Content at home

Yeah, this was a pretty good break. Cleaning the house helped a lot with my mood - I get worried and sad when my house is a mess. Part of that is the "if someone comes over they will see I'm a fake grown-up who can't even keep a house clean" but part of that is that having stuff organized and the floors swept and the cobwebs gone and all that make the house more pleasant and lovely to be in.

I mostly worked on the Owl sweater yesterday. I will probably work on it more this afternoon, but I also want to start the "Kaleidoscope Hats" - I'm making one in jewel-toned Felici Worsted for my mom, and I have a Hedgehog Fibres yarn in a color called "Pinkie Swear" (very, very bright hot pink) for one for me - my raincoat, which I use as a "transitional" coat (not as warm as my duffel coat but warm enough to work on some cold days) is kind of a hot pink, so the hat will match.

So I want to start those. I might do the "Pinkie Swear" hat first just to make sure there are no kinks in the pattern I need to work out. (I give three exams this week, too, so maybe the hats would be a good invigilating project - easier to carry than Grasse Matinee at this point). 

Next week will be busy, but the only evening thing I have is feeding the college youth group, so I feel like it's nothing I can't handle.

I didn't really mention the presents I bought. No one in my family reads the blog (I don't think they even know of its existence) so I can talk about them here. For my brother, I got two "all ages" game - one that is something like Ninja Cats with dice and tiles, and a card game based on the Simon's Cat series ("Don't get caught. Blame everyone else." which sounds kind of catlike). I know he likes games, and these are ones they could all play together (They also do get-together game nights).

I know my brother also likes high-tech stuff, but you know? I'm going to be the Luddite Relative who buys people books and knits them scarves as gifts because that is who I am. I also tend to feel that the POINT of Christmas is partly quiet pursuits that you can either do alone (books) or with other people (board or card games). I tend to have kind of a "hygge" fantasy of Christmas, I admit, where people get things like sweaters and hats and craft kits and books and stuff...nothing so very expensive, but nice things. (I never went in for the whole "competition" thing about who had to spend more money or get the more impressive gift, and I generally side-eye the idea of "have to have" gifts where you wind up either having to go to five different stores to find it or wait in a long line on Black Friday).

I don't have anyone in my life who gripes about the gifts I give (if they did, I'd get them gift cards - that's my standard for "uggggh, this person never likes anything I give). For my niece, I got a book of fold-up paper airplanes printed with animal designs, and a pen shaped like a giraffe, and book of age-appropriate little-kid jokes. (A sample: "How do you make a hot dog stand? Take away his chair." Though frankly, **I** love jokes like that myself). I see it as a stand against the grosser or cruder humor out there - give a book of silly, clean jokes.

And anyway, it's a tradition: when I was about five, my grandma gave me a big book of riddles that is STILL in my bookshelf. See:

The inscription (I should do one in my niece's, I admit, I treasure the inscription in my book now that my grandma is gone) says 1975, so I would have been six. (I must have taken it to school with me at some point, my mom wrote our address - 220 Atterbury - in it)

The book itself is a good bit older - the copyright date is 1949 (!) so either it's a reprint with no later copyright printed in it or, possibly, one she had bought and had on the shelf for many years (her oldest child was born in 1920, so there would have been grandchildren as early as the late 1940s.)

I didn't get all the jokes in there as a child because of the archaic items (like buggy whips) or mores (Sample joke: "What is the best way to turn people's heads? Go to church late." Though that is STILL true....at least, if you're in church).

But yeah. It's my experience that most little kids like riddles, perhaps because of the whole "secret knowledge" aspect of it (once you know the answer) and also the fact that grownups play dumb and you know something they don't.

I had originally considered a little electronic drum kit for her, but it required either headphones or a speaker ("Not Included" it said on the box) and few things are worse as a kid than getting a gift on Christmas and not being able to use it because something you need for it is missing. 

I bought my mom a pictorial about a couple of rescue cats - she enjoys those kind of things and also has a friend she will share it with - and some special soaps (a tea-tree oil shampoo among them) for my dad. (He is very practical and is hard to buy for. And given his failing vision, paper books are out and I don't know what books-on-CD he has). And I got a calendar for both of them to share, one with scenes from Texas on it.

Given that my room is still a bit of a mess, maybe I pull my swift and ball winder out here (into the living room) and wind off some yarn - I have to wind off the Hedgehog Fibers one, and I have some yarn for a cowl I want to start some time, and some sockyarn).

I still have to knit the hat for my mom and figure out another thing for my sister-in-law (I got her a memo cube with little coloring designs on it).

My parents asked me last night when they called what I want for Christmas. I guess I'll have to think about that and maybe consult some of the catalogs....


Edited to add: Yup, winding off yarn. Though I might take a break for a bit and start the pink hat once I get this skein wound off: