"Holiday Brain" time

I give my last exam today. Once that's graded, all that remains are two soil samples and submitting my grades. (And as I don't have to go to Ardmore tomorrow for ticket-fu, I can do that tomorrow morning).

So, it's time for Holiday Brain. This is the lovely state when you don't have to worry about work, when you can push that to one side and concentrate on enjoying the good things about this time of year.

(And this time next week - well, I'll be on a bus or getting on a bus, which is not ideal, but still, I will be on my way to my parents')

So now I can really pull out my Christmas music and listen to it, and dial around on the television (except I guess no one "dials" around any more, they flip channels) and look for the Christmas specials I love and watch them, and spend some time knitting and generally relax.

Step one, this afternoon and evening, I think, will be planning out what projects to take on break with me. Thermal is coming, and the couple of socks-in-progress, and I'm going to take the pattern for what I have now dubbed the "Miss Marple Shawl" and the Silk Garden sockweight for that. But I also want to bring some toy patterns - for me, it is not Christmas break without toy-making. Perhaps the yarn I bought in October for the Loopers, and their pattern. And I bought some other Dangercrafts patterns - she has one for one of her trademark monsters knit from a self-patterning sock yarn, and I have a ball of pink Meilenweit "Magico" that is a little too pink for me to make socks out of - but it would make a good monster.

And I may take some other patterns and just plan on getting yarn up there. I don't know. I will have to find my bag of eyes (hee) to take with me - lock-washer eyes, which I like to use on a lot of the toys I knit, are hard to find in your typical craft shop these days.

I might also consider taking one of the sets of pillowcase "blanks" and the floss to embroider them; I have some with snowflakes on them that I've been wanting to start.

(I have three weeks off, just about. Three weeks. That's huge for me.)