Post-xmas jibber jabber

Christmas was lovely, I feel very, very fortunate for all that I have (and all that I received).

The last post was all about getting that xmas knitting finished. Which, I did, and even managed to get in another pair of slippers for my mom. I made them in dark red, navy and silver-which are the colours of her favourite CFL team-the Montreal Alouettes.

After doing 4 pairs in a short time, I can now whip up one slipper (including finishing) in about 2-2.5 hours.  Despite the speed with which I can now crank them out, I fully intend to NEVER make another slipper again.
Because I was making slippers for people other than myself, safety is a concern-all the recipients live in places with hardwood floors. Slippery, hardwood floors. I do not want to be responsible for injuries, so I went to Michaels and picked up some 3D fabric paint.

Squeezed out some (not-terribly) uniform dots and voila! non-stick bottoms...and hopefully no one gets hurt.

I had started knitting askew and was trying to finish it in time for xmas...I came so very very close, but I had some panic shopping to do, cookie baking, and all that wrapping (so.much.wrapping), I was feeling pretty overwhelmed at the end. I did managed to finish both fronts, and the back but the straps weren't long enough-they each need another couple of inches that I just could not find the time or the energy to do.

I will finish the straps eventually, but for now Askew is in the wip basket along with Vanilla Latte sock  numero dos (just about to turn the heel).

I got many lovely prezzies; some of them knitting related:

 Handy little kit, all of these things will come in handy. Except the row counters, I'm not sure how to use those.

 Knitting buttons! Yay! (Quiet I'm counting-I need this tattooed on my forehead)

 Beautifully soft Alpaca Cloud

 Miss Babs Yowza! in Field Mouse.

 Karbonz! I think this was my favourite gift!

And while this is not particularly knitting related;

it's an alpaca cookie cutter and I absolutely adore it and if I wasn't sick of cookies I'd have already made a batch!

I also received a onesie-I never ever want to take it off. It is the most comfortable, warmest, snuggliest item of clothing I've ever worn. It's fabulous. I can totally understand why the 5yr old never wants to get dressed.  Be warned, the following picture is after not enough sleep. Loving the leopard print onesie despite being so very very tired.

After finally getting to bed at 11pm on xmas eve, B woke us up before 1 am, and then got out of bed again at 1:45am thinking it must finally be morning. I was up before 5am because I thought someone was breaking into our house-it sounded like someone was trying to drunkenly pick the lock. Turns out, it was the wind (gusting at almost 90km) knocking around our wreath. I put the baseball bat away but I couldn't fall back asleep after that. The teens were up within an hour, and by 7, we were all up and opening gifts. 

To top all the awesomeness off, M got me tickets for The Nutcracker!

Not even as a gift, just because it was something he's wanted to do for me for years. I love the Nutcracker and I've only seen it live once before, many years ago and I didn't get to fully enjoy it (previous relationship stuff). He had no interest himself so I took the 16yr old. A loved it. We had a wonderful time and it was the perfect way to end the week.

 Now I'm looking forward to getting things back to normal. Back to a normal sleeping, and eating schedule. Getting the house back in order, getting the decorations down and tossing the tree. And getting together with T&A for stitching and bitching! I miss my chicks with sticks!

Btw; all that snow we had? Gone! We've had rain, rain and more rain! Temperatures up to +5!  It was a rainy xmas this year! There's very little snow left on the ground...and I had just bought snow pants so we could go sledding while on xmas break.