Beginning 2008

It is December 31st and I'm relaxing before all the family comes over to ring in the new year. I cannot tell you what anxiety I experience when I pack for these trips. The first 20 miles of our drive to the airport when we left was on a sheet of ice, but the weather report said that we would have a high temperature of 65 degrees in SoCal. The problem is that I don't remember what 65 degrees feels like or what clothes are comfortable in it. I did finish reading the book I'm holding, and I did start the book on my lap.

Ian and SIL are taking a turn in the sun. While we were there, we went to the theater to see Juno (very funny!) and Sweeny Todd (very memorable, very bloody!) as well as watched The 40-Year-Old Virgin (funny!) from Netflix. All of Ian's kids came for New Years Eve, and then we drove to Gardenia to spend New Years Day with old friends that have stayed connected since high school. We ate a lot and we drank a lot, and with all the travel, I knitted a lot.
You would think that for all the time I had to knit, I would have more than one sock, but I was a big smarty pants and decided to make my own sock using the Little Arrowhead lace pattern from a Harmony Guide. I unknitted as much as I knitted, and now that I'm on the second sock, I am very sick to death of this pattern.

As Dorothy so famously said, there's no place like home, and I'm so glad to be here. I also thought of Red Skelton when he would say, I just flew in from Miami and boy are my arms tired! Well, I just flew in from Ontario and...., you get my drift.

Southwest lost one of Ian's bags, and while he was filing his claim, I sat and knitted. I was pleasantly surprised when my friend Lisa stopped to say hi. She was picking up our friend Hazel who was flying in after a visit to Spokane. I haven't seen either of them since last May at the Virginia City Retreat. Little surprises like that are just the best kind.