Since we went to visit Cj's mentor SpearIt in Berkeley yesterday, I got a head start on some Christmas presents for his family and brought them up with me.



Puzzle ball (pattern from Last Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts) for baby, pillowcases for mom and dad. I gave his 2 year old brother a little plastic egg with sand in it cause he likes to make music, but the noise isn't so obnoxious that his mom would want to kill me after a few days with it ;) She much prefers it to the metal measuring cups he plays with now.



See? The baby's name is Krsna Kalonji, so there's a little K stitched into it.



The pillowcases - I was trying out my new (tiny) sewing machine, the
Euro-pro Dressmaker II, so they're not the best made things in the world, but didn't they turn out pretty?



This vegan cake/pudding thing I made. Posted the recipe here.

It must be this time of year - I just want to sit in a corner with some tea and sew. Or bake. In fact, I have this pumpkin crisp recipe I've been wanting to try...

Allright - some of you may have noticed that I have not sent out any Christmas Presents. This is because I wanted to make all of them, take pictures, and then give them out. Turns out, however, that I spent way too much time on each one and in fact am still working on a few. You'll get them eventually, I promise.

Anyway, here they are: From Left - Rupert, for Cj, Pirate, for Kacey, Raver, for Allison, Parisian, for Courtney, Kamijo Jr., for Ryan.

Not shown: Zom-B, for Tony, Ninja, for Joe, Dr. House Lamb, for Molly R., and a few other unfinished sheep. Joe and Tony, if you could take a few pictures of your sheep and send them to me that'd be awesome - the ones I took didn't turn out.

I've been putting off writing a holiday entry because I wasn't entirely sure what to say in it. It seems like lots has happened, but I couldn't articulate it on the page like I normally can. I'll do my best now, though, as procrastinating has never gotten me anything good.*

Christmas Eve at Cj's house was nice and low key, as hoped. We had lunch with his brother, sister-in-law, nephew and new baby neice (who both Cj and I held, with varying degrees of success), and exchanged our presents early since we'd be having Christmas Day at my parents' house. Memorable presents included a set of sock monkey-themed sheets and some pretty hand-me down earrings from Cj's mom and a sushi set for two from Cj's brother. It's too bad we couldn't all have Christmas together, or it would have been even more excellent.

As it was, Christmas with the folks was lovely, with exchanges of presents more meaningful than trivial, with a Christmas Eve dinner cooked by me and the sisters. Speaking of which, one of our presents was a cooking lesson from a chef (very educational), which we had a few days ago... hopefully I'll be able to make more than pasta and toast now. I also got a nifty little sewing machine that I've yet to try out, but I'll probably end up making some of the costumes for Prometheus on it.

New Year's was much the same as usual - traditionally we invite over this set of twins that my sisters went to school with (as well as their parents and, this time, a boyfriend and a really cool cousin) and play board games until two in the morning. As a tradition it has mixed success. Oh, they brought over their little purebred Chihuahua to play with (read: be terrorized by) Stacy. New Year's Day was fun - we slept in and I made apricot scones, then we went to theoni's parents' house and ate some excellent japanese/asian fusion type food and chilled with his friends, all of whom have senses of humor similar to Cj's (not sure if that's good or bad - they were cool, though).

Now merry_tasogare's on a plane heading back to school in Japan, tubie2006's heading back to college on Thursday, cactusstar is driving up the hill to my house, and I have a pink mole on my back that feels like a burn. Hm. Dermatologist appointment, anyone?

Still haven't figured out New Year's resolutions - I guess that'll be my next post. Night, all...


*Except maybe Cj.

... just recently returned from my house for Christmas. Was a good visit, although we did lots of running around, but that's par for the course. Christmas was good this year in terms of presents, too... it's great when people pay attention to my wishlist :)

And my dog is hacking up something. Why does she have such crazy asthma and stomach stuff? Sigh.

Worked today, so I'm pretty tired... think I'll just cop out on this entry for now.