Survived Xmas - and got YARN!

Whew - made it through Christmas. Didn't get all of the knitting projects finished (still have one set of gift socks OTN) but those knitted gifts I was able to give out were welcomed. Given that we had over a dozen people in our little house for the family meal/gift thing (that's in addition to DBF and myself, the two dogs and the five cats), I was so discombobulated that I totally forgot to take photos of the festivities. I gathered from the way both step-daughters whipped their socks out of the wrapping and onto their feet that they were most happy with their gifts. I would have loved to get photos of them with their socks on. My brother, the 6-foot-tall, 260-pound burly guy got the girly orange colorway shown below.

On the left is Plymouth Yarn Encore Colorspun. In the middle is Moda Dea Visions in Glade, and Moda Dea Visions in Sedona on the right. I will definitely post reviews of these yarns later.

Amongst my craftying-related gifts were a Hobby Lobby gift card (thanks, bro!), a copy of Anticraft: Knitting, Beading and Stitching for the Slightly Sinister (awesome!), a copy of Creepy Cute Crochet: Zombies, Ninjas, Robots and More! (I actually squealed when I opened this), and the Knit Picks sock sampler in the tropical values, plus two hanks of begging-to-be-dyed sock yarn! Between the gift yarns I received (Christmas as well as the past couple months), yarn that I bartered for, and the few skeins I talked myself into buying, I think my sock-knitting endeavors for 2009 are pretty much mapped out. The hard part will be choosing which yarn start once I finish the two Me Projects currently OTN. Rather than agonize over choosing ('cause I know I would), I'm simply going to write the name of each yarn on a slip of paper, put all the little slips in a jar, and draw a slip each time I finish a pair of socks. As for which little Creepy Cute guy to start with, I'm waffling between the itty bitty Grim Reaper, the itty bitty Cthulu, and the itty bitty Nosferatu.

The past couple days have been a little more hectic than I'd expected them to be, as my Shepherd-mix, Lulu Notalab, ended up with a big hemaetoma on her right ear. This required a trip to the vet yesterday for surgery. Given that Lulu Notalab (I'm totally in denial about her Labrador blood) is one of the most neurotic dogs in the world, and utterly freaks out at being confined (she ate an airline-approved dog kennel, and did such a great job of biting and bending a wire kennel that she ripped out two of her own teeth), she injured her mouth while chewing on the cage door at the vet. The mouth injury wasn't serious, but she was so sore last night that she had to be spoon-fed canned dog food. I won't even get into how this pissed off Gomez, the Chihuahua-shaped vacuum cleaner, who would happily glut himself on an entire can of food in approximately 45 seconds if given the chance. I did give him a little nibble, but he was the picture of jealousy.

Anyway, Lulu came home from the vet with her ear basically strapped to the back of her head via bandages. An Elizabethan collar was required to prevent her from ripping the bandages off and the stitches out, which, of course, she tried to do immediately upon

arriving home. She has made it known that she does not relish the role of Satellite Dish-headed Dog, but she is getting better about not whacking into doors and knees with the collar. This photo was taken yesterday, after she spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out how to lie down with the collar on. The only thing she would eat was treats from the 8-pound bag (yeeeaaahhh, that's 8 pounds!) of treats my dad and my bro gave the dogs for Xmas. Her appetite is better today, although I have to hold her bowl up for her to eat because she gets claustrophobic when she puts her head down and the collar limits her hearing. I also have to watch her like a hawk, because even with the collar she tries to scratch at that poor ear - or rip the collar off entirely. The one time she managed to scratch at her ear, she irritated the surgical site, which hurt like crazy (of course!) and caused it to start oozing blood. Then when she shook her head, she sprayed blood around the dining room. (And in my head, I heard Gil Grissom from "CSI" saying, "Got high-velocity blood spatter here.") Fortunately, she seems content to lie down near me, so if I'm sitting still, she's sitting still. I dread tomorrow night (New Year's Eve), because our neighbor always shoots off fireworks and the dogs completely hate every second of it. I plan to ring in the New Year knitting, and probably watching episodes from Season 1 of "Pushing Daisies," which was another of my gifts.