And so it begins....

Two weeks before Christmas and now it feels like the season is beginning.  Paul and I drove to Cooperstown for a late lunch at Sal's on Saturday:

 We had our usual pizza and garlic knots.... Mmmmmmmmm:

 It was finally a very cold day and even though there wasn't any snow, it felt like winter.  Even the lake (Otsego) looked cold.(Although all the birds swimming around didn't)

 And on the main street, Santa was "In":

 What a cute little house they had for him.   Everyone had to stand outside in the cold, though, waiting their turn.

On the way there and back, I worked on bitty mittens:

On Sunday, we ventured out bright and early to do our Christmas shopping.  The plan was to get to Boscov's at 9, since that's when they opened.  Then hit shops in the mall when it opened at 10.  The plan worked beautifully and we even mall walked in between since we had time before the mall shops opened.  Not many people there yet and we plowed through our list.  We rewarded our efficient selves with an early lunch at Five Guys.  Mmmmmmm... Five Guys.  We didn't quite finish our list but, fingers crossed, it won't be long before we do.

Speaking of Five Guys, this one was newly installed at the mall and they have this way excellent soda machine.  It is a touch screen and you can choose from 50 million coke products.  For example:  Choose the "Coke" button and you get a screen that has six types of coke (cherry, raspberry, vanilla etc....).  Same with the "Powerade" button and the "Fanta" button.  In case you were wondering, I had Cherry Coke with my lunch and Grape Fanta to go.

Also on Sunday was the Altamont Holiday Traditions day in town with lots of things going on (including Santa arriving on the train at the old train station!).  I was meeting someone at the yarn shop to help them with a project so I walked around town a bit.  I went to the Festival of Trees and voted for my favorite:

The Spinning Room's of course!  All the ornaments were knitted by Deirdre's customers.  Here is a (blurry) close-up (gotta get that photography class....):

 And there were gingerbread houses:

 And then, while I was at the shop, a group of Girl Scouts came in to do some caroling:

 Very festive weekend!

In other news, car related.....  Paul pulled the motor out of his car this weekend.  And I helped.  I worked the engine hoist and various jacks, as directed.

 This stuff always makes me nervous because everything is so big and heavy.  That engine is about 650 pounds!

Big hole in the engine compartment now.

 And now Paul will work on the engine.  Doing stuff and checking stuff and fixing stuff and replacing stuff.  Then I imagine I'll help put it back in.  I'm vital to this operation, I tell ya.

In other news knitting related, I knit up the Bandana Cowl in about 6 hours!  Really quick knit and it's great.  It's a Christmas gift, so I'm not saying who it's for.  Hopefully I'll get a picture of the recipients wearing all the knitted gifts and post them.

On the evening I finished it, I immediately gave it a soak:

 I set the timer in the kitchen so I wouldn't forget about it because I was working on mittens.  The timer went off when I was in the middle of a row or something and because it was going off for so long, Paul turned it off.  I promptly forgot all about it and kept on knitting, then went to bed!  So, apparently a 12 hour bath does not hurt because it turned out fine:

 I really can't wait to take a picture of the person wearing it because right now it just looks like underpants to me.

And, I think I've solved the problem of the Mukluk bottoms!:

This is Puffy Paint (not the Slick) by Tulip.  I did a test spot on my mukluks (which I'm not showing you because it involved peeling off some of the Slick dots and the others that are left are dusty, so you'll just have to trust me) and it turned out great.  The Puffy Paint isn't as hard as the Slick and has a little more give to it.  And this time I did it in lines, not dots, so that helps with not being able to feel it when you are wearing them.  In my opinion, you can just leave the paint to dry, and that's that.  OR, you can actually activate the "puffiness" with an iron, as directed.  I tested it both ways and it works fine.  Activating it with an iron will make the lines wider and taller.The picture above was taken just after applying the paint.  They are still drying.

Later this week, a book review of Devil in the White City!
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