A Bitter Knitter

If you do not care to read religious blog posts, feel free to close this one now.  I don't mind.  Have a pleasant day. For those of you still here, I wish you a Happy Christmas.  I recently finished rereading Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol."  My favourite line in the book is when Bob Cratchit is speaking to his wife about Tiny Tim.  He says, "Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard.  He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk and bind men see." Tiny Tim put it well.  This Christmas season has given my family good cause to think of the Saviour.  We think of my tiny nephew, Tommy, who passed away this month and we remember on this Christmas Day He who suffered for our sins that we may be forgiven and then died and rose again that we ...

I'm currently reading the Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket and all the books (except the 13th) are titled with alliterations.  He also uses alliterations for many proper nouns throughout the books.  It seemed fitting that my own "series of unfortunate events" follow the same pattern. I needed a coat.  It's cold and snowy where my in-laws live.  I don't believe in snow, but that doesn't change the fact that it's cold in there and I therefore need a wintery coat.  So today I set out to buy one. Destination #1: Burlington Coat Factory Reason: Lots of coats of the warm, wintry sort (and I want a black one under US$200.) Results: I must have tried on 20 to 30 coats. to no avail. In order for you to truly understand my dilemma, there are a few things you must know. 1- I have really long arms.  Really, really long arms.  Longer than they should be for a person of my height.  Typically, a persons arm span (from tip of middle fi...

I've decorated my window for Christmas.  My policy is that, since we're suspending Christmas we may as well suspend all the decorations, too.  I'm not putting any decorations on flat surfaces.  (Except the tree, which others insisted on putting on the ground and which I've already protested.)  They're hung or they're not displayed.  (Call me Grinchy, call me Scrooge.  Maybe I am as you say.  Some days I think that I should have skipped directly from the end of November to the beginning of January... today is one of those days.) Every time I turn around our holiday plans have changed.  I suppose they're as set as they're going to be now, as they're already in progress.  Husband and my sister-in-law left early this morning to drive up to see my in-laws.  This is a change because Husband and I were supposed to drive up next week, and sister-in-law had no plans of going.  After blogging Monday we received some very sad news.  Hu...

For a while there was some hubbub in the house as to the critical question of the season: Where are we gonna put the tree?! Last year this wasn't a problem.  But last year this room didn't exist and the Christmas tree was right here .  Where I'm sitting, right now, on my bed, writing this blog post.  Yeah.   SO  not going to work this year.  My sister-in-law's family (hence forth dubbed the S family for simplicity's sake) has a HUGE Christmas tree.  I suppose that when the average member of their family is over 6-feet-tall an 8-or-9-or-10-foot Christmas tree looks proportionate.  But now that Husband and I have moved in, there's no floor space for it. We ended up using our little 5-foot tree.  It stands in the entryway and looks so vulnerable petite in this household of giants.  But for a while, we contemplated a far more interesting solution: Take the 8-or-9-or-10 foot tree and hang it from the ceiling. Yup.  The idea was ...

If there was an award for being an inconsistent blogger, I would win.  My last post was a month ago as I was one week into NaKniSweMo. I think I'm going to add November National Whatever Months to my "I don't" list.  I did get about 16 inches done, which I calculate to be 19,074 stitches.  Not bad for moving in the middle of November, but not exactly a 50,000+ stitch completed sweater. I still have quite a bit to do; It's not close to done by any stretch of the imagination.  But for now it's on hold as I frantically knit Christmas presents.  I read the Yarn Harlot's blog today as I was taking a break from knitting and completely agree with the statement of "I feel like I'm going into this Christmas with no reserves."  I started knitting for this Christmas months ago, and yet I'm still really pushed for time.  (That and my family is Christmas-ing on the 19th, which cuts into knitting days.) I haven't completed anything since my...