Thinking Green (and Red)

The big project is finally out of my hair. I only had to do a few minor revisions; five minutes on the computer and four pages reprinted and it was good to go. What a relief! Now I can really see how tied up all my focus has been with this issue at work. I haven't thought that much the last couple weeks about knitting or spinning or Christmas or baking or any of the things I would want to be focusing on. And now that the project and the training are done, I'm finding it hard to get my thoughts off work again. I did a little bit of spinning today, finally. I kept passing the spindle and the roving sitting on my sewing machine cabinet in the dining room and I'd keep thinking about how much I wanted to get back to it. I only did a little, because I didn't want to strain my arm, and I put it down again after about fifteen minutes, but the arm still feels fine.

Joe has been putting up the new pre-lit tree at the church. They ordered a sixteen foot tree, but once it was unpacked and up they realized that they had been sent a twenty foot tree. Since the bigger tree was much more expensive than the one they ordered, they called the company today to let them know that the wrong tree had been shipped. The company representative decided to let the church keep the tree, because it would cost the company too much to have the extra pieces shipped back. Since it was the company's mistake, he said, keep the tree and Merry Christmas. It's too bad that you can't get the full effect of the tree; it is really quite impressive.

There's a Christmas meme going around and since I haven't done a meme for a while, and since I still need to reaquaint myself with all my WIPs, I think I'll do this one just for fun.

1. Eggnog or Hot Chocolate? Hot chocolate, absolutely. I'm not into eggnog at all. I'm very partial to a good quality hot chocolate, but I'll drink the stuff from the grocery store in those little envelopes in a pinch. And the darker the chocolate, the better. Hot cider is also a big favorite.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree? Wrapped, of course, and creativity is a plus.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Everything's been white for years. I'm getting bored with it and would like to see some color again. There are icicle lights on the house this year and three reindeer in the yard near the sidewalk. I can't stand the big blow-up balloon things, I think they are tacky. Sorry if you're one of the people that has them in your front yard.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? Never. A variety of it grows wild around here. And you're not supposed to pick any of it.

5. When do you put up your decorations? The Advent wreath goes on the table the first Sunday of Advent. Everything else starts going up around 2-2 1/2 weeks before Christmas Day. It all stays up until Epiphany, at which point I am more than ready to get it all packed up again.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? The rib roast for Christmas dinner.

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child. Read this.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? Don't recall, but I was about seven or so.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? No. We tried the Christmas Eve thing a couple times, and it just doesn't work for us. Unless I could go back to my Grandma's house for Christmas Eve. (Time travel could be a beautiful thing.)

10. What kind of decorations are on your Christmas tree? On my Victorian tree, which I describe in my posts from last December, there are many German ornaments, mostly ones made from pasted paper on cardboard. They are really quite pretty and unusual and I will have to post some pictures here soon. On the second tree, the children's tree, are the ornaments they made in school, as well as patchwork and embroidered ornaments that I made years ago. I always think that I will stitch more ornaments (I've got about a million patterns) but never seem to get around to it. Strings of glass beads and glass birds complete the picture. An applique tree skirt matches the patchwork ornaments on the second tree.

I'll finish this meme the next time I post. The wreath here is a fresh one we picked up at Ace Hardware a couple days ago. One problem with having artificial trees is the lack of that fresh pine smell. This wreath is putting out plenty of fragrance and I hope it lasts through the end of the month. We are wetting it down good every day and it's out of direct heat from the furnace, so I am optimistic.

The only knitting I am doing so far this week is on the scarf for the Red Scarf Project. I feel bad that this is all the charity knitting I am limping along with. It's just a simple basketweave pattern and it's made from acrylic that I had on hand. I've got quite a lot of that acrylic; I thought that I would give it away but I guess it will have some use. I've ordered some nicer red yarn so that I can switch over to doing something a little more special down the road. Probably not for this go-round but for next year. This picture was taken earlier in the week; it's certainly longer now, but I'm still not knitting for very long at a time. I don't want to strain the right arm. I think I pulled the tendons lifting something, rather than spinning, because the arm hurts if I lift anything with any weight to it, but the spinning didn't bother it at all.

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Somebuddy doesn't look like he's feeling "at home" at all.