My Trip in Pictures

Well, I am finally safely back in Alaska from my trip home to Ohio for the holidays.  I arrived relatively unscathed, even though I got stranded in Sitka for a night because of freezing fog in Juneau prevented us from landing there.  But I got to meet some cool people who were also stranded and I actually flew into Skagway 3 hours before I would have if I had taken the ferry as planned.  So it all worked out and I got a jump start on my 5 days of "vacation after vacation" before I have to go back to work on Monday!

Although I took waaaayyyyy fewer pictures on this trip than my Ohio trip in October, I still have about a billion images of the last three weeks.  Although I would love to show you all of them, I'm sure you have way better things to do with your time than look at photos of people you don't know.  And I have way better things to do than upload them all, so I have selected a few of my favorites to show you.

A few days after I arrived, we went to the zoo to see the Christmas lights.  The zoo didn't disappoint and it was absolutely beautiful.  Of course, this photo doesn't really do it any justice.

Jackson enjoyed seeing all the animals while it was still daylight.  Here he is looking adorable with a big tiger statue (the real tiger was a little freaky and liked licking his lips at Jackson way too much.)

Jackson wasn't quite sure what to think of Santa. Hey, at least there were no tears!

But he did like petting the snake!

Here I am (on the left) posing with Jackson and my sister before it got dark.

A few days after the zoo was Christmas at my grandma's.  When I was little this was always my favorite part of Christmas:  playing with my cousins, opening gifts, and eating good food.  It's a little different now that we're all grown up, but having Jackson there this year brought back some much needed Christmas magic.

Here's the little man in the middle of the action.

Here I am with my mama playing one of many rounds of the traditional after dinner bingo.

I was so excited to be home for Jackson's first Christmas.  We all knew it would be special.  He was so fun that morning, even if he cared more about a twenty cent balloon than all of his other gifts.

My brother was so excited that my mom ordered a tur-duck-hen for the Christmas meal.  He has been obsessed with them for years.  I wasn't impressed, but he sure did like cutting into it to see what all was inside.

Apparently the day after Christmas is 'Gun Day' in the Haas household.  This is when my dad gets out a few of the guns in his closet and we shoot at water-filled jugs.  Kind of a weird tradition, but my brother and brother-in-law look forward to it.

And, to cap off my whole trip, I was able to be in Ohio for Jackson's first birthday.  This kid really doesn't know what to do with all of the attention he gets.  He's seriously the center of our world.  Here are a few pics of that special day.

Jackson loves his Grandpa.  I love how he tilts his little head here. So cute.

But after all of this excitement and activity, I was really glad to get back home.  This is a shot of Juneau as I flew in the other morning.

Don't get me wrong.  I was sooooo sad to leave Ohio (and may have bawled my eyes out at the airport when I left *ahem*), but am glad to be safely back in my cozy little house and settled in for a long winter of knitting!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It's All Over But the Eating

Well, Christmas morning has come and gone once again.  All of the presents have been unwrapped and lay in piles on the floor.  Jackson isn't quite sure what to think of everything, but we managed to get this really cute picture of him under the tree.

All week when we asked Jackson if Santa was coming, he would get make this really big surprised face (just like above) and get really excited.  We were hoping that he would save up some of that excitement for Christmas morning.  He didn't disappoint, although he really didn't understand what was going on.  He just loved tearing up the wrapping paper.  His favorite thing was a twenty cent balloon.  If we would have known that, it would have saved us all a lot of time and money!

My knitterly thing of the day is the gift my brother got me.  He continually surprises me with how much of an adult he's come to be.  When I left for Alaska in 2002, Alex was just starting high school.  In my mind, since I've been away so long, he's still that age.  But he's grown up and will be finishing college next year and moving off to Texas for his first real job in chemical engineering.  He's a smart cookie.

I've had my eye on The Book of Wool for awhile now.  I've even tried to win it in a few blog giveaways but to no avail.  So I was pleasantly surprised when I unwrapped my brother's gift and there it was!

It will be great plane reading on the flight home and much inspiration for future projects and designs. 

Now it's time to eat up all the food that my mom has been preparing and sit back and wait for all of the visitors to trickle in throughout the day.  Maybe I'll FINALLY get to knit.  I haven't had the chance lately and I'm actually getting quite cranky about it!  I think I'll settle in with some egg nog and get some more of the stealth scarf done.  I gave up on the elf booties, as it got to be too late last night to finish them.  I'll have them finished for next year for sure, as well as another pair for Jackson's little brother or sister that will be coming along in July!

That's right.  Jackson better enjoy having this Christmas all to himself, because next year there will be another little one to steal his thunder!  But for now, he's our one-of-a-kind cutest little snowflake.

I hope you all enjoy your day!

Merry Christmas!

As you may know,  I am currently at my parents' house in Ohio visiting my family for the holidays.  It's the first time I've been home for Christmas since 2003 and it's a long overdue holiday visit.

I arrived home nearly two weeks ago and that time has gone by in a blur of holiday activity and visiting friends.  I can't believe I head back to Alaska in just a few days!  But in the meantime, Christmas is tomorrow (!) and my amazingly adorable nephew's birthday is on Monday, so there's still a lot of visiting left to do!

It's been so nice to be a part of everything this year, as opposed to hearing about it from thousands of miles away.  Here is a shot of Christmas Central, where Santa's elves (aka my mom and sister, as well as myself) were hard at work wrapping presents. We've finished them all and everything is now safely under the tree.

When I was home in October, I took nearly 1200 pictures, mostly of the little man since it was the first time I met him and I was so overly excited.  I've not been nearly as crazy about photographing everything this time around, however I have caught some of the action on camera.

Here are a couple of my favorite shots from my visit so far:

These are the Christmas boots at my grandma's house that belonged to my Dad and his brothers when they were little. My grandma still sets them out every year, even though her boys are now in their fifties and sixties, and she still leaves them a little surprise as well.

And here are my parents' ice skates from their younger days when it actually got cold enough for ice to form on the local ponds.  Now they hang in the basement as a vintage decoration.

Happy Holidays to everyone! 

Jackson Meets His Bear Hat

Well, after nearly two solid days of travel, I finally made it to Ohio late yesterday afternoon.  I am SO glad to not be in an airport or on a ferry.  And I'm especially glad to be with my family this Christmas.  It's been a while.

Of course, the first thing I did when I flew in yesterday was head to Indiana with my mom to see the little man.  We spent the night and then brought Lib and Jackson back with us since Todd has to work all week and I wanted to spend as much time with Jackson as possible.

And the second thing I did was whip out Jackson's Aviator Bear Hat (blogged about here a couple weeks back) to see if it fit his head.  I honestly thought that the hat was going to be way too big, but I forget that our family produces larger-than-average size children so I was surprised to see that it fit perfectly!

He looks rather frightened here doesn't he?  Well, maybe that was because there was a crazed woman following him around with a camera trying to get that one perfect photo for a certain blog you might be reading right now.  It's not the best picture (he's gotten a heckuva a lot more mobile since the last time I saw him and I couldn't get him to stand still), but it's cute nonetheless.

In other knit news, I officially threw in the towel on a couple WIPs that I was trying to get done before Christmas.  The big one being Jackson's Christmas stocking.  I feel like I let the little guy down since he won't have a handmade stocking this year.  But I still have faith that I'll be able to crank out a pair of elf booties for him.  Now I just need to make a quick run to Hobby Lobby (since it's only 30 minutes away and not 3,000 miles away!) and buy some feltable wool in festive holiday colors. 

I'm headed to Columbus on Wednesday with my friend Molly (of Fall Festival of Leaves float-hopping fame) to do some mall walking and Christmas light viewing.  I fully expect to be completely overwhelmed at the people, sights, and sounds but I'm really looking forward to it. I haven't been near a mall during the holidays since 2002 and I'm so excited to be thrown full-throttle into the Christmas spirit. 

Oh, and I'll be making Molly make a pit stop at a couple yarn stores I want to check out.  Even though I lived in Columbus for five years before I moved to Alaska, I wasn't a knitter then so I'm excited to see what I was missing all those years!

Knitting Community

I was thinking today that I really wish I had a knitting community that I belonged to.  Don't get me wrong.  I love the online knitting community that I belong to, but sometimes it would be really nice to go somewhere - a friend's house, a coffee shop, a yarn store - and sit there and knit with other people, learning new techniques, hanging out, and making fiber friends.

I just came back from spending a few days in Juneau at a work seminar (for the record, I'm now able to communicate effectively and assertively) and on the ferry ride home I was lucky enough to have some company.  Allison (yes, I know, she has the coolest name on the planet) was on her way back from Juneau after spending the fall there starring in Perseverance Theatre's production of Leading Ladies.  (I had the pleasure of watching the show while I was there and it was wonderful and she was amazing in it...but I digress.)

Allison also lives in Skagway and happens to be a knitter and we have been talking for a while now about getting together and knitting.  But life always seems to get in the way and we've never hung out.  But I guess all it took was a long ferry ride to force us to finally get together and knit.

We sat there and chatted for a while and then once we pulled our knitting out I suddenly felt really self-conscious.  It was then that I realized that I've never knit in the presence of another knitter.  Oh, I've knit on a plane where there was a person knitting two rows ahead of me, but I've never just sat and knitted with someone I know.  Knitting is a very personal thing for me and it's something that I always do by myself to quiet my brain.

All of a sudden I started this weird neurotic internal dialogue:  "Am I holding my yarn right?"  "Why I am knitting so slowly? She must think I'm an idiot."  "Crap, I made a mistake and have to rip back a row. She must think I'm the worst knitter ever."  I continued to feel awkward until she admitted too that she hadn't really knit around other people either.  And then I didn't feel quite so bad and just relaxed and had a good time.

But I realized I wouldn't have been so weird in that situation if I actually had a group of knitters that got to spend time with on a regular basis.  I would LOVE to live in a place where I could go to a stitch n bitch evening or a spinning class or a fiber festival.  Sometimes I feel like I'm missing out all the way up here in the middle of nowhere with no LYS and no one who I can talk fiber to.  *sigh*    I'm just glad that I have Ravelry and this blog, because without both of them, I would have gone crazy a looooooong time ago.

On the WIP front, I have a couple things on the needles that need to get off the needles ASAP.  The first one is a scarf for the Red Scarf Project.  And the other one is a stocking for my nephew Jackson.  The scarf needs to be done first, since I have to mail it off tomorrow (eep!), but the stocking is pretty pressing as well since I leave for Ohio on Saturday.  It will be my travel knitting for sure.  Long ferry ride and long flights = rows and rows of stockinette in the round.  Can't wait!

Knee High Nutkins - Finish or Frog?

Lately I've been acquiring sock yarn like it's going out of style.  Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about.  We've all heard of the thinking that sock yarn doesn't really count as apart of your stash.  Well...I've been taking that to heart and stockpiling it like crazy.

So, you'd think that with all this sock yarn that I'd have at least a pair of socks to show for it.  Well, you'd be almost correct.  I'm currently working on Nutkin by Beth LaPensee (Rav link) in Socks That Rock in colorway ST-2.

I'm making them toe-up and I also mirrored the lace pattern instead of two identical columns, so that the swoops would be facing the opposite direction.  I was just reading that Yarn Harlot did the same thing with her Nutkins...although I did it more because I liked the looks of it better rather than being a copy cat!

I also decided to make them knee highs rather than regular socks.  You see, I'm really weird when it comes to socks.  They either have to be securely over my calf and snugly resting just under my knee or they have to just barely graze my ankle bone.  Anything in between just gives me the willies and makes me crazy. 

So, since I didn't particularly want a pair of Nutkin anklets, I opted for creating knee highs instead.  I have two skeins of the STR medium weight to accomplish this task.

Everything seemed to start out great.  Problem is, I'm not really liking how they are turning out. I'm not so much a fan of the medium weight STR. It's too thick for my taste and the socks just seem too bulky to me.

Wow, look how big the feet are...the look huge, but they fit!

So...the real question is...should I finish or frog them?  I just don't know if I want to spend any more time (and precious yarn!) on something I won't end up wearing.  I guess I could give them away as a gift, but then again I would have to find someone with the same size sasquatch feet that I have.  Hmmm, what do you think?

A Beet for Dwight

Back in the spring I stumbled upon a group on Ravelry called Beets for Dwight (Rav link).  It's a group of people who love The Office (US version) and, more specifically, Dwight Schrute. 

For those who do not know, Dwight Schrute is a beet farmer/paper salesman on The Office and is played by Rainn Wilson.  The goal of the group is to knit a beet for Dwight so that our moderator can eventually send them all to Rainn as a gift.

Now, I've had all summer and fall to knit a beet and I just never got around to it.  But our moderator set a deadline of December 17th to get the beet done and sent off to her, so I knew I had to get my butt in gear.

Last Sunday I finally cast on and it was done in no time!  I absolutely LOVE how it turned out.

I used Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Black Cherry Heather for the beet body and Knit Picks Palette in Verdant Heather (lighter green) and Rainforest Heather (darker green) for the leaves.

I didn't want the leaves to be as bulky as some of the other beets I saw on Ravelry, so I chose to use the fingering weight to make them thinner and almost wispy.  I made the right choice because they turned out perfectly.

Jeff thinks it's a little stalkerish and creepy to knit a vegetable for a movie star...and if I really gave it some thought I might agree.  But on the other hand I think it's a clever idea and hope Rainn finds it quirky and interesting and appreciates all the hard work that was put into it.

I was really reluctant to mail my beet away on Friday because I loved it so much, but it had to be done.  Perhaps I'll make another one someday.  I've already gotten a request for a carrot from my neighbor!

Yuletide in Skagway

This was the scene last night for the annual tree lighting in bustling (ha!) downtown Skagway.  Yesterday afternoon I casually mentioned to Jeff that the tree lighting was at 5:30 (not thinking there was a snowball's chance that he'd want to go) but he surprised the crap out of me by saying yes!

So off we went after dinner to catch Santa riding up on the decorated fire truck to visit the kids of Skagway.  After some singing from a local choir, the tree was lit and then everyone played tourist for awhile and stood in the middle of the street catching up with friends.

I love Christmas in Skagway!

I truly am working on some knitting posts.  I've got about three queued up for this weekend while I set sail on the fast ferry to Juneau today.  I'll be attending a seminar on Monday and Tuesday but tonight I'm going with friends to Perseverance Theatre's production of Leading Ladies!  And I'm sure there will be some grocery shopping as well, since it's oh so nice to buy groceries in a store where they are not months expired (I'm looking at you, Fairway Market).

Coming up...Knee High Nutkins, Dwight's Beet, and Jackson's Christmas stocking...stay tuned...