General

• Shopping done…check.
• Cards done…check.
• Tree decorated…check.
• Boxes of decorations put away…no.
• Outside decorations up…no.
• Gifts wrapped…no.
• Knitted gifts done…no.
• Cookies baked…no.
• Cookie dough made…no.
• State of house…complete disaster.

How many days until Christmas? Let’s see, according to my handy countdown: 10. More importantly, how many days until we leave for NYC? Yeah, that would be 3. And how many concerts/parties/social gatherings do I have between now and then? At least 4. Plus, I have a full-time job…

Sleep? That’s overrated, right?

Amazing! Not that I’d recommend it, but the LG VX4400 phones that Verizon sells seem to be able to take a trip through the washer, then work just fine after they’ve had a chance to dry. No, I didn’t wash my phone, but my brother washed his. That’s the problem with these modern little itty bitty phones – they’re easily pocketable, which makes them a little more prone to being left in a pocket…and tossed in the wash.

His phone seems to work perfectly now – and it’s cleaner, too! :)

Thanks, everyone, for the birthday wishes yesterday! My birthday is actually being stretched through the weekend – one of the benefits of it being on a Friday!

A little history: I’ve never liked my birthstone, blue zircon, because it’s this pale, weak turquoise that, well, I’ve never liked. But…

…we December babies now have a new birthstone! It’s this pretty light blue with a violet cast to it. How do I know this? Because my first birthday present of the day was a lovely necklace from Denis.

Of course, I then had a laundry crisis, because everything I could have worn to show off my new present needed to be washed. It’s amazing how fast things go through the wash, though, when you only put a few things in the washer, then dry them on volcano heat. :)

And no, I’m not going to tell you how old I am, because I’m old enough to know better!

Good.

I forgot to mention that our cell phone numbers were finally transferred on Sunday. I’m still not sure that it’s all working right, but at least my new phone does ring sometimes. Of course, I have no idea how many calls aren’t getting through, but I guess if it’s important, they’ll call back. Or leave a message, which I’m also not 100% sure always goes to my new service. (I have had one incident so far where someone did try to call, the phone never rang, and my old phone showed a new voice mail message, which, of course, I couldn’t pick up.)

I still sound like I have the plague, but I feel quite a bit better. I actually left the house today, went to work, did a tiny bit of yarn and food shopping. Now it’s 11:00 and I’m wiped out. And that is why details about my newest knitting project, which is not a gift and therefore fair game for posting, will have to wait. (What’s that, you say? There are still 9 gifts to be done? Yes, well, about those…I figure I have at most about 30 hours of knitting left for gifts, which is really just a good chunk of knitting time this weekend and a couple of evenings next week.) And now, I’m going to go find my pillow and sleep, before I just decide to use my laptop as a pillow and sleep in this chair.

Well, I’m better, but I’m still skipping Sit & Knit tonight. :( I look forward to my weekly coffee & chat fix, and between traveling and being sick, I’ve missed it for three weeks now. Waaaaah. I hope no one’s too mad at me, I lost track of time and forgot to call anyone to say I wouldn’t be there.

Anyway, another Christmas present is just a couple of rows away from being done. For that matter, I have one that’s mere yards away from done-ness…however, I don’t have those yards. Really, I can do math: 2/3 of 750 yards is 500, right? So of course a 430 yard skein should be enough. Really. Grrr. I have to get better so I can go buy another skein of yarn before they run out of the dye lot. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the extra 360 yards, though.

Speaking of yards, I was thinking yesterday. (Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s a rare occurrence.) I realized that when I knit an adult sweater, anywhere from 1-2 miles of yarn travels through my fingers. That’s pretty cool to think about!

Uh-oh. I just ran out of Kleenex…I think there’s another box in the linen closet…I have to go look, and then get back to knitting!

Thank heavens for understanding husbands who give early birthday gifts when they are most needed: The Two Towers, extended edition – almost 4 hours of distraction! (And hopefully said husband will realize that it would still be nice to have something to open up on said birthday! Although, it was charming that he made an effort to wrap it. In a Home Depot flyer. But it was wrapped!)

I’m really bummed, though. It’s already December 3rd and, due to my cold, I don’t have my Christmas tree yet. See, the rule is that the tree cannot be purchased before December 1st, which is the day I got sick. And I’m really much too sick to go traipsing around the chilly garden center for hours trying to find the right tree. Oh, well, at least I’ve managed to write out most of the Christmas cards. I can’t guarantee that they say anything that makes sense, but at least they’re written…um, yeah, if you get a Christmas card from me, and it has the wrong names or says something like “Happy Birthday, and a Very Merry Easter”, please don’t take it personally. Maybe I should have waited to seal the envelopes until someone could proof-read them?

Oh, and band…that didn’t happen tonight. The mere thought of playing horn with chapped lips and a runny nose made my head hurt. Plus, it would really suck to get the rest of the section sick just in time for the concert next week. I’ll just have to wing it. Solo? What solo? Who said anything about a solo? We’ll just ignore that for now…ok, this cold had better go away soon, because I really, really, really need to PRACTICE!

Ugh. I’m tired of TV. I’m at home with an icky cold, and I don’t even feel like knitting. This is not good. :(

Band tomorrow night should be fun. It’s dress rehearsal, so I’ve got to be there, but if my head feels like it does now, it might explode.

Of course, my dogs are taking full advantage of my being home (meaning they’re uncrated), and are stretched out across the full length of the couch. I couldn’t even take a nap if I wanted to! Good thing they’re cute.

Because I sure can’t. The evil company still hasn’t released our cell phone numbers for porting, despite the fact that we’ve badgered them every day (except Thanksgiving – I’m sure they have families too, even though they work for the evil company.)

I’m not terribly thrilled with the new provider, either. I mean, they’ve at least been consistent in what they’ve told us (the e.c. hasn’t been) so I believe what they’re saying, but I don’t get the warm fuzzy feeling I should be getting about how far they’re going to resolve this. As in, why on earth are we sitting on hold with the e.c. instead of them?!?

Yes, I know, I basically signed up to be a guinea pig for this process, but it’s my blog and I’ll whine if I want to!

…to mention that I have all of my Christmas shopping done?

I really can’t understand why people would torture themselves by getting up at 4AM and getting in fights over parking spaces and such, just to save a couple of dollars. My shopping is done, and I saved money by doing it early, carefully planning what to buy and where to buy it, and using coupons if I had them.

Of course, this is the first year I’ve gotten my shopping done before Thanksgiving, but I had great motivation – the nearest mall has recently expanded into something so huge it’s ridiculous, and I just have better things to do then spend hours finding parking and standing in line.

Now if I could just finish knitting everything…one more done. See? Over there in the sidebar? All right, back to knitting.