Happy Saturday

I thought I might take our tree down today, but maybe I'll let it stay just a little longer. The holidays have been so nice this year I'm not quite ready to let the tree go. In any event, most years it is my habit to take the tree down on New Years, so I'll do it then. Shana received a few fun ornaments this year, Elvis (The King) being the funniest. As an amusing aside, if you mention "The King" in Oklahoma you'd better be specific. Unless you say it's Elvis people will assume you mean Barry Switzer! The green disco ball right behind Elvis is a joke gift from Alex and Shalia. It had to immediately go right on the tree near Elvis. Santa as gondolier was a gift from Shana's mother, and a souvenir from her trip to Italy.

I'm just back from our holiday breakfast at Jim's Diner with our cycling friends. Shana had to work, so Rita was my party date. We exchanged some of our gifts and caught up on how everyone has been spending their time. We'll get together tomorrow for a birthday party/monthly potluck too. The entertainment for the day will be geocaching, which I have never done, but which sounds intriguing. A couple of us have GPS receivers, although most do not. It looks like an activity much like camping and cycling - once you have your equipment the expenditure per event is minimal. Also like cycling and camping, there is a wide range of prices for the equipment, from the basic to the astonishing. If this is fun I'll probably get a basic inexpensive GPS receiver, probably through Ebay with the monkey money in my Paypal account. I saw a few that might be manageable, if I get going and put up a couple more monkeys!

I've started on my personal knitting, finishing up some socks first (all socks, all the time). Since Rita is here this weekend I've mainly been working on simple socks that don't require my full attention: first a paid of ribbed blue Simple Stripes (in the home stretch now and speeding down the foot of the second sock), and a pair of bright Magic Stripe socks. I had intended the Magic Stripe to be a pair of Broadripple socks, but I got about three inches down the cuff before deciding that the combination of pattern and yarn was butt-ugly so I frogged it and started over with my standby 3x1 rib. I'm hoping to get some substantial progress on the Wildefoot socks and maybe even a pattern repeat of the Kimono shawl before the weekend is over.

The Wildefoot yarn I am using came up with a lot of knots, and I am happy to say the I have heard from the manufacturer who will send me replacement skeins. I'm still going to finish up the ones I have in progress - I love the color and I am in the middle of the foot in a somewhat complicated pattern. Still it is a relief to know that they will stand behind their product.