HAPPY NEW YEAR

Well my first thought about my blog is, I am making a new year resolution. I am going to blog more. I was feeling down in the dumps and wasn't sure if my blog was good enough even though it for me first but but but.... so I would just find excuses not to post. Then a dear friend told me she really loved my blog and I should continue.

I just deleted a small blog post I started Dec 9. I was really feeling lousy when I wrote it and so it was written just awfully. BUT thankfully I am over that second cold. I seemed to have had it for three weeks +. I have had my share of colds (two) this season which is two more than I normally get.

Anyway, here is December 31 in the evening just a bit after 10PM central time and I am home doing my laundry. YUP I will have clean sheet and clean clothes to start the new year with. I am doing laundry at my friend's so every half an hour I run over in the frigid cold to her town house and put another load in the machine. I am doing six small loads. Some of the drying is being done there and some in my dryer. When it closer to 11PM I will watch the ball drop in Times Square in the home of my birth.

Well it is 11:30PM now and I watched the ball drop in Times Square and put the last load of laundry in the washer. I am tired. One more trip to take it out just after MN and then into my dryer. So I am going to finish this tomorrow. I mean tomorrow in the day time NOT just after MN.

AND it snowed during the night. There was quite a bit of it needing shoveling when I looked out the window in the middle of the night but when I got out there to shovel a whole lot of it had blown away so shoveling was minimal. I can't remember if I wrote but one of my Christmas presents this year was a shovel from my friend Genie after the first snow storm we had. I borrowed hers and next I knew I received this.

It even had two bows on it.
Close up of the shovel part.
AND the shovel comes off and you get this, an ice chipper. It is attached behind the shovel.

Sometimes I find the shovel a bit wide and doesn't want to shovel the snow but that could be b/c I don't have enough strength. I also use my broom to help sweep some of the snow away. Since I don't have a car I shovel my parking spot. I need to make it accessible if I have visitors. I guess I will have to take a photo of all the snow I have shoveled so far.

I was wondering where to actually begin on my blog and have decided to start with swaps since I have been so remiss in not fully acknowledging swaps received on my blog. BUT I have personally thanked my partners.

Knitting Goodness

I received an awesome package from my Amazing Autumn Swap Partner Krystal. It just blew me away. Look at what she sent me.
To actually see clearly what I received here are individual photos of my pressies. This first is a French Press. I have always wanted one of these. I had one a very long time ago and am so happy to have one again.

I received some dark chocolate,

some biscotti to have with my morning coffee, and

some wonderful Paton's Classic Merino Wool which is great for felting and just having for when I need it. Look at the colorway. It is just great.

I also received this TLC acrylic yarn which I am presently knitting with for a gift for this weekend. Photos will be available as soon as the project is finished.

For this swap we are to include something we make. My handmade gift was these wonderful cards. So someone getting a swap or a note from me may receive one. I love the saying I've got a date with some yarn and got yarn.
AND being this is a coffee swap here is the coffees I received. The Starbucks is half decaf. I never knew such a thing exhisted. Krystle said she had planned to send full decaf for those friends who came for coffee and didn't want the regular kind but didn't realise she purchased half decaf.
Now didn't I make out like a bandit?

Another swap package I received was from my Ravelry Coffee, Chocolate and Yarn 2 partner Kelly who lives in Canada (Prince George BC). Here is what she sent me.

Close up of my gifties. A really cute Kitty Key Chain. A 50 gm skein of Diamond Luxury Fancy Free Sock Yarn in a lovely colorway. Unfortunately, the candy never made it to separate photo as I ate it while taking these pictures. It was a thick fruit and nut chocolate bar and was it delicious.

The coffee in the main photo was clear enough that I didn't take a separate photo. I must also put this on ravelry as I was double checking and it seems I never did. I am not sure why but I will rectify that as soon as I finish this blog post.

Another package I received just before Christmas was my Whoduknit Christmas package from Nate. It was a large box of goodies. Some of the photos were taken individually and others under the tree together.

A Life Saver ornament,
three books for Christmas, a reindeer, window ornament,

and a pair of needlepoint mittens.

AND here you can see a stuffed penguin, a tic tac toe game, glass ornaments (in the box), and an ornament picture frame.
There was also some foamies to make into a project, and several small stuffed animals for my Charlie Brown tree. I certainly hope I didn't forget anything Nate.

I have recently received two other swap packages one was a Christmas exchanges from Noreen in Lovetoknitdishcloths (blog post and photos in a later post) and the other was my year long weluvknitting package #3 of 4 which we decided to do for Christmas (again blog post and photos in a later post).

I was quite surprised to see a package from my previous SP 12 partner. AND what a lovely gift she sent me. I waited as it said to on the package to open it on Christmas Day. Isn't it loverly????

I want to let Maureen in the whoduknit group I belong to that the one pound ball of acrylic orange was crocheted into six hats by my friend Genie which then were donated to Genie's friend Nancy's and went to Nancy's church to give out to those who need hats this winter. AND we are having a bitter bitter cold winter.

I also want to let my partner in the big bag KAL the lighted crochet hook has been getting a lot of use lately. It is really a neat crochet hook for picking up dropped stitches.

Now there is a lot more I could write but I will save Christmas and other stuff for the next post. Of course, I wouldn't end a post without photos of Solara.

Solara was very good during Christmas. She didn't harass the tree or the ornaments. In fact, she never end checked out what Santa left her until I brought her over to the tree myself and told her to check it out. Here is what Santa left here.
Here is her reaction.

She is being so careful around them.

One day I got up from bed and was going downstairs when I saw her sitting on the upstairs landing and there was this mouse next to her. My first thought was she found a mouse and had it with her. It looked very real especially when I first got up. When I got closer to her I realized it was one of her toys she got out of her toy basket. She has most of her mice toys all over the house. The next time I saw her with this same mouse in the same place she had it in her paws and she was licking it. She was treating it like a baby. When she finished licking one side of the mouse she flipped it over and then started licking the other side but now she was holding it as she would if it were her baby she was washing. I only wish my camera was close by at the time so I could have photographed it.