Where Did the Day Go?

Well, before I get to that question, I've been wanting to share a photo of our little tree. Everyone else seems to have these tall trees in their big, expansive living rooms. Not us. Expansive was kind of hard to come by in these parts in the 1650's, so space (as I've mentioned many times before) is at something of a premium. Behold.



Yes, the tree is 4 feet tall and on top of the dog crate. We actually managed to fit 16 or so guests in this house on Saturday for a holiday party. All at the same time, even. There was another holiday party going on in our little village that night, but I'm sure theirs was nowhere near as fabulous or fun.

Anyway, back to today. I had just a few things planned for the day - write a standard-issue holiday letter to go with our standard-issue photo holiday cards, go to the post office to get holiday stamps to send said cards and letters, buy gift boxes for the gifts for nieces and nephews (the last of which is finished save darning in ends), drive over to get yarn cards from Debbie Gremlitz of Nordic Fiber Arts (who lives so close that it would be silly for her to mail stuff to me), take the bus down to Logan airport in Boston to pick up my brother's kids as they flew in for the holidays, and ... something ... something else.

Everything moved along at a reasonable pace and it was generally a good day, particularly since these arrived in the mail (We're now officially DP'd!):



Then at about 4PM, when I took a bit of a break and started to read Carol's post mentioning a stomach bug, when I had "holy shit!" moment and realized that the something else was getting my flu shot at my doctor's office. So I stopped reading and rushed out of the house so that I could get that taken care of before I stood in line forever at the post office for stamps.

Then I came home for a little while before having to rush out of the house again to get the yarn cards before I had to rush to the bus station to catch the 8PM bus to the airport, so that I could get there before my niece and nephew arrived and not make the flight crew wait around for me to sign for them (Unaccompanied minors, at least in this instance, are indeed precious cargo, but it still seems odd to have to sign for possession of them).

David, meantime, had a very stressful day and had not understood that I would be spending most of my evening running around. When he realized as I was headed out the door that we would not, in fact, be able to have a leisurely evening together, it prompted a near-breakdown. Then my brother called, and I was forwarding calls to my phone to the cell phone, which gets no reception at the house, necessitating calling him back to make sure I wasn't missing any crucial information about the kids' flight. So after several kisses (to David, plus feeling badly about needing to rush out) and a hurried call to my brother (nothing new, just confirmation that they'd gotten their flight okay), I ran out the door rather a bit later than planned, but still managed to make it everywhere I needed to be.

Nordic Fiber Arts

I had been to the website for this little company before but hadn't given it much thought for a while until Norma's recent post about the frostrosen mitten kit she bought from them (Actually, "them" is just Debbie, I believe, but I wanted to avoid pronoun-antecedent confusion). On top of that, Debbie is, near as I can tell, about the only, if not the only, distributor in the US for the Hifa 2* yarn used in the Tiffany mitten pattern in the latest issue of Knitty.

So what with all the mitten patterns, it got me thinking that mittens would be good to work on for Xmas presents next year. And because they don't take up huge amounts of yarn, I'm also thinking I could do duplicates of each pair I make and donate them to Dulaan. Anyway, I contacted Debbie and arranged to go by and pick up yarn cards for all the yarns she carries so I'd have a good point of reference for making color decisions. I found her (and her yarns) to be very nice, so I'd certainly recommend her as a source for some nice Scandinavian yarns (and patterns, and kits, and buttons, and embroidered trim) and intend to put together an order of my own in the near future.

Tomorrow's Big Excitement

I don't think I've really blogged about this to any extent, but tomorrow is going to be a big day. I'll be going in to work at my usual time, but I won't be going to the same place. It's the same job at the emergency clinic, but I will be working the very first shift when we open our brand spanking new, multi-million dollar facility, just a mile down the road from the old clinic.

This move has been in the works for about a year now, but I only walked through the new building for the first time last week. It's huge, and I love it already. I'm especially excited about our new digital x-ray system, particularly as the film unit we had at the old place was old when I first worked there over 11 years ago, but also because it represents a quantum leap forward in image quality and technological capability.

I'm sure that tomorrow night will be a bit frantic, as there's no way we'll manage to have everything unpacked and in its place (not to mention the fact that I won't know where everything is supposed to be in the first place) before we open the doors, but it's going to be exciting, nonetheless. And I promise there shall be pictures.

*Debbie wasn't aware of the Tiffany pattern and had been planning to stop carrying the Hifa 2. She says, though, that the Rauma Finullgarn, which she carries, is a good substitute for the Hifa 2 and is actually a softer yarn. Having had a chance to evaluate the yarn cards for both, I definitely agree - finullgarn does mean "fine wool yarn", after all. Additionally, both are the same price, and the Finullgarn comes in 20 more colors than Hifa 2.