So much has gone on in the past week that I can’t even begin to explain it all.  Company has come, come, gone, gone, in that order.  Peace has (mostly) been restored, though quiet has not.  Who’d have thought I’d be happy that school resumes tomorrow?

Mark has been a little bit miffed that I haven’t blogged about his surprise - he took me to Home Depot to pick out a brand new washer and dryer.  Any one I wanted!  We got the top of the line LG, with steam cycle and sanitary cycle (can’t wait to try felting in it!).  I was truly surprised and very excited - I guess that’s what it means to be a grown up - appliances make you happy!  They were supposed to be delivered on December 20th, but we got a call from LG a few days before that saying our stuff was on the boat, and kind of stuck in customs, and it would be a few weeks.  Imagine my dismay - I thought I would be doing laundry in a new and exciting way 2 weeks ago!  We then got a call on the 19th, stating that they would be here “next Saturday”, which we took to mean the 23rd.  Nope, they meant Saturday the 30th.  They did arrive the 30th, and I proceeded to spend the remainder of Saturday and a good bit of Sunday washing clothes, bedding (did I mention it will hold a king-sized comforter?), and anything that wasn’t nailed down.  Both washer and dryer have light-up displays which look really cool in the dark - think UFO in your kitchen - and make sweet little beeping noises instead of the obnoxious buzzer my old dryer had!  I’m truly thankful for these, as is Shea, who does her own laundry, as our old dryer had it in for her, and would shut off whenever she was in the house.  Every 5 minutes or so.  I have threatened her with her life if she gets on the new dryer’s bad side by leaving jewelry, money, or lip gloss in her pockets.

While the installers were here, I heard the mailman drive up.  The installers called me out to look at a small dent on the back of the washer ($75 credit coming - works for me), so I gave the okay and headed for the mailbox.  Lo and behold, there was a package with a return address I didn’t recognize, addressed to me.  Could it be my long-lost Christmas package from the Queen?  She had been out of town, and unable to check on it.  Sure enough, I opened it up, and it was stuff from Mama E!  Just what I’ve been wanting!  Inside were 3 cool project bags, each with a skein of gorgeous hand-dyed wooly C*Eye*ber Fiber goodness inside.

The top one is English Roses, the middle is Blue Waves, and the bottom was not named - it just said “For Niki with love” under colorway on the tag.  Could it be that I now have my own exclusive colorway?  Only Mama E knows for sure!  I had a hard time deciding which one to start - of course I had to start one right away!  I started with English Roses, and I’m using the Lava Flow pattern from Sockbug, and it’s looking great.  It’s a little snug, but I’m going to let it go a while longer and keep trying to make it work before I rip it out.  Here’s why - they’re cool, and I’m kind of far along:

One of the few knitted gifts I had finished was a pair of Crusoes in Koigu for Mom.  She can be seen modeling them here.

We did some after-Christmas shopping, of both the Talbot’s and yarn store varieties, and came up with some yarn (surprise) for 2 scarves for Mom, a scarf for me to match a new coat, and a pair of socks.  I finished up the first scarf before she left, just a sideways garter stitch one, but it’s gorgeous in some Burlyspun.  I also finished up my Trekking 107 socks - a plain vanilla sock, but with a star toe for variety.  I’m not totally in love with the star toe, but it was kind of cute, even though I could not get a good picture of it to save my life.

Today is our last day before the return to work and school, so we’re lazing around the house, then going to have lunch with Mark, who had to go back to work today.  I’ll also spend some time down in our cellar, which was tremendously flooded yesterday morning (about 1 1/2 feet) after a nearly 4″ rainfall the night before.  The sump pump has a mind of its own, and only comes on when we go downstairs and yell at it.  It’s better today, but the ground is still really wet, and the drains were filling back up again, so I’ll need to keep up with it today.  We knew it was bad when we woke up yesterday morning, but didn’t know how much it had actually rained until I went to Walgreens and saw the parking lot (there’s a creek and swamp across the street).  No White Christmas, but a very wet New Year!

Mark is working on moving my site to Word Press, so there are probably some old posts missing, and I’ll lose my comments.  No worries though - I’m told it will be easier to update, and I will have things like archives and categories which I’m sadly missing right now.  Here’s hoping!  I’m sure he’s fussing right now for the way I’ve laid out today’s post and pictures!

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