Merry Christmas!



I hope that you had a good Christmas. We did. Mark had been lamenting about that Halloween and Thanksgiving were more Christmassy looking than Christmas was going to be because the snow had mostly melted, but Santa brought new snow with him last night, and it kept on coming down off and on all day. Although what's under the tree isn't what is really important, the presents under the tree took up about a third of the living room it seems. We thought we had plenty, but Santa's Helpers dropped off more gifts for us on Christmas Eve. The kids got lots of clothes and new toys and some books, and they are having lots of fun playing with all of it. Mark seemed happy with what he got, although he always squirrels away and saves up and spends way too much on me, so I feel bad about not being able to get him the things he really would like. One of these years I'll find a way to surprise him though.

The things that I got that I am most excited about are a keyboard (we don't have the space for an actual piano) and a violin!!! I always wanted to learn the violin but somehow never had the opportunity. I don't quite understand how I missed out on that with my grandfather being a violin maker and master of that instrument, but I have never had a violin before. Since the school I went to when I started learning an instrument didn't have string instrument instruction available, I chose flute instead, and when I could have switched I stuck with my flute. Anyway, now Mark gets to listen to me learn to play the violin. I listened to him learn the bagpipes, so that should make us even.

Knitting content around here has been limited lately. I made an attempt at encouraging the girls to learn to knit (they do some already but have not attempted any larger projects) by giving them each a couple of skeins of Lion Brand Homespun and a circular needle. My intention was that they could knit shawls. When asked what they want to do with their yarn, however, they are excited about a bunch of smaller things like hand warmers and headbands that they could make. We'll see what they actually do.

Update on the Computer

My computer is back. It still doesn't work very well. We are going to have to put a new operating system on it, and it can't seem to tolerate being connected to the internet, and isn't cooperating very will with copying files onto disks. I was able to print some of my financial information that I will need for taxes, but now it doesn't seem to want to print anymore. I've probably lost everything that I had on there. A word of advice: store your pictures on CD's or print them, or even upload them all to the internet somewhere. All hard drives crash sooner or later. They are not good for long-term storage. The same goes for any other files that you might need later on. Back everything up - that is what CD burners are for. I hope that I have learned my lesson now.

It looks like the old computer will be mostly Mark's (once it is fully functional again) and this one will be mostly mine, so I just need to figure out what programs I have on here and see if it will work with my camera and if I have a program for processing images or if I need to get one again, and then I'll be back in business with blogging. I hope.

Technical Difficulties

My computer had been acting funny for a few days - it forgot how to start up, but once it figured it out it worked fine. Well, now it's in the shop. That means that the pictures and things that I hadn't gotten around to editing and posting are temporarily unavailable (although they should be fine and I should be able to access them when I get the computer back), and I don't have some of the programs that I am used to, or files. The good news is that (1) it made it through the semester and all the projects that I was working on for classes were done and turned in and (2) a friend gave us his old computer, and we are not without one while waiting for the other one to be repaired. If you are reading this (you know who you are) thanks!!! So, this computer is supposed to be Mark's and the other one is mine (but who knows what mixing and matching might happen), and we will become a two-computer family. Cool, huh?

This is the last week of the semester, and I only have one final left (on Friday). Then I should have a little bit of free time until January. That just might mean more blogging time.

I have my schedule for Spring Semester:

• Linguistics 4100 - The Study of Language
• Linguistics 4900 - Analysis of Cross-Cultural Difference
• Psychology 3110 - Health Psychology
• Psychology 5910 - Independent Research

I've always been interested in linguistics, and in fact I have some background in that subject through a prior linguistics class and a lot of my communicative disorders course work applies also. These will be real live, in person classes! They are being offered here mainly for the benefit of teachers in the public schools, but I got permission to join in. Health Psychology is by satellite. I'll find out in January if there is anyone else enrolled in the class at this site. And 5910 is a continuation of the same research project I have been working on this semester.

Since this has been primarily a knitting blog, I suppose I should talk about knitting at least occasionally, shouldn't I? Since finishing the shawl I have not started another big project. I swatched for the sweater I want to make for Jonathan, but haven't gotten any farther than that. And I have been making small items that I can finish quickly. Some of them will be Christmas gifts, and others just mainly gave my hands something to do.

If you need an easy and fast knitting idea, hand warmers are great but here's one that is even easier and faster - headbands! The simplest way to knit a headband is simply to cast on enough stitches to make it as wide as you like, knit in garter stitch until it will fit around your head (or whoever's head you want it to fit), stretched. Then bind off, picking up one of the cast on stitches with each stitch on the last row and knitting them off together. Or you could just bind off and sew it. Add a twist if you like. Another joining option would be to use the figure-8 cast on and finish with three-needle bind off. As with anything, the possibilities really are endless. I have knitted headbands in cable patterns (I have one to match the Ragna sweater, in the same lattice pattern), or in stockinette stitch with an intarsia motif. At Thanksgiving, while sitting around trying to be social, I knitted two garter stitch headbands in leftover Lion Brand Homespun and gave them to my nieces - they were a hit!