It's hat, er THAT time of year again...

So here we are. It is December (well, actually December 5th). and my birthday is less than a week away, and Hannukah and Christmas are 20 days away- how on earth is it already here? what happens to time? Oh well, here is an update!
Lastweekend:

On Friday night I went to do Kirtan yoga with Dave Stringer- If you are into yoga and you know anything about Kirtan yoga you will be REALLY jeoulous. There were about 50 of us at the Yoga Loka Studio . We sang our little hearts out with this amazing man and his kick* percusionist for about 2 1/2 hours.

On Saturday we...
went hunting for a tree, and were successful.

had cocoa and peppermint schnapps- with marshmellows!...
had circus animal cookies and sausages from Butcher Boy's.
had warm feet (wool socks are the best as any knitter knows) but cold hands (how did I only grab one mitten??).
didn't get the 'burb stuck (like last year)

didn't forget to buy our tree cutting permit.
had dogs running all over the place but no kids.
had a great bunch of friends who just love to make this part of the tradition every year- Thanks gang. Happy Holidays!

On Sunday we put up the tree and tortured the cats. (not necissarily in that order)Lester just love Christmas time- see his spirit? He can hardly wait to get that thing off and attack all things dangly on the tree.

I still don't have a lot of ornaments, so the tree is full of silly random things including a few glow in the dark UFOs and aliens. After all, it isn't a tree unless there are glow in the dark aliens on it, Sant would never approve. I also adorned the bows with a ton of Mardi-gras beads as "garland". The tree just sparkles!
There are also some very sentimental things on the tree. There are ornaments that my mom made for my first Christmas and some that I made when I was in grade school. I have a few really special ones that my grandfather made of stained glass (I actually keep these in the kitchen window all year round so I can enjoy them all year round).

I even have packages under the tree already. One is actually for my birthday and the other is the Knitting Chicks holiday swap package-waiting patiently until the 16th for when we will all open our giftees- Looks festive!

Speaking of packages!!! Looky-looky-looky! I got this stuff in the mail today. I was going to wait until my b-day to open it up, but there is yarn involved and I knew there was yarn invovled- so it took me less then 10 minutes of thinking about it. All the while pretending like I had better mail to look over and waisting another 5 minutes to change out of my work clothes (actually that had to happen. I was at a conference today at one of the casinos and I stunk like an ashtray- yes, smoking is allowed in the casinos and no those "air filters" don't work- AT ALL).

I ripped into the bag and found 3 skiens of Adrienne Vittadini, Nadia 50% Alpaca 50% Wool, 71 yards. As well as 4 pretty stitch markers (I wasn't expected those). where did these little goodies come from???? I won the Blogs By Knitters contest a couple of days ago and this is my prize! Stop by and say hi to Rebecca and if you are interested join the Blogs by Knitters group (see the button to the right for a link).

Thank you Thank you- this is some of the nicest stuff in my stash right now! A pattern is all that I am missing now.

So, do I have anything on the sticks???
Yesssss- geesh
I got some knitting started a hat for hubby:

I also found some yarn at a good price here so I can make the Modern Bustier from the Alterknits book. I really like the pattern.

Other than that? I have just been studying for yoga - and thinking about the fact that I don't have another 'unplanned' weekend until 2006! YIKES - it is all good though.