Enjoying Christmas Week!

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas on Tuesday! Our Christmas was quiet but lovely. I spent Monday baking chocolate nut loaves and listening to Christmas carols. My dh and I had a good dinner on Christmas Eve and then opened our presents to each other. Tuesday, we made our way up to New Britain with my mom to spend the day with my inlaws. We had a very nice day and another delicious dinner.

My Christmas loot can be summed up in one word - books! My inlaws gave me 3 books on sock knitting, and my dh gave me 4 crochet books and The Knitter's Book of Yarn. With the sock KAL starting up on Ravelry, I can tell already that Ann Budd's Getting Started Knitting Socks is going to be my new bible for some time to come! I also got the Knitting Pattern-a-Day calendar and 2 new CDs (not in the picture). So I have plenty of new patterns to help me knit down my stash in 2008.

Speaking of my stash, I have had one issue this week. After my marathon afghan finishing session last weekend, I felt pretty good on Monday. My right elbow hurt a little, but it wasn't bad. Then I woke up Tuesday morning to a lot of pain in both hands. So I decided that I had better give them a good rest this week, to be ready for that January challenge that's coming up. And since I'm not knitting or crocheting this week, I have decided to go ahead and inventory the stash instead. I really just wanted to get a handle on all my skeins of Simply Soft, but once I started I couldn't stop. So far, I have counted about a third of it, I think, and I am up to 33 miles or 290 skeins. I actually have 72 full skeins of Simply Soft, and lots of partial skeins as well! But I am straightening up as I go, so by the time I am finished (hopefully later today), my yarn room is going to be sparkling. The inventory is actually kind of fun. I feel like I am spending meaningful time with my stash and rediscovering it, which is great. Today, I am also going to make a comprehensive list of my WIPs as well. I may as well know how deep I am in in every way!

Of course, neither this knowledge nor the upcoming stash knitdown is going to stop me from doing one more stash buildup in 2007! Webs and Creative Fibers are both having after Christmas sales this week, so tomorrow Mom and I are going on a little road trip. There will probably be a stop at A C Moore as well. I will try to be somewhat restrained, but I can't resist sales this good. I just have to make sure I have a place to put the new acquisitions when I bring them home and not get into that "bags of yarn all over the floor" situation again, now that I have most of the bags picked up!