Ready and waiting...

...to be decorated:

....for cold, frozen ground:

This is what happened when Paul tried to put the trailer away for the winter.

Paul and I met our friends at the Red Lion Inn for lunch over the weekend.  Meet Elaine (aka "Sticky Fingers") and Steve (aka "The Surveyor"):

They are so much fun and we always have a great time when we see them.  I first met Elaine back in 1995 when we worked at the CT Dept of Children and Families.  And Steve is a land surveyor in CT, so if you live in CT and need a surveyor call Hodge LLC!.  More on Elaine's nickname soon....  

The Red Lion Inn is halfway between us so it's a great place to meet up and keep in touch.  Plus, Stockbridge, MA is beautiful this time of year.  The Inn, goes all out with their decorating.

And, one of Elaine's favorite things are the free spiced gumdrops in the lobby (hence one reason for her nickname....):

We had a nice lunch and I got to open a birthday present from Elaine and Steve.  Some yummy smelling cranberry candle things and..... as I was digging around in the gift bag, Elaine suddenly said, "Oh wait! you can't take that one out because it's stolen!"  What the heck????   In actuality, while it was stolen, it was for a really good and sentimental reason (which makes it ok).  Almost five years ago when Paul and I got married at the Inn....

In case you needed a reminder picture.

...Elaine took a spoon from the table to give to us on our 1st anniversary.

But she forgot.  If you look really closely, you can see a little stamp on the end of the spoon with a lion and "The Red Lion Inn" on it.  And that's the real reason for her nick name.

After lunch we shopped around and walked around town.  Check out this book we saw:

And Steve found this:

.... which is an:

I loved, Loved, LOVED that band!!!!!  One summer when I was 14-ish and we went to Cape Cod on vacation, and we listened to the High Infidelity tape the whole time.  My mom, my sister and I knew all the words to all the songs.

Then we went back to the Red Lion Inn for hot cider:

A wonderful day with good friends.  Can't wait to meet up with them again.

Meanwhile, on the trip there and back, I worked on my Daybreak shawl:

And the next day I finished it!  Here it is being blocked:

Then, that same day I started the Encompass cowl, which will be another class I will teach at the shop in January.  And I finished that this morning!:

Don't even think about it Pheobe! (she wants to snooze on it)

I'm hoping to have a book review for you soon....

And for those of you who didn't see it on Facebook, check out this picture:

Love. It.

Thanksgiving Weekend (whew!)

A great Thanksgiving weekend!  We had a yummy meal at my mother-in-law's (with my mom too!), a great visit with Paul's brothers and their families (including the twins at their first Thanksgiving), a successful trip to the mall on black Friday (more on that later) and a whirlwind trip to New Jersey on Sunday.

Yes, you read that right.  We went to New Jersey, for the day, on Sunday.  The Sunday at the end of the busiest travel holiday weekend of the year.  It was the last drag racing event of the year for Paul, usually scheduled two weeks earlier but postponed for some reason.  Leading up to the trip, I kept asking Paul if he was sure he wanted to go.  Because, you know, the traffic could be (read:  will most assuredly be) horrendous.  He said "yes" every time I asked.   I must have asked a few times too many because he eventually said, "You don't have to go with me, you know." But,  he wasn't going with Rob and it was a 4 hour car ride (on a good, non-holiday-horrendous-traffic day) and I wanted to keep him company.  I just didn't want us both to be miserable when we got stuck in traffic at the end of  long day of racing.

So..... off we went very very very very very early in the morning:

 The trip down to Atco was entirely pleasant.  No. Traffic. At. All.  We got there in the expected 4 hours.

It was "Buick vs. Ford Day"

Unfortunately, Paul was having trouble with his timing and was out in the first round so we were back on the road by 2:30pm.

So, I guess his unfortunate-ness was sort of fortunate for our driving situation.  We took some alternate routes to avoid the New Jersey Turnpike (drove through some scary parts of Trenton, but the beautiful town of Princeton) and some accidents closer to home, so we made it home in 5 hours, by 7:30pm.  Not bad really.  All that belly-aching and whining and worrying for nothing. What else is new?

And did you know there is a Mercerville, NJ (in Mercer county!)?:

I have no idea why these things thrill me - probably because I never saw my last name anywhere when I was growing up.

One of the things I like about going to the races with Paul is that there is usually lots of down time for knitting and reading.  So I worked on another pair of Christmas Mukluks.

AND, I read my newly acquired Nook!

I got the bare bones version which happened to be $20 off on black Friday only -- and I used my birthday money.  Hence, a trip to the mall that I swore I was not going to do on black Friday.  We went at around 4pm, which was apparently a good time to go, as there were no lines at all in Barnes and Noble.  I had done my research so I knew what I wanted and I was in the store all of 5 minutes!

And I LOVE. IT.  It is very light and the screen is big enough and it's so portable (fits right in the pocket of my knitting bag) and great.  Of course, I had to purchase a book so I got the most recent Janet Evanovich book:  Explosive Eighteen: A Stephanie Plum Novel (Stephanie Plum Novels)  --- that's the link to the physical book.  Here is a link to an e-reader version:Explosive Eighteen: A Stephanie Plum Novel  Loving the book - very fun, funny and exciting as always.  And the saga of Stephanie choosing between Morelli and Ranger continues. [Jan, I'm going to figure out how to lend this to you since you lent me the last one!  Hey, you can borrow my Nook!]

In knitting news, I'm on my 4th pair of Mukluks, which is my final pair, since I revised my plan --- I realized the babies would not keep them on their feet.  So I'm making them thumb less mittens that have the string between them so you can put it through their coat and they won't fall off and get lost.  Like this:

  The pattern is in 60 Quick Baby Knits, which has a million (ok, only 60) great patterns in it for babies and toddlers.  I think I will be using it a lot for my new niece and nephew, but also two new cousins. You can get it at The Spinning Room! And there are many small projects that would be quick to knit  for the holidays.

However, all that is being put on hold since I need to knit a shawl for a January class I'll be teaching. Have to get the sample knit up and down to the yarn shop asap so people will see it and sign up.  It will be the Daybreak by Stephen West.  That's a link to the pattern but here is a picture:

Pretty, don't you think? Mine is also going to be purple-y (of course) but it will also have some light and dark blues and teals in it).  I have a tonal purple and a self striping yarn:

*This is NOT what the colors look like in real life. I really need that digital photography class...

I think it will be great. WIP (Work In Progress) pictures to come.... but beware, I'll be knitting it really fast so the pictures might be blurry.  Ha!

Finally, a few pics of the car.  Just because I was trying to be creative: