Visiting the Frog Pond (and belated birthday gifts!)

Well, first the fun stuff. The mailman brought me three boxes Monday. One was a crappy eBay purchase. . . so not picture worthy, so let's forget it. One was my destash from Carrie. LOVE the yarn, just like I expected! The pink/brown sock yarn will make me socks for my cowboy boots. This yarn
is the wool that I want to make a felted project out of, I think the colors will felt into each other so nicely (sorry for the poor pictures, it's rainy and dreary today!). The last box was a birthday present from my best friend Tricia. Tricia and I have been friends since 3rd grade, which makes her my oldest friend. This is no small feat, considering the many late night calls or home visits she dealt with from me (she was much more responsible than me, except for that whole taking her parents' car out before she had her license!) Anyway, she sent me a very thoughtful gift. . . a pattern of the day calendar for 2008 (which I am resisting the urge to open and read every one of right now) and a journal. The journal is to take with me when I'm travelling and can't readily blog, so I can keep track of what I want to tell everyone. THANK YOU, Tricia!! (btw, Tricia, knowing me for so long, is amazed that I have developed the patience to actually FINISH anything I try to knit. . he he he!! Apparently I've mellowed with age!)

I cast on for a Dream Swatch last night with some random mercerized cotton I had. I think I'll be giving it to Laura. The cotton is actually really soft, nicer than I expected. Thank you, random eBay purchase :)

Unfortunately, I frogged Lelah. Here she is now (on my lovely swift, of course!). I accidentally put a yarn over in the wrong place that I didn't catch until two rows later. I thought it would be an easy fix, so I dropped the three stitches down two rows. . . . and suddenly I only had 7 stitches in total when I should have had 9. One was the yarn over, but I couldn't figure out what the heck happened to the other one. So then I decided to frog just to the row BEFORE the error, to get back to the right stitch count. And, well, let's just say that didn't go so well, and the only thing left was to tear it out completely. It's not the end of the world, I really should work on knitting Christmas gifts, anyway. I also didn't like how my tension was working out on some of the purl stitches, so I can fix that when I start over.

I need to sit down and make the official Christmas list. . . . that is part of the plan at SnB tonight. I am slightly worried it may be an overwhelming list, but I need to see it to be able to plan it. We shall see. . ..

One final note, today is election day. I will be off to vote shortly (waiting for all the working folk to get to work so it's empty when I go vote). Who am I voting for? NO IDEA! I DO know that my state Senate seat is uncontested (Republicans gave up in my district a while ago, apparently) but I'm relatively certain there are House seats up for grabs. Since I have no idea from all the negative ads on TV who is actually running to represent me, I will likely go in the booth and vote for a Green Party candidate or some other person with no chance of winning. Or maybe I'll write myself in :) I think it's important to vote, but also important to not be an uninformed voter. In races where I know nothing, I find random 3rd party votes amount to abstaining rather than simply not voting at all. On the upside, this means all the campaign ads will stop tomorrow on TV. HALLELUJAH! There have been commercial breaks where EVERY AD. . . all six or seven of them, were political ads, negative ones, of course. I do believe only Dr. Somebody So&so (obviously not a good enough ad to make me remember his name) is the only candidate who even bothered to air a 'this is why I'm good' message. I'd vote for him based on that, except I think he's running out in Virginia Beach. Too bad. I never thought I'd WANT to see a beer commercial, but anything will help me not want to shoot myself from watching another ridiculous attack ad. I'm bracing for the presidential campaign, I think I shall have to give up TV!