Rain, Rain, Don't Go Away...Just Yet

I live in Central California, which means that we often have fewer than ten inches of rain a year. Heck, I remember years, when we've had less than four or five. This weekend alone, it has rained over three inches. What a wonderful way to begin my Christmas vacation, with an excuse to stay inside and do nothing other than read and knit! Now, for Russ, Paige, and me, reading isn't out of the ordinary, but catching Kai with a book is a little  rare sight. This may have something to do with him being told he couldn't play "World of Warcraft" until he'd read for an hour, but it still made me happy. He's reading A Christmas Carol, which Julie gave me last year as part of our Christmas swap. I've been reading and enjoying Chocolat and The Lost Art of Reading, and have about five other books sitting by the couch, tempting me.

I had finals last week, which for some stupid reason I thought would mean I would have more free time. I had a party of some kind every night and was pretty busy with school stuff still, but I did get one more set of my little mittens completed. My snowflakes on them are a little wonky, but who said snowflakes had to be perfect.

My most recent knitting project hasn't been too positive. Paige hasn't generally shown much interest in having me knit her anything, so when she said that she wanted me to knit her a sweater, I was excited. I had her browse through Ravelry to find something, hopefully something free. I wasn't too excited when she showed me her choice. It was called Lyric Tree, and it looked kind of "messy" to me, too unstructured. Of course, it was also $8, and the yarn cost $100....and I stupidly went ahead and bought it as part of her Christmas present. If I'd written this post this morning, I would have had to include a couple of cuss words to continue, but I've had a bit of a breakthrough after hours of re-reading the directions and pouring over forums and comments about it. I'd say that at least half of the people have had some of the same troubles I've had. I've decided that the designer is probably talented but inexperienced. She doesn't use standard knitting abbreviations and hasn't included a chart. The tree pattern is really pretty, and maybe I'll be happy with the finished product, but I'm apprehensive about it.  If I had trouble understanding her directions for simple cables, I hate to think what's going to happen once I get to the armhole and neck shaping.

Oh, and besides all of that, Kitty keeps sleeping on it every time I lay it down. Actually, I don't mind that. I think she's cute.