In Which I Handle a Critical Lack of Time Without Getting Worked Up

Well.  As the last few hours of 2014 wind into the past, I'm enjoying a long weekend.  It was a rather hectic holiday season in some ways, and easy in others.  My parents generously hosted, which let me slough off on the cleaning-and-decorating part of the holidays, so I could focus on the fun bits.

So, the last weekend before Christmas, instead of  scrubbing, decorating, baking and wrapping, my husband and I took off for a weekend in New York City.  It was a trip we'd been discussing for months, but first one, then the other of us was sick and there was work and weather.   So on the Thursday evening we checked the weather report, found a hotel room and left right from work the next day to go down to Connecticut and catch the commuter rail into Grand Central Terminal.   It was a terrific trip.  We went to the Cooper-Hewitt Museum and the Natural History Museum.  We went to see the Imitation Game, which was in the first days of its release. (It's an excellent movie.  While it does take some considerable liberties with history, the changes were clearly made in order to make it a better story.  And it does a good job of presenting the spirit of the issues.  Benedict Cumberbatch's performance as Alan Turing is extraordinary.)  We went to the Strand, our favorite NYC bookstore and we walked the last stretch of the High Line, which opened this year.   Great fun,  (Yes, there was a little shopping in and amongst as well.)

Of course I took advantage of the train travel to work on the Glasgow socks, which I finished Tuesday, blocked and were dry and popped into a gift bag on Christmas morning:

Christmas Eve, I broke out the baking pans, and had a marathon cookie baking session.  Biscuit wanted very badly to help.

After removing him from my work surface several times, I finally persuaded him to sit on the pass-through between the living room and kitchen where he could see what I was doing without getting paws-on the cooking.  Any Biscuit fluff that got in the frosting was minimal and should be regarded as adding a healthy dose of fiber to the cookies.

In between cooking and waiting for cookies to be cool enough to frost, I wrapped presents.  Biscuit helped with that too, but I didn't have a hand free for the camera.

And then we had a delightful quiet family celebration on Christmas morning.

The rest of the week was spent on practicalities; work, catching up on the laundry.

(While Biscuit is white and fluffy, he was not laundered.)

I turned out my knitting bag and found another pair of mittens lurking in the depths.

And I knit yet another pair of mittens and cast on for the next socks.  The weekend following Christmas, we went out to western Mass. and I got to stop in at Webs, but that's a tale for another post, since I haven't taken photos of anything yet.

I hope your holidays were lovely, and that 2015 will be filled with many fine yarns- of the fiber and blogging variety both.  Happy crafting!