The Pause that Refreshes

I'm back from my week off, and I feel refreshed and rejuvenated! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We had a lovely day with the family on Thursday, and we had much to be thankful for. My FIL got home from the hospital last Tuesday evening and is still recovering well. He was understandably tired on Thursday, but he went and laid down when he needed to, and he was able to sit up and enjoy the entire dinner. Not bad considering he was exactly one week post-op.

Otherwise we spent a fairly low key weekend. My dh and I were both tired, and I was a little under the weather all weekend. Nevertheless, my house is considerably cleaner than it was this time last week, my laundry is caught up, and I went online Saturday morning and did quite a bit of our Christmas shopping. Granted we only buy presents for 6 family members in addition to each other, but I am still glad to have the bulk of the shopping done. Also, it looks like I won't be making Christmas presents this year, unless the spirit really moves me. After making gifts for the family for the past 6 years, I am tapped out of ideas for everyone! And I would really like the time to enjoy some of the other Christmas preparations this year, instead of just rushing through everything.

I want to assure everyone that I didn't neglect my knitting and crocheting this weekend either. I finished 4 hats, and I started another 2 last night. I also made one mitten and cast on for 2 others. I concentrated on hats over the weekend because I felt just lousy enough that I didn't trust myself not to screw up mittens. I want to see how much I can accomplish this week, and then I will post pictures in time for the end of Knit Unto Others.

So I still have one glorious day off today (working Saturday again), and my major project today is to buy Christmas gifts for the volunteers at work. I think I need in the neighborhood of 20 gifts, and I would like to get each a Christmas ornament or something seasonal. Happily, Joann's has all of their Christmas items 50% off this week, and the other craft stores in the area are having 40% off sales. So it looks like my day will be spent doing a craft store crawl. It's days like these that I truly love my job!