Spent the Gift Certificate!

Thursday I decided that was the day I would go spend my gift certificate. The first thing I got was.............drum roll........... a freakin' speeding ticket on the way there! That's what I get for being so excited about going to spend my money. Grrrr......It was on a road that I have only been on once in my life before. A dirt road at that. On our side of town the dirt roads are 55 mph. This one (on the slow side of town?) happened to be 25 mph. I was on this road for a while, and going about 30 mph. I came to a stop sign and the road I was on crossed over a 4-lane paved road, and there was pavement on the other side for the road I was on. Well, subconsciously my mind said "paved road, higher speed limit". I was going about 40 and I saw a cop coming the other way. The pavement went only as far as a subdivision over a hill and then it turned to dirt road again. Well I was just over the hill and saw that it was dirt up ahead, and was slowing down, and saw the cop coming and then saw him turn around behind me and put on his lights. Grrrrr..... He was very nice about it, and only wrote me up for 5 mph over the limit, but geez.....couldn't he have let it go? I've only gotten one other ticket in my life and that was in Kalamazoo when Kim was at WMU. I had an appt. back here and was running late. Anyway, I guess I'm going to get a court date and hope the cop doesn't happen to show up, so I can hopefully get it waived. That kind of put a damper on my morning, for sure.

Anyway, I got 4 skeins of Noro in some colors that Vicky doesn't carry, and 4 skeins of Cascade 220 because I LOVE the bright colors and Vicky doesn't sell Cascade either. (I chose a lime green, purple, turquoise and fuschia....will be using them for felting. Probably a Sophie bag)I got another skein of the Trekking XXL I had purchased during the Shop Hop. I am going to use it along with a strand of black and knit myself a scarf at some point, using the stitch pattern from the Fluted Bannister Socks. I think it will be quite lovely :-) I got another set of Addi Turbos in size 1 (I never thought I would buy size 1 needles. What's next? Size 0? What is going on here?) and some really cute knitting-themed note cards. I also got (oops, can't tell you, Diane is going to read this and, you know, it would ruin the surprise) I didn't come home with as many things for ME as I hoped. I got too caught up with getting yarn that I couldn't get on my side of town. Oh well.................

I had brought the owner a couple of my beaded pens as a thank you for the gift certificate. One had her name on it, and 2 had the name of the shop. Then I showed her some of my other pens with knitting phrases on them and she agreed to put them in her shop on consignment. Yeah! So hopefully they will sell and she'll want more. Then I will have more money to spend there. That $100 just scratched the surface of all I wanted to buy in that store. Oy!

I've already knit up some of the Noro into mittens for my niece (they will be felted) and another pair of Noro Fuzzy Feet are on the needles right now. (pictures coming in the next day or 2) I'm hoping to get everything knit that I want to for Christmas, but I'm not sure it's actually going to happen. I'd better be getting some packages in the mail soon, ya think? That's it, no more sleeping until everything is done and mailed.

I actually got some Christmas shopping done last night with Kim. I am so far behind in my Christmas shopping and preparations this year. I just don't know what's wrong with me! Anyway, we had fun ....though it was not pleasant going in and out of the stores in pouring rain at about 36 degrees. We had had such a pretty snowfall in the morning....a really moist snow that stuck in every branch and covered every surface in white beauty. Then the rain came. Made the huge snowman fall over. Made us all very sad. I didn't even get a picture of him before he was obliterated by the rain. Overnight all that wet turned to ice. What a mess.

Oh Twinkle Tree, Oh Twinkle Tree.....

Mike and I had decided that this was the last year for our Christmas tree and that we'd be getting a new one for next year. The old one had quite a few broken branches and was just looking very "Charlie Brown"-ish. Well, Target put their trees on sale for 30% off and I happened to have a 10% off Rewards Certificate, so we went to look at what they had left yesterday morning. We ended up coming home with a new tree, because I told Mike it would be silly to buy one at full price next year when we can get such a deal this year. I didn't want to wait until after Christmas, because I know by then there will be very little left to choose from.

Our new tree is soooo much nicer than the old one. It's taller, and MUCH fuller. I can't see through to the middle like on the old one, and this one is prelit with 1000 lights. Some of them twinkle which gives it a magical look. We set it up (which was snap!)just to make sure it wasn't TOO big for our room, and to make sure the lights all worked. Then we decided, what the heck, lets just take the ornaments off the old tree and put them on the new, instead of waiting to use it next year. It really didn't take that long and I'm glad we did it. I was pouting every time I looked at that old decrepit tree with some its branches that were just balancing on top of others because they were broken. This one is just gorgeous! Anyway, Mike hauled the old one out onto the front porch where it will live until after Christmas....It was nice pulling up and seeing it lit up on the porch last night. I thought we would just toss it, but we can get some more use out of it as an outdoor decoration.