A Freaks and Geeks Christmas

A holiday tradition for me and the girls is to watch the DVD set of Freaks and Geeks during the week of Christmas to New Years.  We love that show!  Never get tired of watching it every year…. We enjoy the traditional holiday movies, too — but it is just not Christmas at our house without Freaks and Geeks.

Here is a photo of the finished Devan sweater that I knit for Kenan. It is large enough that he can wear it for two years.  He looks pretty cute in it — Brie was having a family photo taken and he wore his new sweater for the photo.

Things have been pretty sad at the office — we lost an attorney to a heart attack on December 11.  He was only 57 — and our receptionist found out the same week that her father has inoperable incurable cancer and has been given 6 months to a year to live.  Not much holiday cheer here — although we all went to Randy’s house on Sunday evening for a soup and chili get together and had a good time reminiscing about both Nick and the founding partner, Spencer, who died last year.

I had praise team last night.  I am playing two services on Christmas Eve — 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. which means I will be tardy to the family celebration at my aunt’s.  It will be an early evening there since there are small children who need to get to bed —

I bought myself one early gift — yesterday the local Big Lots store flyer advertised a Rowenta Powerglide 2 iron for $32!  I have wanted a Rowenta for several years, but never wanted to spend $60+ on one.  So I dashed over at lunch and bought myself one — I am thrilled with that bargain!

I am feeling the time crunch here — I have gifts to wrap, another batch of eggnog bread to bake, cleaning to do, grocery shopping to accomplish, chord charts to write for Christmas Eve music, a scarf to fringe, a scarf to finish and block, and cooking!  There are just not enough hours in the day!

I hope everyone who celebrates has a lovely holiday!

Winter is Here

Winter arrived in Kansas last week.  On November 28, the temperature was 72 and it was balmy.  Wednesday brought major changes — a drop in temperature by around 50 degrees and freezing rain.  Thursday brought 5.5 inches of snow.  It is slowly melting off, however, but it appears that winter will be staying around awhile now.

Last week was a busy week — not much knitting accomplished, but much music.  Our publications guy at church got us “hired” to perform Christmas music for a holiday VIP event at Dillards department store on Sunday evening.  It was great fun!  We added another guitar player and Rachel’s brother played the jimbay for us.  Someone even asked if we were a professional band for hire and wanted our card — that made us feel pretty cool!  We each received a $100 store credit as payment.  I plan to hit the after-Christmas sale in search of a pair of low heeled black ankle boots.

Earlier Sunday afternoon I went over to Hancock’s to purchase WoolEase in a medium brown and a black for a knitting commission.  One of my friends is paying me to knit a scarf for her eldest son for Christmas.  I found a free pattern online called the Good Ole Cable Scarf that will be perfect for Michael.  While I was at Hancock’s, I spent some time browsing and ran across cards of Venetian Look Glass Beads — 75% off — which made them $1 a card.  I picked up about 10 cards in greens and blues and pinks — I see some bracelet making in my future.

Yesterday afternoon I picked up some DVDs from the library — Joan of Arcadia, Season 1; The Hunting of the President (about Bill Clinton); and The Vicar of Dibley, Series 1.  So last night after dinner and assorted jobs were completed, I sat down to work on the scarf and watched 5 episodes of the Vicar.  I got through about 25 rows on the scarf.  I am knitting with a strand of brown and a strand of black using a US 9 needle.  The pattern called for a cast on of 33, but I cut it back to 25 and I think it will turn out great.

I had planned to knit during lunch today, but I have some errands to run.  I have three Christmas parties this weekend and I need to get ingredients to make meatballs and pumpkin bars and exchange gifties….. and I need to do some more Christmas shopping.  But there will be knitting tonight during Gilmore Girls — and maybe some more Vicar!