Confession Time

I have a confession to make....I've not been knitting much in the past week. I know, that's pretty unusual for me, beccause generally when I'm sittin', I'm knittin'.

But, a new toy has been getting in the way for the last few days. I bought myself an early Christmas present: a nifty little netbook! And, as you know, it takes awhile to get a new computer set up to suit yourself. It's been fun deciding what programs I wanted to download, which ones I probably wouldn't use, d
eleting the bloatware that came with it, upgrading the RAM. Fun!

So, by the time I had it pretty well set up the way I wanted, a terrible cold caught me unaware and I've been feeling just generally yucky. I've knit a bit on a pair of plain vanilla socks and a bit more on a scrunchable scarf I keep in the basket by my recliner.

But mostly I've sipped Alka Seltzer Cold tablets on the rocks and dozed in the recliner after work until time to go to bed. What an exciting life I lead! *L*

I did want to tell you, though, a little tale about one of the things I knitted recently.

Yesterday was our Christmas luncheon at the office. It's always a nice party, always held at one of the nice local establishments. One of the annual traditions is a "Mean Santa" exchange where we take something funny or hideous (preferably both!) and draw numbers to decide in what order the gifts are to be selected. It's always fun, and we have a good time.

I hadn't planned to attend the luncheon this year because we were waiting to get a surgical schedule for Mom's AAA repair at the time they were getting the guest list together. I'd had a little item tucked away in the closet to take to the Mean Santa exchange, but figured I'd just save it for next year.

As it turned out, Mom's surgery got scheduled for the 20th, and the event organizer had kept me on the list just in case it worked out that I could go. However, since I didn't know until yesterday morning that I was going, my hideous little Mean Santa gift was at home in the closet. So, I looked around the office for something to take for the exchange.

I looked up at my knitted Christmas lights hanging from my bulletin board and decided those would be great. (Gifts don't have to be hideous; cute is okay, too. *LOL*) My friend said that I shouldn't take them because they were too cute to give away.

I said, "You know it's funny about knitting things for myself. Sometimes by the time I've finished knitting them, I've looked at them enough!" So I asked if she happened to have a gift bag I could stick them in. She rummaged in a drawer and came up with a birthday bag in a spring-like theme that even had a piece of yellow tissue paper tucked into it. I said that the rustic wrapping would make it "mean" enough for the exchange.

Happily, the co-worker who got it was a crocheter/knitter who'd already admired the lights when they were hanging in my office and realized they were hand-knitted and was very appreciative of them. In fact, another co-worker who had a later number in the exchange "robbed" them from her! They were a HIT!

And even though I must now knit myself another set before next holiday season, I know that my hand-knit Christmas lights have a good home.

Of course, I remembered this evening that I'd never photographed them for my Ravelry page. Oh, well. They were cute. Trust me. :-)