I'm Not Even Sure...

My family devolved into a bunch of lunatics tonight. The dude snapped this photo and those loons demanded to be featured on the blog.

I hope you enjoyed your time with your crazy family today.

Merry Christmas to All

Merry Christmas, from your favorite elves. (Too bad I'm too cheap to download the dance. Watching Stella and I do the worm is worth the price of admission.)

I make toys, but I've got aspirations
Make some noise
Use your imagination
Girls and boys, before you wish for what you wish for
There's a list for who's been
Naughty or nice, but consider the price to an elf
(Elf's Lament, Barenaked Ladies)

Happy Fucking Holidays

This was my to do list yesterday:

1. drop off donation at Goodwill
2. pick up lobsters at Wegmans
3. return at Steinmart (same mall as above)
4. pick up framing at Strawberry Sampler
5. grocery store
6. make lobster stew (it has to sit overnight)
7. wrap presents
8. maybe work on Stash and Dash bags

I walked the dog, popped her into her crate, loaded up the car, and away I go. Goodwill, check. Wegman's, after some hemming and hawing, I get the kid in charge of the seafood department. "I called you about an hour ago. I guess you had just left. The lobsters didn't come in, but they'll be here by 2:00 (in two hours)." "And then they need to be steamed..." "That'll take about 20 minutes. I'll call you when they get here." "No," I say cheerily, "Call me when they are ready." "Thanks for your patience," he says. "It's okay. I have other errands to do here."

So I sit down to a fine Wegman's lunch. Then I walk over to AC Moore--the dude had asked me to get some boxes for the fudge he made. Then I walk to the other end of the mall to Steinmart. I make my return and look for jeans because I want a new pair for the trip. While I'm wandering around, I decide to buy a gift for my fil and bil. Then I notice a pair of pajamas with a fleecy top. Just yesterday the dude tells me the jersey that goes with his flannel pj bottoms is too thin. Wow, I am scratching things off the list!

I wandered into DSW next because one of the pairs of black shoes I bought from Zappos is too small. I find myself a pair of closed back style clogs and black winter boots. (Mine are brown and I'm going with a black wardrobe for England.) And I find a pair of winter boots for the dude, which he told me he needed on Monday. (Because he cannot anticipate clothing needs.) This is great!

At 2:20, I wander back into Wegman's and pick up the rest of the stew items and something premade for dinner. There's a voicemail for me; my lobsters are ready.

Again, they can't find my order and don't seem to know what's going on. Another kid comes back and says they found them, do I want them steamed? "They'd better be steamed." I say. Kid wanders off. "Good news. We steamed ten in case you wanted more than eight." I say, "I didn't order eight lobsters, I ordered lobsters to make the equivalent of eight pounds of meat." More wandering off. He comes back, "Good news. Seven lobsters equals eight pounds." (Anyone who knows anything about lobsters knows this is very bad news indeed.) "I don't want eight pounds of lobster. I want eight pounds of lobster meat." "Oh, I don't know how to figure that out." "What I want you to do," I say remarkably sweetly, "is to find someone who knows and bring him to me." He consults with the kid in charge (kic) who goes back to the order books. Suddenly the kic is by my side with frozen lobster meat. "I'm so sorry about this screw up. We just didn't get our order of lobsters and we went to another store and they got the wrong thing. You know, you're doing this the expensive way. We're halfway through your order and your total is over $100." "Yes," I respond, "I do this every..." "Every year," he says. (Every other year, I think. But still I remember it's $200 worth of lobster.) "If it's okay," he says, "I'm going to give you the difference in frozen meat." We use frozen meat all the time, so I'm fine with that and at last, I'm going to get my lobster and go home to my dog who has now been crated for four hours, and I still have a 40 minute drive. Then he makes it clear, they are giving me almost four pounds of frozen lobster meat free.

That was annoying but worked out in the end, I think as I drive home.

I take the dog out to play in the yard when I get home, then set to work breaking open ten tiny lobsters (which yielded just over four pounds of meat--almost not worth it as any New Englander knows.) It took me over an hour just to do that step. The stew is simmering when the dude gets home. We eat. He tends to his fudge. He tends to the gift for my sister that arrived from Walmart in a wet box. (From the cleaner that leaked inside the packaging.)

We sit down to watch A Christmas Carol (Patrick Stewart, my favorite) and I finally feel a small flicker of Christmas spirit inside me. (I did put up the wreath and a few snowman decorations.)

As I lay in bed, running over the lists of things yet to be done before I leave the country (in three days!) I realize I forgot to go to the Strawberry Sampler where my mother's and my sister's gifts await. I burst into tears. The dude went to the computer to check to see if I could pick them up today, but you know I wouldn't have told you this whole story if there were a happy ending. Because this will be my most miserable Christmas ever. Sigh.

Photo stolen from Subversive Cross Stitch Web site. Go there. Buy something to make up for my bad behavior.

More Downsizing

I've got my sewing machine set up on the dining room table and I am going great guns like a single person sweat shop. I might finish these Amy Butler bags for my MIL yet. (Did I start them last year or two years ago?)

Sunday was my turn to make dinner but I wasn't sure how I was going to get my father into the house because of all the snow. They did a lousy job plowing our street because the neighbors at 1 and 5 (next door to each other) left their cars in the street. Apparently walking to the backyard driveway is too far {not}. So we brought the mountain to Mohammad meatloaf to my sister's. I made Mandajuice's teriyaki meatloaf, mashed potatoes, salad, and the dude made Pioneer Woman's peanut butter pie for dessert. The meatloaf is a big favorite; last year I bought everyone the Soy Vay to make it. My mother (who never cooks) confirmed that even she made it, but the "recipe is complicated." Turns out, old hand cooks like my mother aren't big on photographing every step of a recipe. My sister also put in a special request for Chile con Queso which around here we call crack dip.

Anyway, as I made my lunch by scooting the dirty dishes out of the way--including the skillet with dried on Velveeta--I was thinking something along the lines of Spinster Stitcher's post only I was worried those British birds from "How Clean is Your House?" might show up. I don't know how I am getting on a plane in five days.

In the continued downsizing, my sisters-in-law have gone from being proud owners of quilted messenger bags to proud owners of beaded jewelry.

This one is for the dude's sister. When I think of her, I think of neutral shades. Her husband is the geologist and hiker and somehow I think of her as being a natural, outdoorsy sort, though I can think of little evidence for this conclusion. I do know she wears these colors.

The dude's brother's wife, however, wears a lot of bright blue. I had trouble putting something together. I thought I wanted to make something like this necklace, but I couldn't find a donut that lent itself to being matched with bright blues. The turquoise donut was all wrong. I was wandering around the store and thought there was something very cool about the large beads I ended up using. I'm not going to lie to you, it is bright. This may be a miserable failure. Or it will become a treasured possession. I'm pretty sure there are no in-betweens on this one.

What am I doing here rambling on? This bags aren't going to sew themselves!

Reading Update

Part of the reason I've had so much trouble finishing the gifts is that I couldn't put down Empire Falls. Reading that book was on my 1001 list (No. 18: Read the Pulitzer Prize Winners for Fiction that I have not read). You can see what I thought here.

Mark It

Why is it that I am so delusional when it comes to making lists of gifts to make? I've been shedding projects and downsizing like mad.

Instead of getting a purse that I have cut out but not sewn, my aunt is getting a book* with a bookmark I made. My uncle's not getting coasters, he's getting a book** with a bookmark I made. I think it is noble that I tried to make all my gifts, but if I am ever going to succeed in this endeavor, I am going to have to start making gifts in January. Remind me when I get back from vacation.

The dude was always getting bookmarks. He leaves them in books and then finds them after he's started using scraps of paper. I figure if he has a stash of bookmarks, he won't embarrass the family by using the grocery receipt. In the batch, you can see I did manage to finish that piece of nine ball I found at the bead show. I glued it on to a jewelry bale and added some ribbon. The dude played a lot of pool as a youth and dreamed of going pro. He's still pretty good today, so I think he will enjoy this. My favorite is the one with the "X" on it. I like making bookmarks that say things like "You are here." Then I use the X to mark the spot--gives you something to do with all those X letter stickers; you know, if you don't have a Xavier in the family.

* Per Lee's suggestion, Lisa Lutz's The Spellman Files
** The Fisherman's Ocean, David A. Ross, PhD. Yeah, I didn't think you'd be that interested in that one either.

Cross-Stitch in da Hiz-zouse

"X-Factor Stitching"

For some months now I've [not me, read the link] been hatching a plan with the peace activist Vijay Mehta to supply crochet hooks to disaffected, troublesome youths so that they can learn to make something with their hands.

I've joked that we must stop them carrying knives and get them to carry crochet hooks instead....

Jacqueline Holdsworth, told me she'd recently spent a weekend at a Costumes and Textiles Fair working with children and teaching them cross-stitch (to make this sound more exciting than they might otherwise think, she called it X-Factor Stitching).

Dananananananana Nananananananana

These shirts are for my other nephews. The little one watches the big one's shows. Now he says, "I Batman," which gave me the idea for the shirts. (I was going to do sweatshirts but Target failed me.) The bigger nephew was going to get a robot shirt, but then my MIL told me that she bought little one a wheelie bag (overnight case) and his momma thought the big one would be jealous. Thus, two the same. Eventually I am sure they'll all develop their own tastes and ideas and likes and dislikes and then it will be twice as hard to buy them things.

A pair of jeans each and a set of Lincoln logs to share, bring on my flight. (Maybe, we're on BA.)

I used to make fusible web sweatshirts for my nieces all the time until eventually they got too old. Fortunately, these boys aren't too old yet. And I will succeed in making something for everyone on the list. Well, maybe. (I am closing in on the deadlines, but I was reading my December archives and for some reason, I feel way ahead over those years. Ahem.)

I also made this eyeglasses case for my BIL the computer whiz. I combined this embroidery with this eyeglass case pattern to create:

Back to finishing the stockings.

She Knitted Me Some Science

You gotta love it: Knitted Science at Discover Magazine {via Go Fug Yourself}.

From the ho hum even I've done that mobius scarf to the super amazing, crocheted hyperbolic space which scientists believed would be impossible to model physically. Go check it out. It will make you feel smart for being a crafter.