Last post of 2007!

It was a merry Christmas at my household this year, and Hamlet's first Christmas ever! I wanted to get a picture of him amongst the tree and presents, but he wouldn't go near them :)

He did, however, help me pack.


I got home after working for a few hours on Dec 24th to help wrap gifts. My aunt and uncle came over for Christmas Eve dinner (which is always "nibblies" - cheese, crackers, salmon, hardboiled eggs, etc) and then it was time to sleep in anticipation of getting stuff Santa.

The stockings are hung by the chimney gas fireplace with care.


My sister receives the Gift of Cheese:

(it's not actually cheese)

And after the festing, while waiting for the turkey to cook, I completed my diagonal scarf!!!


Happy New Year, everyone!!

As I promised...

Here are some photos of the scarf I made for my dad.

It started so simply...

The finished product!

It matches Hamlet!
(I know the picture is dark, just trust me on this)

My dad, trying on his new gift

OMG! Dutch appeltaart! Just like Oma used to make.

Holy crap! One week until Christmas!
Why is it that when you're a kid, Christmas takes *forever* to arrive, but when you're an adult, it sneaks up on you?

Recovering from the Weekend

I took Thursday to today off from work, and I'm mighty glad I did! I've been running around like mad all weekend with family stuff and I'm finally (*FINALLY*) back in my quiet apartment with my attention-starved kitties draped over me.

Let's see... Thursday I got my car certified and went shopping with my sister. While that sentence may make the day seem relatively stress free, let me elaborate.

I got my car certified in Brampton, a 40 minute drive from my apartment. Then I came back here, ate something quick, and my sister arrived. We shopped from 2:30 to 9:30 and we would have kept going but the malls closed. I bought a tree ornament. My sister bought a dress, two pairs of shoes, and a few other Christmas-y things. It was exhausting.

Friday morning. Got up early to go to the gym. Got my hair cut. Went to Caynes (an appliance store) to buy a present for my dad and ended up with that plus a bunch of stuff for me :D. Rush home, frantically throw stuff into a bag (forgetting stuff in the process, of course) and made sure the kitties had lots of food before heading back to Brampton. Once there, I got changed and we went to a party for my dad's birthday. Got home really late (early?) and went to bed.

Saturday. We bought a Christmas tree. Also sounds like a quick trip, but my sister is meticulous and wanted the perfect tree. So we shopped. It was freezing cold, but she had to examine every tree. I admit, we got a good one. Then we decorated, which always always always ends in a fight with my family. This year was no different. So I hid to avoid the brunt of it (after decorating the tree) and was accused of being a grinch and being unhelpful and if I didn't want to decorate I should just go back to Toronto and be by myself. This is AFTER I decorated the whole tree with Mom. *sigh*

Sunday. Snowstorm day. We drove to Roy Thompson Hall to see the Toronto Symphony Orchestra perform Handel's Messiah. We do this every year, but this year was a challenge. We left at noon, got to the hall at 2:00, concert started at 3pm. I'm not even going into how we had to dig out and juggle 6 cars in our driveway (while wearing a short dress and tights) but we got it done. The concert was gorgeous as always (and I mentally planned out the end of the novel I'm working on) and then we had dinner.

Let me tell you. Sunday, Toronto was like a ghost town. The streets were empty. I've never ever seen the city that quiet. It was weird.

Now it's Monday and I've escaped and am home. So today is like my vacation from my vacation before I got to work tomorrow :D

I've got lots of pictures of Dad's birthday and tree decorating, but I'm far too tired to try and find them right now. Like most pictures I take, I'll put them up later. I'm such a lazy blogger.

Hope everyone else had an exciting weekend too! I can't believe it's this close to Christmas already!!

I DID IT!!

I got the scarf finished on time!!

The party is tomorrow, and the scarf has been washed and is drying in the bathroom (which is the only room with a door where I can keep the kitten out over night). Hopefully the fact that the scarf isn't *completely* flat won't affect the drying. And tomorrow morning, I can lay it out on my bed (and close the door to kittens) where it can complete its drying.

Yay! Pictures will follow at a later date.

:D

Knitting update

I've been frantically knitting away at my dad's birthday scarf, which needs to be done in less than a week.

I measured it yesterday (when my elbow started to ache and I had to put the needles down for the night) and I'm at 30". Only 24" to go, which may be do-able since I have today off.

But I ran out of TV to watch! I finished the Tudors last night (after another historical inaccuracy that made me stare at the TV slack jawed and exclaim "WHAT?!?" a la Doctor Who) so I've only got two episodes of Rome to knit through. I suppose then I'll have to put on a movie or something. I bet the Lord of the Rings trilogy will help make the knitting go by faster :D

No pictures of said scarf yet, but take my word for it. It's gorgeous. I can't wait to give it to my dad... to the expert knitters out there, do I have to block it first? Because that'll add an extra day to my deadline that I don't think I have unless I skip work.

And I thought good TV was dead...

Thanks to the glory that are DVDs and torrent files, I've been able to get my hands on some actual *good* TV (that isn't anime)

I've started watching two shows - The Tudors and Rome. I'm not too far into either of them yet, though. The best best best thing about these two shows is that Tudor England and the fall of the Roman Republic are my favourite periods in history!!



I'm watching the Tudors and I can't help but think how fantastically cast this show is. I mean, it's not just because Jonathan Rhys Meyers is *HOT* but that Sam Neil is a convincingly conniving cardnial and Jeremy Northam is a sweet naive Sir Thomas More (I already know what episode is going to make me cry) and I ADORE the actresses they've got for Anne Bolyn and Catherine of Aragon. Just fantastic!

(*rrrow!*)

A few historical inaccuracies aside (Henry VIII's sister Margaret, for example, did not marry the King of Portugal, but rather the King of Scotland, and through her both Mary Queen of Scots and James VI had claim to the English throne - but they may throw that in later), the series follows things pretty well (oh, and Henry VIII had a son by Anne Bolyn's sister Mary, I think).

Rome, my other most favouritest period in history, has got these two centurions, who totally make the show:


And I *love* the kid they got to play young Octavius. He's too cute! I haven't been paying too close attention to the historical inaccuracies in this one (I'm trying to knit a scarf by next Thursday) but I'm sure there are a few in there.



So yeah. Good TV. Who'da thunk it?

Evian, Pepsi, and Queen

While watching some French TV (basic cable sucks), I came across the following video. It's freakin' adorable:



And, while searching YouTube for that video, I found another commercial with the same song - this time featuring Britney, Pink, and Beyonce as gladiators (gladiatrices?) who just want something caffeinated to drink.



Enjoy.

Scarves!

Here's a long awaited knitting post!

Okay, remember way back in October I posted about the diagonal scarf I was starting? And then later, I ran into some trouble with the same scarf?

Well, everything is okay with the diagonal scarf and it's pretty long now! I'm on the last ball of yarn and I'm still loving the pattern!


But this scarf has been put on the back burner temporarily while I try to complete a scarf for my dad by December 13th for his birthday.

I bought the yarn on Friday, and knitted like a madwoman all weekend while watching Hairspray with Corinna, and Rome with myself (what an amazing series!). So after three days of knitting, this is what I have:


(modeled by the very lovely Hermes)

The pattern is from a Yarn Harlot post that Heather sent me, although, like with any pattern I attempt, mine doesn't look quite like hers... but I love mine anyway!


It's about 11 inches now... only 43 more to go... and 10 days to do it in... yeesh.

But, so I don't end on a downer, here's another shot of my pretty diagonal scarf!

Ooooo... look at the pretty colours....

The Golden Compass

There was a special showing of "The Golden Compass" tonight that I went to.



The movie was great. The special effects were amazing, Pan was adorable in every form, Lyra wasn't nearly annoying as she is in the books, and I ADORED the witches.

But to make things even better, there was a preview for a new book-to-movie that I hadn't heard about.



This book was fantastic! If you haven't read it, go read it. I can't wait for it to come to theatres (although I don't think I would have cast Brenden Fraser as Mo)!

So many book-to-movies lately! The Seeker, The Golden Compass, Spiderwick, Prince Caspian, now Inkheart (and probably more I've forgotten). It's awesome!