Weekend fun...

Another weekend has come and gone, and I don't really have anything to show for it except for the fact that the blue afghan I mentioned earlier is now finished. I'm a little disappointed with it, though. Because I bought the yarn in bulk and on two separate occasions, I wasn't able to be very picky about the dye lots of the different balls. Result:

I now have a two-toned afghan! If I didn't like the pattern/colours so much I don't think it would bother me that the two blues are so different, but I do, so it does. I was originally planning to give it away, but now I think I'll have to keep this one and make another. But first I need to finish making the matching pillows ;)

On Saturday, we went out for "breakfast" (at approx. 1:00pm) withTC's Brother G and Cousin J, and their respective wives, which was fun. Cousin J was visiting from Ottawa, and he and his wife have the cutest little puppy - I wish I had a picture - that likes to chew people's toes! We left the pup with Brother G's in-laws and had breakfast at an Irish-style pub, and then walked to the Pottery Barn at the request of Mrs. Cousin J. Apparently there isn't one in Ottawa. They have some really nice stuff there, but I find it to be overpriced. It was a good visit, though.

We also spent quite a bit of time this weekend playing a game that we got for Christmas called Ticket to Ride. I highly recommend it - it's a great deal of fun. You are essentially trying to create a network of train lines that connect whichever North American destinations you've been assigned before someone else claims that route or runs out of trains. Fun for the whole family (as long as your family has 2-5 people and is 8+)!

I guess I do have something to show for the weekend after all!

New dresser

Didn't TC do a lovely job assembling the dresser? He was a very busy boy yesterday! I mentioned in the last post that one of my cousins will be coming to live with us for a few months starting in January, and TC put the finishing touches on the guest room which up until yesterday was used primarily as his office. Now it's a cozy little room all set for when cousin P gets here. To tell you the truth, I like it much better this way.

Some updates...and a life lesson...

The amaryllis is continuing to grow, though it didn't make it to maturity by Christmas as I was hoping it would. Still, I'm really enjoying how you can see a little growth each day. On the crafting front, I've wrapped up all of the little projects that I've been working on (no pun intended), but I always have one or two big projects on the go. Right now I'm crocheting away at this afghan:

I ran out of the dark blue yarn while working on it this afternoon, so I decided that we needed to go get some more right away. Off we went to Wal-mart (a store that I am morally conflicted about shopping in, and yet I keep going back - it's like the crack of the department store world), where we of course discovered that there were some other things we needed too (darn that place!). By the time we left, our shopping gears were all fired up, so we decided that mid-afternoon on Boxing Day would be a great time to look for a dresser for our guest room, where my cousin will be living for the next four months.

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We began by looking in every store near the Wal-mart that we thought might have dressers, but we were thwarted at every turn. It was then that we decided to make the journey out to the nearest Ikea - a trip that took forever because we had to pass the Yorkdale mall enroute. Why would that make it take forever? Because there were so many people going to the mall that we sat at an intersection through 5 green lights because there was no room to advance. As far ahead as we could see, there was nothing but bumper-to-bumper traffic. We proceeded to sit through at least 5 green lights at every intersection. Grr... We finally made it to Ikea, and we did find a dresser that we liked very much, which TC has begun assembling this evening, so it all turned out to be worthwhile. I'll post a picture once he's finished.

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The moral of the story? Never try to buy a dresser on Boxing Day! I don't know what we were thinking :)

Merry Christmas!

Well, Christmas has come and gone and it turned out to be a wonderful time after all. On Christmas Eve we made our way down to Kensington Market, a community of little shops and restaurants that is essentially an open-air market (hence its name), and just walked about, stopping to peruse the occasional shop and then having some lunch at a little Portugese bakery. As we were doing so, it started to snow - the wispy kind of flakes that don't amount to anything but look really pretty. How perfect is that? Then we indulged in the guilty pleasure of going to the Eaton Centre and watching everybody scurry around to do their last-minute shopping while we sat and drank tea, secure in the knowledge that all of our shopping was done. Later that night we attended a candlelit service at an Anglican church just down the street, which ended shortly after midnight. It was quite lovely!

The late night probably explains why I was able to sleep in on Christmas morning. Normally I wake up quite early, but this year I made it til 8am - something I haven't been able to do since I was too young to know what Christmas was. Anyway, after we opened our presents we headed out to feed TC's brother's cat, which we're looking after for a couple of days. Then we went to a friend's house and spent the afternoon with them, playing games and having a delicious turkey dinner.

Christmas spirit...

It's official - Christmas is here! I've always associated the beginning of Christmas with a certain feeling that I get as the day approaches, a quiet kind of joy and excitement that sneaks up on me without my noticing it, until I'm walking around humming Christmas carols and smiling for no apparent reason. It took a little longer to reach that point this year, but it's finally here! It might have helped that all the Christmas cards have been arriving this week, and my co-workers were handing out their 'thanks for all your help' gifts to the office services staff today so everyone was feeling festive. Or it might be the 2 feet of snow that we got over the weekend, making everything look Christmasy. I'm sure all of those things have contributed to the Christmas feeling, but I think the biggest thing has been the fact that I'm now really looking forward to spending a quiet Christmas morning at home with TC, and then having Christmas dinner with some friends and their family.

Another contributor to the official start of Christmas? Seeing this clip on TV.

Update

This is just a quick update to let you know that TC did indeed make it home safe and sound, for which I am very, very thankful. He arrived at the door Sunday afternoon snowy, tired and a little bit rumpled but otherwise whole.

Snow Day

On a day like today, when I don't have anything that I really have to do, and nowhere that I really have to go, I love a good snowstorm! It has been snowing and blowing like mad outside since yesterday, and I'm loving every minute of it, all curled up on the couch watching old movies and drinking tea. The only real downside is that TC, who was supposed to come back from Washington yesterday has been snowed in at the Detroit airport and won't be getting home until this afternoon, assuming that the new flight isn't cancelled too. He'll get home eventually, though. On the plus side, I've had lots of time to finish up this scarf that I've been making from leftover yarn:

It's kind of Christmasy, don't you think? I recently went through all my craft supplies, which have somehow grown to fill 3 or 4 rubbermaid storage tubs, and found so much scrap yarn that I need to use up in order to make room for more :) There really isn't enough of any one colour to make a major project, but I've discovered that I can usually manage to make a scarf or a hat from it.