baskets (well, the ones for the kitties in Baltimore got packed away to go to them), and they were a success.

Things deteriorated pretty quickly after this shot.  They all got these little tea bag shaped toys with catnip inside.  That took care of the goodwill.  ;-)

Dug was tired from all of the excitement and the company, but still thought his basket smelled pretty good!

After we went out for a yummy brunch, Amanda and Pat headed home, and we took our annual walk to the bookstore with the Easter Doodle.

Dug loves this whole thing.  He knows the bunny ears get him lots of attention.  The Tim always promises the people who have to work on Easter that he will bring Dug to visit.  On the way there and back, people stop and ask if they can take a picture, little kids hug him, other dogs look appalled.  When we get to the bookstore, Dug is like a rockstar, and sucks up every single second of the adoration and love.  He always hates to head home because then it's just back to normal life ...

After a yummy Easter dinner, we just cleaned things up and took a breather, watching some TV shows that we had recorded and just hanging out.

Holidays are fun, but they can be exhausting.

I hope your Easter was wonderful as well!  And for those who don't celebrate, I hope you had a lovely weekend and had a chance to relax.