It's so close!

I can't quite believe it but this week is my mid-fall break.

And I have plans. They always start out as vague plans - I think this year it was "oh, hey, I could go up to Arkansas and see that castle thing they're building." Or "I could go to Guthrie for an overnight trip." But then I change my mind about fifteen times (seriously, at one point, I was saying, "You should just spend those days working on research." Seriously, fillyjonk, seriously? You have no deadlines, the research you are doing can be done in bits and pieces snuggled into the two-hour gaps you have between classes some days, and you're seriously talking about sacrificing the only real free time you have until Thanksgiving? To do research that won't even count towards Full Professor, 'cos you've already handed in the stinking packet?)

So I snapped out of that pretty fast.

So I did make plans. And I sent a message to someone I know who lives in Shreveport vicinity, someone who also likes shopping at Stitches N Stuff, and it turns out she was free! So Longview it is, for yarnz and lunch out (and woo, I get to take someone out for lunch, that's not something I get to do often) and books and all manner of good things. Many of which are things that are not readily locally available (Certainly not good yarn, and not really a diversity of books, either.)

And I am taking the rest of the break off, too. I may go get my flu jab on Friday; I've been warned by several people that this year's one is hurty and I would rather take it before a weekend when I can relax.

And this weekend, I am going to relax. I've worked really hard so far this semester, particularly putting the packet together.

They're saying it might rain this coming weekend, but that suits me just fine. It's particularly nice to stay home when it's raining and sort of ugly outside.

I started the first of the Christmas-gift fingerless mitts this weekend; I would like to at least finish them - and maybe start another pair - during the break.

One thing I do want to do is scan through some of my more recent knitting books and magazines - and maybe on Ravelry some - and see if there are any patterns that grab my fancy, were I to find yarn I wanted for them. (Though actually, a benefit of having a shopping companion: I am a bit more reined-in in my spending tendencies.) And I also have less of a feeling of "well, the PURPOSE of this trip was to buy stuff, so I better buy stuff" because now the purpose of the trip is to see my friend, rather than just buy stuff. Nice how that works out.

I will say this is one of those rare occasions where I allow myself to break into my closely-hoarded (and earning almost NO interest) savings account to take a couple hundred dollars so I can shop without resorting to credit cards. (Again: it's less easy to spend a big chunk of cash when you're literally handing over the cash).