Wai-ter, I Would Like The Pe-Can Piiiiie

What a busy few weeks it's been! Turkey day went off without a hitch. We deep-fried our turkey for the first time, and our house didn't burn down so I'm calling it a success. I make pecan pie a la Mark Bittman and it was fantastic. It was thickened with eggs and a little bit of sugar as opposed to the traditional glop of corn syrup so it had a wonderful nutty flavor instead of being sickeningly sweet like others I've tasted.

Just before going in the oven

My mother and father-in-law celebrated with us, and she taught me how to make her pumpkin rolls, which was really fun, and not as intimidating as I thought it would be. The trick? Turn it out immediately and roll it in a tea towel to cool. You know I would have waited for it to cool and then you'd find me hours later crying and cursing the cracked and crumbling mess as I tried to roll it. 

I listed my java jackets on etsy again, and have sold 18 so far! It's been fun to experiment with embellishments and textures, which is a good thing because if I was just doing the plain stockinette ones all the time....YAWN!

I made a cute pair of mittens, and modified the thumbs so that they can be peeled back for texting. They're modeled after the mittens Bella wore in the first Twilight movie.

I am also super excited that my licensing for the Pepperberry Knits Hannah and Josie Newsboys is complete, so I can now make them for re-sale. They are a super fun and relatively quick (don't laugh, Michele) project that was intimidating initially because of the steps (namely a brim with interfacing...seriously, it doesn't take much to make me doubt my abilities), but have been simplified by the designer by picking up stitches instead of seaming. I started on one for my friend last night, and the band is complete. My camera isn't picking up colors as well as I'd like, but you get the gist. I'm calling it Sublime in Lime on my ravelry project list.

Big J and I are interviewing a baby-sitter tonight so that we can attend our first 'professional' Christmas party, and I'm pretty excited. Hopefully she doesn't turn tail and run, because I've already bought a cute dress, I'm going to the trouble of mopping the floors just before she comes over so that she doesn't leave with fur boots and I might even take the time to clear the gourds from our front porch that have gone from decorative to decomposing almost overnight.

Locked and Loaded is done and blocked and I'm seriously considering keeping it for myself...we'll see...

Lastly, I'm starting Game On! again today with my bestie so that we can be happy with our Hawaii pictures. May the force be with me. My running group from Worcester started up again, so I've been following their program from afar. So not the same thing, but motivating nonetheless. I'm starting to think seriously about a full marathon this Spring or early summer prior to getting pregnant again. I really want the cool 26.2 tattoo that my running mates got on their arches after completing the Cape Cod marathon in October. Oh, and I want the amazing sense of accomplishment, too, of course!