Happy day after Christmas!  We had such a lovely day and hope you did too, but as we were driving home last night, my husband asked, "When do we get to stop all the eating?"  Another week hon, and then we'll get back to normal, I promise. We have been suffering the ultimate holiday cliche by eating to bursting almost every day.  Sigh.  But I do have a victory of sorts to report:  I went downtown this morning to check out the day-after sales and came home with nothing. Whatever tempted me, only tempted me slightly, so it was easy to walk away. My husband cheered when I told him how I held my purse strings tight and came home empty handed.  Yay for self-restraint!

So here it is, the day after Christmas, and perhaps your house looks like mine, the bottom of a parrot cage? Maybe today you are attempting to clear out the clutter?  Tossing out the crumpled paper and tattered ribbon? I did that, but somehow the place still looks like a mess, and getting things straight just seems too overwhelming. I can't even bear to look inside the refrigerator.  I think the rest of the day will be a stay-home-and-knit day; a resting day so I can gather up energy to clean with a vengeance tomorrow.  But I must give my guy a shout out, he woke up early and cleaned the kitchen before I got up.  Big kisses to my man.

What was your favorite gift?  My favorite Christmas present was, no surprise, a big box of YARN! I have the opened box in my hallway so I can admire it whenever I walk by.  Sometimes I'll stop and pick up a skein and give it a squeeze--so much in love I am with my new yarn.  Of course I have ideas for this yarn.  Starting on the left, the 5 skeins of Rowan Creative Linen in white and beige will most likely be made into Splash by Kim Hargreaves again. I wear my pink one so much, I think a white Splash with a beige stripe or two will be perfect for next summer. On the top I have 4 skeins of Softyak DK in red and beige.  With that I will make another Candy Cane Scarf because I gave my first one away and I miss it.  Below that I have 8 skeins of a steel blue/charcoal gray Softyak DK.  It's mostly cotton with a bit of yak fiber and it's one of my new favorite yarns to knit and wear; beautifully soft and lovely drape plus it's machine washable.  To the right of that I have 4 skeins of white Rowan Super Fine Merino 4-ply, also unbelievably soft and machine washable and is destined to be a baby sweater, design undecided.  Above that is the same yarn in a soft gray, 18 skeins total for a sweater for me and extra skeins for baby sweaters.  I've added these 3 yarns to my very large "favorites list".

One more gift I love was a 23 And Me genetics testing kit.  I spit into the container and mailed it off this morning.  In a few weeks I'll know if it's true if this Scandinavian gal has some Cherokee Indian in her.  For a hundred years, now deceased members of the Tennessee part of my family, insisted we had Cherokee in our ancestry, and now I'll find out for certain. My mother's family has been in this country for hundreds of years, and while we have written family records going way back thanks to some diligent cousins, the American Indian heritage stories are only verbal, not written. Terribly exciting!

Another terribly exciting Christmas tidbit is this: my knitted gifts were all hits, no misses!  I could not be more thrilled with that.  Have a good day, and I'll see you soon.  xoxo Kristen

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