End of Year Roundup

I can't believe it's been two weeks since my last post, but (obviously) there's been a lot going on.

Adam and I went to my parents' in Pittsburgh from 12/22-25. We drove - well, Adam did all the driving, both ways, which was very very nice for me which took us 6 hours over and about 5 3/4 coming back, even including stops. I knitted the whole way over and as much of the way back as we had daylight for. I was working on socks made with some Sundara sock yarn; here's the first one:



For Christmas Adam gave me a spinning wheel, which I knew about but didn't open until the morning we were going to drive over to Pittsburgh. I gave him a knife skills class and an interesting collection of comics by Winsor McCay (aka Silas). I read about it on BoingBoing and felt it was a good choice for him. I think he was kind of mystified about it, but he liked it. And, of course, the custom knitted gloves were his other present. He has shown them off to family and friends and it's very sweet and makes me feel glad I made them. For me they were "merely" an interesting knitting challenge, but I can see they are very important to him, and I'm glad.

When we got home from my parents Adam put the spinning wheel together and we both tried it out. He was pretty good at it as well. Here's me starting to learn how to spin:


I worked the rest of the week, but it was pretty mellow because few coworkers were around. As a consequence I actually got a lot done on some things that I needed quiet time to get done, specifically coding which is too hard to do with people interrupting you all the time.

And now we're in the long weekend at the year's end. Adam's sister and her husband and son came up from Virginia, and we have been hanging out with them a lot. Also his other sister came up from south Jersey. Last night we all played Cranium. I find that I am such a good sport when my team is winning, and I have a harder time being really nice about it when we are not. What a shock!

Tonight we are going over to Adam's pals H&R's for dinner, and I am bringing a cake, which I made last night and frosted today. It's an Alton Brown recipe for Gold [i.e., yellow] Cake and Cocoa Whipped Cream frosting. I sifted some cocoa over the top after I frosted it. I am not a huge cake-maker, but I think this looks real pretty. I will have to get a little dressed up to match the cake.



After dinner we'll come back home and Adam's sister and family will be back and we'll have champagne or sparkling cider and maybe popcorn and movies or something. I am looking forward to ringing in the New Year. Doing nothing tomorrow but knitting and watching Adam play video games.