Jesus' birthday and knitted things

As a recovering Catholic, I feel a bit silly celebrating the birthday of 'Our savior', but it is expected of me by the family. This day has turned into a food smorgasborg in our family, with a tinge of capitalist consumerism for seasoning. I swear, my parents were more excited about the gifts this morning and we were decades ago as kids. Today did have some benefits. For example, the best thing about not getting along with my siblings and not having a boyfriend is that I had very little shopping to do this year - thus, my stress level was about non-existent. I have a bit of a tummy ache right now - and a very sated IG asleep on my lap. She got one of the bones from the side of beef my parents decided to cook up. I anticipate vomit tonight. From her, though I won't rule out the possibility that it may could come from me.
I finally took pictures of a bunch of projects. I will post them and briefly describe them.
Here is the Duck that started all of this crazy business of knitted gifts for my new niece. I started the duck soon after finding out my sister was pregnant. Considering this is the first time I am an aunt by blood, I kind of went overboard. Well, so did the Duck. Here it is after a little sumptin'sumptin'.
The duck is done in Plymouth Yarn Dreambaby. Notice the eyelashes, and the heart on the ass! The head and the legs are stuffed with a polyfil and the body and wings have polypropylene pellets to give a bit of weight and movement.

Then there was the... PIG. Pig is done in Stylecraft Baby Velvet DK in a very delicate pink. I set aside my lifelong crusade against this particular shade of pink for this Pig. The yarn is textured, which knits up to a really cute fabric.
The pig has eyelashes and a heart, too, as well as a super cute curly tail. What a cute behind, don'tcha agree? Here is the Pig, stopping to smell the roses - though the picture looks a bit dark - you can just about make out the fabric of the knit.

Then there is the French Market bag, from knitty.com. I think the hyperlink is too long to fit next to the pic of the pig, so basically I am just typing to take up room. The FMB was my first taste of felting. I received a bunch of really good advice, including not being impatient, adding several pairs of jeans to add agitation and checking the process obsessively to make sure that the bag got to the consistency I wanted.
knitty.com-ISSUEwinter03-frenchmarketbag
There, now I can bring up the bag. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the before bag. I was aiming this size post felting - I guess the bag reduced in size about half.

Can I just say I love felting?!? The yarn for this project was Reynolds Lite-Lopi, which is a 100% virgin wool from Iceland. OK, one more picture of the FMB, this time stuffed with my latest project - Cleaves, also from knitty.com. The yarn is from handpaintedyarn.com handspun bulky in paris night. OH Oh oh, I do love this yarn. More pictures of that later.

I almost forgot - I did a basketball, in honor of Papa's profession. This is also in the Plymouth Dream Baby. The pattern is an inverted beachball pattern, with the 'ws' out mimicking the pebbled texture of the basketball. Now that I have taken pictures, I can send along the first set of gifts. I still have the last dinosaur to stuff, and the penguin to finish. More about that later...

What in goD's name was Steinbrenner thinking?!?

OK Seriously, Johnny Damon in pinstripes? I am thoroughly disgusted. Johnny - dumb as a brick - Damon as a Yankee. Well as I live and breathe.
It was particularly hard to get over the whole A-tool thing. I have absolutely no respect for A-rod. I really can't see what everybody else sees, apparently. And I know that Bernie Williams is tired and aged and really disserves to relax in the last year of his contract. He's stepped up everytime the Yankees have needed him, and done so in a truly gentlemanly, unassuming manner. But to get him Johnny Damon as the replacement is so freakin' absurd.
I just don't know if I can go on being a yankees fan. I just may have to jump ship. After 31 years of true, blind Yankees faith, it seems heretical to me to even consider rooting for another team. It may come down to that though.
Here's hoping Damon fails the physical.

Blasted New England.

Sun setting on the castle after 9(!!) inches of snow fell that day (in 12 hours) I rushed to get the camera, but by the time I took this picture, the brilliant orange-red had begun to fade. I am so done with New England. This really has to be my last winter. This storm was followed by several days of truly bone chilling cold. The kind that takes 20 minutes indoors to recover from. And Halley is so over snow, too. It ain't even winter proper yet - I think we are doomed.
Here is another view of the snow on the ledge outside our building. There're nine whole inches there, folks!

So, I have been a bad beaner and not posted recently. I always do so hate the holiday period. I have often said that it would be ideal if one could be continuously asleep or drunk from Thanksgiving to MLK, Jr day. This year I have made a conscious effort to not be a bitch, and I think it is working. I found out that several people in my building have noticed my detente with the holidays and have been talking behind my back. I am reasonably sure this talk is not malicious, but one never knows. One of the benefits of not really getting along with my siblings and not having a boyfriend is that my shopping list with quite abbreviated. I am reasonably sure that I will be able to get it all done in a day or two, and that I will have enough dinero left over to fix the exhaust on my car. Finally! I think I am going deaf because of it. Seriously, I keep missing really pertinent words. Case in point:
I went to lunch with the invited speaker in the chem department on Monday. We were talking about mentors (she has had two really prominent bosses) and she said of her PhD advisor that she "was his first graduate student. He didn't know what he was doing yet." Of course, I heard "worst graduate student" and looked way too perplexed for her not to ask me why. This woman is known as a ball-buster, and I just asked if she was the worst grad student?!? She took me down a bit for that one. Damned MIT accent.
Well, hells bells - there was more to this post, but it is gone now. Hoops.
more later... ciao

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

So I haven't posted (blogged?!?) in a while. Lo and behold, I been busy. Last week was of course Thanksgiving. I am still struggling with the whole getting my ass into work thing, so I gave myself permission to take off 5 days - no reading, no papers - just knitting, quilting, and cooking.
I spent the Tuesday before T-day running around the lab, trying to get things to an OK stopping point. That night the Stitch N Bitch ladies met for dinner at the Skellig and after dinner tea and ice cream at Lizzie's. Something so satisfying about knitting with beer. That was a fun evening - I hadn't planned to stay out as late as we did. It meant that Wednesday AM was spent running errands and packing all of my crafties for the trip to CT. I stopped off at the lab with Halley, who strutted her stuff in her pretty red capelet. The drive to CT was not too bad, considering I didn't get on the Pike until noon.
Halley and I stopped off at mom's work, where again Halley was admired for her poise and beauty. Many of the elderly in the home had pets before they lived there. Halley is a perfect lady when we visit, allowing everyone to pet her, being very gentle, and not getting spooked by all the wheel chairs and walkers.
Thanksgiving was white in CT; we had about 2.5 inches when all was said and done. It started before I woke on Thursday and continued for much of the day. I am really glad I opted not to run in a T-day road race.
Mom and I cooked most of the day Thursday. Dinner was at 3 PM; Lil Brother joined. After dinner Mom and I had planed to quilt but our plans were disrupted. I had let the dogs out for about 5 minutes for an after dinner run and constitutional. When I went back out, I found Bruno in the front yard! What a good boy for coming back when I called. Sometimes greyhounds can get one-track minded and not hear a thing. Turns out there were two other dogs running loose in the neighborhood. I snagged them and we called the animal warden. All this before pie!
I did not get very much quilting done after that. I did spend all day Friday on the machine, turning out ladybugs for my latest quilt. Saturday was spent in the kitchen, cooking pignoli cookies, pumpkin spice cookies and zucchini bread.
The zucchini bread is part of a challenge. Two post docs upstairs shared some z. bread they received as part of a thank you for some training they provided. I think the bread was from a student from MIT. I accepted a slice of the bread, and then proceeded to boast how my bread was better. Well, the Two Post Docs said, "Prove it." When I returned back to work on the Monday after T-day, I was dismayed to find that one of the Two Post Docs was in Taiwan. I put the bread in the freezer for the week. I will pull it out tonight and tomorrow they will experience the brilliance that is my zucchini bread.
Then this week happened - a double protein prep week. Has made my evenings in the lab run late - 1 and 2 PM a couple of nights. And I have to give GM on Tuesday. I should really get cracking on that paper. Hopefully, I will get too nice protein preps out of all the hard work. dunno yet.
My gel should be done destaining now.
ciao