ensconced

Still at the farm right now — reading my new Christmas books, doing my (not-so-new) Christmas knitting, and playing with my in-laws' new-to-me kitten.


More later, when I return to my normal life.

happy Christmas!

All of the Christmas knitting is done, all of the Christmas gifts are wrapped; we are packed and ready to go.


Well, almost. I should probably leave work, first.

The plan is Ottawa tonight and tomorrow, the farm after that, and we shall return to Toronto sometime just before the new year. I shall be working on my log cabin blanket (it's coming along ... slowly), and this:


Colour-stranded mittens for me (they are Hedda Knits' Joie du Printemps mittens; the name is slightly ironic considering the season, but I suppose it gives me hope. The yarn is Spud & Chloë Fine.) I'm actually much further along than this, and I'm very pleased and excited by how well it's going (and I'm really hoping I didn't just jinx it).

So, a very merry Christmas to you, if you celebrate it, and a very happy solstice and well-earned long weekend to you, if you don't. Whichever it is, I hope your holidays are filled with lovely friends, excellent food, and wine good enough to accompany both.

killer gingerbread, take III

Oof. Today Pd woke up with a possible pinched nerve in his back, George-the-car turned out to have a flat tire, I was late for work, and it was cold, cold cold. It wasn't a bad day, exactly, but it dragged. A lot. I'm not looking terribly forward to Christmas but I am impatient for the vacation that comes after. To me, the best part about Christmas is how everything sort of stops for two weeks — work slows down (as everyone is on vacation), normal activities like team sports suspend for the season, and everybody is just that extra bit friendlier. (Well, almost everyone. Sworn nemeses get bitchier.)

I also like the gifts. It's not the trend to say so, in these austere times, but I like getting prezzies. I like seeing what other people think I might like, or discovering things I never knew existed. Those are my criteria for choosing gifts for other people. I don't care for the consumption part of it, but being forced to think deeply about other people, and showing that you care — even if, sometimes, it is with consumer goods — that can't be all bad, can it?

Anyway. To the gingerbread houses!

In line with my habit of overpreparing, if somewhat preposterously, for everything, we went to Bulk Barn and bought extra candy for the kits. I subsequently divided them into five roughly equal boxes:


Offhand, they had mint chocolate chips, red and green "Christmas" Smarties, jelly beans, Reese's pieces, sugar-free jujubes, Licorice All Sorts, and miniature candy canes. The black boxes are take-out containers from Spring Rolls. (The glass one is because we didn't have enough — we'd gotten rid of our old containers in the move, and I had forgotten to stockpile them through the year.) I was — as always — a little bit worried about whether or not we had enough candy. To give you an idea of how utterly naïve that was ... I still have about 80% of the candy sitting in my house. (One box wasn't used at all, and I consolidated all of the others.)

First up: the children's house (one of two, but I didn't get a picture of the other before it was given away, with gratitude, to one of the parents). Pd and I are of the age now where our friends have toddlers, and this year they were old enough to participate (with adult supervision, of course):


Adult supervision turned out to have been necessary, because when our friends are in parent-mode, they read instructions. When left to their own devices, they ... well. Don't.

When they say that the icing must set for 10 minutes, they're not joking around
Or, they revert to frat boys (and girls).



Meanwhile, a friend of ours chose a smaller canvas:


He later flattened and moulded a piece of caramel into a vest/cardigan (which I regret we did not get a picture of, but by the time I realised we had missed it, the snowman had started melting). It found an appropriate home as the guardian of the requisite "perfect" house:


Sadly, I only contributed very little this year — I was too busy in the kitchen, and then in the drink. (Let's be honest, here.) But I think they did an excellent job without me. I especially like the marshmallow "smoke."

Of course, all parties have a morning after, and this is what we faced on ours:


It's not as bad as it looks, although getting frosting off the extra-long dining table is exactly as bad as it sounds.

my problem is not the lack of preparation.

We had our annual gingerbread house-decorating party this weekend — although, as Pd pointed out, this time it was less of a gingerbread-decorating party than a party that happened to have an overabundance of candy in it. Nonetheless: there was gingerbread, there was the killer eggnog, and there was panic in the kitchen. That's about par for the course.

Because I am me, I made a schedule for the food, including how long things should be in the oven, and what order they should go in, and approximate times for everything. I printed it all very neatly onto Post-Its and stuck them to my cookbook holder in the kitchen:


I felt very secure and proud that this year, everything would be happy in the kitchen — people would not take the killer eggnog on an empty stomach, and there would be no traffic jam at the oven at 9 o'clock, caused by drunk and ravenous partyers trying to cram as many boxes of frozen appetizers into the oven as possible. It was going to be good.

The reality was a little ... different. To whit, Pd and I had the following conversation about an hour into the party:

Me: (somewhat in dispair) I had this whole schedule, and now it's just full of crap.
Pd: I know, sweetie.
Me: CRAP!
Pd: Your schedule was completely unrealistic.
Me: Then why didn't you say something when I showed it to you yesterday?
Pd: I didn't want to discourage you.

Bah. But, to show you what he meant, and because I like to document the full extent of my own massive fail whenever possible, this is what I served:

1. Home-made pizza, cut into small slices
2. Smoked salmon and smoked tuna, on cream cheese and toasted baguette
3. Panini sandwiches
4. Bruschetta (ditto)
5. Roasted garlic (with bread)
6. Bacon-wrapped sausages
7. Standard cheese and pate plate
8. Baked brie (camembert, actually) with phyllo and chutney

And this is what I have the ingredients for in my refrigerator (or freezer), having run out of time to actually make them:

9. Meatballs
10. Crab cakes
11. Garlicky shrimp with vermouth
12. Chocolate fondue
13. The other baked brie

I made everything from scratch, except for the meatballs. That may have been a tactical error. I had a lot of help — some volunteered, some conscripted — but apparently trying to push the first 7 items out of my kitchen, within two and a half hours, while hosting, was somewhat unreasonable. Or so I was told (you know, after my attempt. Not before).

It is not easy being a foodie host. *sadface*

I will post pictures of the gingerbread houses tomorrow. I need to go recover what little of my poise is left.

priorities

Okay, this is stupid. Instead of madly knitting for the three mothers-in-law (er — one of them is not mine) or the friend who is suddenly joining us for Christmas and therefore needs a present, I'm going to knit for the woman who actually gave birth to me. I think, considering all of the stories she loves to tell about how horrible the experience was, that it's only fair.

I'm still pissed that knitting for myself didn't make the cut. I have a pile of socks and mittens and a sweater that I could have, but don't. Who decides this crap?

Oh. Right.

cancelling Christmas

I am still sick. It's a little bit insane. I have spent the last week literally unable to summon the energy to do anything more strenuous than lying on the sofa in the den (now, literally, a den like a fox's, all comfy-cosy with a blanket fort burrowed by yours truly). I think I am a bit better today, but am taking it slowly — I thought I was better last week, too, and tried to go about my normal activites (like work), and ... let's just say that it didn't turn out well.


As such, I'm not doing Christmas cards this year. I kept thinking I was going to be able to — but I've lost two weekends to this dratted flu, and I don't foresee having the time to do them in time for the Christmas mail. I firmly believe in doing things properly if they're to be done at all, and at this late date, there's simply no time — there's still quite a bit of calligraphy and other finishing left to do. So: I beg my friends' indulgence, but for now, no fancy-pants Christmas cards this year.

Honestly, I would cancel Christmas in its entirely, if I could. I am suffering from an acute lack of imagination right now: I can't see myself having the energy to deal with it all, despite its being a fortnight away. Luckily, we made the decision early this year to do very few gifts, so the shopping is almost entirely done and not at all stressful. I wish I could say the same thing about the Christmas knitting, though. I have been knitting this:


My garter-stitch blanket, which is lovely and comfy and cosy, but isn't Christmas knitting. I have not felt up to the tiny needles and complex cables — which is a problem, because now I have just over a week to finish off a mitten knit on 2.25mm needles, and I am not entirely convinced that I'm capable of it. Which I guess makes this traditional Christmas knitting, after all.

just what the doctor ordered

It's always a good day when I get a box of yarn in the mail.


My first yarn order from WEBS — two skeins each of Cascade EcoWool in black and grey, and one skein each of Spud & Chloë Fine, in Lizard and Popcorn. I've squooshed the Spud & Chloë before — there is 20% silk in it, so it's super soft — and I've heard really good things about it, so I'm looking forward to playing with it. I am thinking intarsia mittens.

The EcoWool is slated for the rest of the Moderne Log Cabin Blanket that I started last spring — I stopped knitting it because I ran out of yarn. I've been really cold, as I've mentioned, so a heavy wool blanket sounds heavenly right about now — especially since I am home today thanks to being utterly flattened by the flu, and straight garter stitch is about as complicated as I can handle right now.

now that's more like it

thermostat troubles

Is it perverse of me to be a little bit jealous of all the snow that Europe has been getting, or it is just insane? (I'm also willing to entertain the possibility that it is both.) It has been sporadically snowing big, fat, fluffy snowflakes every day this week — with the notable exception of Tuesday, when it just rained, heavily and depressingly, all day — but none of it has stuck. I suppose it's only a matter of time, and supposedly we are going to get all the snow we can handle come January and February, but I'm inpatient. I like snow. And my house could use the extra insulation, I think.

Speaking of which — so could I. I just have not gotten used to the cold yet. This is the first year we've had control of our thermostat — we had radiators in the old apartment, and no control over them — so we've set it up for a supposedly toasty 19°C. Of course, it turns out that 19° is not toasty. (And don't tell me to put on a sweater: I'm a knitter. I have already deployed the wool.) But I have also staunchly refused to allow Pd to turn the thermostat up — even a degree — because I think my body needs to learn to cope with the cold. I refuse to burn extra fossil fuel so that my body can pretend it's still early fall. I have Principles, damn it.

Luckily, thanks to the One of a Kind Show (more about that in the next post), I also have really cute (and really ridiculous) cold-weather accessories:

Stitch used for display purposes only.
(And yes: sometimes, I think my principles are stupid. But I am in thrall to them anyway.)

(temporary) snow!

This is what I woke up to on Saturday morning:


(Except that it was slightly more impressive than this; I took this in the memorial parkette near climbing, and it had melted very quickly). But, you see? The One of a Kind show means Christmas, and Christmas means winter, and winter means snow, so voilà: snow. Don't y'all yell at me all at once. I warned you it was coming.

Of course, the best way to deal with cold and snow (and après climbing) is to have a nice, hearty brunch. (The Guinness was Pd's. He has English roots; he takes this whole business of pub brunch much more to heart than I do.)


Speaking of climbing, on Monday night I did about half (say, 20 feet) of a 5.12b. I am extraordinarily proud, and my fingers were in extraordinary pain. I am noting this here because it may be a feat I am doomed never to repeat.