'Twas the night before Christmas...and Carrieoke is still working on her Christmas presents. !!!

Jacob and I waited til the last minute this year. But it's not REALLY Christmas if you're not rushing around like a crazy person, right? right??!?!?!

At any rate, I'm nearly done with my knitted gifts and I can't wait to show you all the pretty things I made. Well, I think so anyways. Let's hope the gift recipients feel the same way. They will! They must!

I don't know how often I'll be near a computer over the next week.. I'll be spending time with Jacob's family, with my family here in GA, and then traveling to NC to see my dad. Yay family time. My family (and Jacob's family!!) is crazy and loud and fun. And I can't wait to see my sister's engagement ring! Aack! We will eat and drink way too much and play board games and have a great time.

Anyways, happy holidays to all of you. This has been a super fun six months of knitting and blogging and meeting all the great people who live online through their knit blogs and Yahoo groups, etc. I'm looking forward to lots more blogging-knitting fun, and hopefully I'll get some great knitting stuff for Christmas!!

Have a great holiday! Mwah! (That's a kiss for you all!)

Posted by Carrieoke at 9:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

All kinds of fun and interesting things happened this weekend. So I'll just start with the big news first...my twin sister Cathy got engaged! Her lovely boyfriend Wes surprised her with a trip to Las Vegas and a ring...and she is a happy, happy girl. Click here to see a cute picture of Cathy and Wes before he popped the question. Yay! And guess who gets to be the maid of honor...that's right, me! Oh, the responsibility...

And in other exciting news, Saturday was my last freakin' day at Molly O'Sheas. No more waiting tables for me, at least for a while. I'm going to try and be a big girl and live on the money from my one University job....we shall see. My friends Natalie and Adam graduated this weekend and they brought in their families and lots of tip money to see me...it was a fun last evening at my strangely stressful second job. Hopefully my stress level will be a little more bearable with just one job to worry about.

In exciting knitting news, I finished Cat's Christmas present. It is blocking as I type and hopefully will turn out well. I really like it, anyways. So, Cat, if ya don't like it, I'll keep it! (I'm feeling that whole oh-my-goodness-what-if-they-don't-like-their-knitted-Christmas-presents anxiety again. The remedy, of course, is to knit myself a bunch of things...I will always love my knitted gifts to myself! ) Only three more gifts to go...go go Gadget Knitter. Or something like that.

Jacob and I got some black and white pictures developed from the hunting trip that turned out really well. We also developed another random roll that Jacob found ..and the pictures are so sweet! They are all of Bella when I first got her a year ago...she is a tiny little pup and so adorable. There are also two beautiful pictures of my doggy Greta who died earlier this year. You can see her memorial website here..she was a schmoo.

Well, all's quiet on the work front, so I'm thinking when I go home for lunch, I'm going to snag some yarn and needles and Christmas knit at my desk. I don't think I'm going to see many people here these next two days, so I'll probably be reading lots of blogs and posting like crazy. I get paid tonight at midnight, so the next two days will be SHOPPING HELL....send me courage.

Posted by Carrieoke at 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I went to the yarn store. I had to! I swear! I had to get yarn for the last few gifts remaining....Jacob even went with me to supervise color selection and monitor spending. (A much needed monitor he is, too.) So now, the yarn is purchased, the patterns chosen...all that awaits is the actual knitting. Aacck!

But enough about me and my procrastination. No doubt everything will be finished in time, and if not, I'll give everyone a skein of nice yarn. Ha ha.

It's almost the weekend. Yay! This is my last weekend waiting tables...and I'm still pondering if I should go. I know, I know....it's not good work ethic. But really, the environment there is...yucky. And I could really use the hours....(that's 5 hours on Friday and 8 hours on Saturday) to knit! What do you think? Should I shirk my duties at a bar downtown, or shirk my responsibilities to the knitting gods? I think that's an easy one...

In other random news, my doggy is famous! A local rescue group, Athens Canine Rescue, does a pet-a-day calendar to raise money for their organization. So you can send in a picture of your adorable schmoo, and they get to be in a calendar! Right there, in the month of May, is this little cutie - my Bella! Ain't she cute? My little Bella is a rescue puppy herself...The mommy dog and the litter of puppies were abandoned in someone's barn. Luckily, the Human Society found them just in time, and now Bella the Schmoo has a warm, happy home. She's a Christmas pup too.. she's turning one year old at the end of December.

After Wednesday, I have no more rehearsal or work until ... January 5th! How's that for relaxation time! I am really looking forward to it, as I think I may have mentioned before on this here little blog. I'm hoping to have some time to maybe play around with the look of my site and possibly work on my own design for it. Who knows? I've been playing around with some CSS stuff lately and I just get the biggest kick out of the stuff you can do. For instance, you can manipulate your test so much....if you'll see on my right side menu, I added a little list for me to see which gifts I still need to finish. The ones that are

I actually also received a Christmas present from one of my new co-workers. He gave me a book on PHP and MySQL. That kind of programming is really geeky, I know, but I would love to learn all about it so I can build all kinds of cool sites and databases. Oh, the possibilities....

At any rate, this is a super long post with lots of random thoughts...so I am going to end here. Have a great day!

Posted by Carrieoke at 3:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

What?!?!? Only nine days left until Christmas? Surely you jest...

Yikes.

I mean, yay, holidays! merry christmas one and all! I'm not stressed out about Christmas present and knitting presents and work and my play and....I'm just feeling the Christmas cheer! bah humbug.

Just kidding. I'm not THAT stressed out. Just wanting to get stuff done, needing to buy a little more yarn, and not having enough time to do it all. But that's okay, it's still the holidays, fa la la la la.

I finished one of my knitting goals this weekend - I completed Christmas Gift #2 (Michelle). It is felted and blocking right now, and super cute. Yay! I am still working hard on Cathy's, and it is very nearly done. Do you ever have last minute freak outs about knitted gifts right when you are about to finish? I'm starting to worry that everyone will hate their gifts and think I am a bad sister / friend / girlfriend. Just the holiday jitters...

I am just starting Jacob's little knitted treat and after that, I only have 3 more to go. That's right. Three more. I will be knitting like a crazy woman this weekend.....

Be sure to drop by Jen's blog today and check out her wedding pics. She looks beautiful and super happy. Congrats, Jen!!

I've been so busy lately that I haven't really had time to read blogs :( I'm hoping to catch up tonight and tomorrow. It seems like everyone is so busy right now with holiday madness....I will be off of work from Dec 25 - Jan 2..woo-hoo! Holiday plans include a trip to Mt Olive, NC, to see my father, and lots of family time. I'm excited about relaxing and knitting for myself...

Sorry so short. I have no pics to post because most of my gift recipients read this blog...it will be a picture gallery of epic proportions after December 25.

Fun times! happy holidays!

Posted by Carrieoke at 2:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

it's getting closer to Christmas...I need to start knitting faster faster faster...aarrgh.

Christmas Gift #1=done. Christmas Gift #2 is nearly finished and almost in the felting zone. (Funny side note: Jacob actually read my blog today, called me at work and said "What do you mean, you almost destroyed the washing machine when you were felting???" Don't worry, dear, I won't hurt it. I hope...) Christmas Gift#3 (Cathy) should hopefully be finished by this weekend if I have a marathon knitting session on Sunday. Which I plan to do.

The holidays are flying by this year, but, truly, my knitting and my blog time are filling me with Christmas cheer. I love to curl up on the couch with my doggy schmoos and my Jacob, watch a movie, and knit something for someone. It's warm and fuzzy and good. Send hot chocolate with marshmallows.

For your viewing pleasure , here are some fun pics from Thanksgiving:

* First, we have ... The Pheasant Avenger! ...or, Jacob's Mom dressed in her hunting gear that was strangely superhero-like.

*Then, the whole fam standing in front of a large pheasant. We are, as the sign says, at Ground Zero of Pheasantdom .. how grand!

*And here's Luke the Brittany Spaniel pointing one of those pesky pheasants...doesn't he look focused?

*And finally, here is a male pheasant, or rooster, flying away from us. Pretty nice picture, dontcha think? (Jacob's handiwork)...

Everyone have a great weekend. Send me fast, quality knitting vibes!

Posted by Carrieoke at 4:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

So, for some unknown reason today, my blog went kaplooey for about an hour or two ... I kept getting this weird error message instead of my site, and I COULDN'T ACCESS ANYTHING. Not my stats page. Not movable type. And I felt...so alone. Aaack! When did I become so freakin' attached to my web site? I mean, I love posting to this, but I was totally freaked out. I emailed my sister repeatedly.."where is my blog? can you see it? someone hacked it, omigod.." So, now I know how much this little site means to me...it's like my little connection to the rest of the world.

But, everything is fine now, so hooray, and of course I immediately need to post something. Anything. So here I am.

In knitting news, we had knitting group last night. It was pretty small...only four of us...but I got a lot of knitting done on Christmas Gift #2 (for Michelle my older sister.) My mom's Christmas Gift #1 is completely done, except for wrapping it, and maybe one little accessory addition. I only have 14 knitting days left til Christmas so I need to get cracking on 4 more Christmas Gifts. Eeks. I will be posting pictures of ALL the presents after I give them, which will be a gloriously fun post, especially before and after pics of felted items. Yay.

The new Knitty is up, and I used Rob's fabby article about felting when I was felting Christmas gift #1. I definitely would have destroyed my washing machine without his advice. Thanks Rob! I also love these things about Winter Knitty:
**Stef has a pattern! The SX3 are totally cool AND useful, and check out Stef's adorable picture at the bottom. What a rockstar.

**This BabyTart pattern is so freaking cute that I want to make one for myself. But instead, I will find an adorably delectable baby to knit it for. Perhaps my new step-nephew, Mason?

**Flappers. They are so rad. I'm definitely knitting these for me!

And all the other patterns totally kick ass too. Yay Knitty for another kickin' issue.

So much to knit, so little time! I'm off to work hard for my last hour so I can go home and get an hour and a half of knitting in before play rehearsal tonight. I can do it!

Posted by Carrieoke at 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I knit SO much this weekend. I think my little hands would fall off if I didn't have to come to work every day for 8 hours. I'm just getting so excited about all the presents I am knitting and I want to FINISH them! Yahoo!

Almost done with my mom's present...she NEVER reads this so I will go as far as saying it is my first felted item and I am a little scared about the whole felting / fulling process. But, there is nothing like trying a new technique and I can't wait to do it! Everybody cross your fingers that it doesn't look yucky after I felt it....

My twin sister is a high school teacher and I went and visited her on Friday (I had to take off work for a funeral.) It is so strange to visit her at school...after growing up a twin, I just feel like everyone always knows that I have a twin, but now that we live in different cities, not everyone knows. And man, it really freaks people out when you meet the twin of a co-worker....her students, especially, were totally weirded out. They kept asking us to stand next to each other and talk, and then they would scream, 'omigod! you guys sounds EXACTLY alike ! aack!' it was fun.

Then, we got more family time on Saturday when Jacob and I went back to Cathy and her boyfriend's house for food, football (blechh) and fun. The boys watched the game and screamed as Georgia got their butts kicked...and the girls ate and gossiped! How stereotypical is that! We had a great time doing it though.

Look at the completely adorable Christmas ornament Cathy gave us! How cute..and fitting...

Then, I finished up the little dog sweater I have been making for Cathy's bandmate Guy. Look at little Arcadia modeling her new frock....ain't she cute? I used the Cowl and Howl pattern from the new Stitch N Bitch book...the 'Howl' part..and it was easy and fun!

Finally, I got some clearer pictures of the very first sweater / article of clothing I ever knitted...my Sitcom Chic from Chicknits.com. This is a great pattern and pretty easy..I was definitely a beginner when I knitted it! I cringed to look at the sweater again because I saw so many mistakes but I also saw how far I've come with my knitting...I can't wait to do that pattern again!! Go to my finished list to see the new Sitcom pics.

It was a really fun weekend. Jacob and I got to relax and hang out with friends and family, and Cathy has two adorable dogs, Foxy and Molly, that LOVE to jump into bed with me and lick my face. I love schmoos!

Posted by Carrieoke at 2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Howdy! I?m going to talk about my trip in a little more detail today and show you some pictures too?don?t worry, I?ve got some knitting pics to go along with the hunting pics?P.S. Jacob took every picture on this post except for the ones he's in...so you can thank him for the nice shots!

This is how pheasant hunting works. We had five people. Two of us (usually me *check out my gear!*
and Jacob?s mom) would jump into the back of a pick-up truck with our guns and drive to one end of a field (usually corn, or some kind of shrubbery, or a patch of trees.) We are the blockers. The blockers stand at one end and make sure that no birds escape through our end of the field. (Yes, that means shoot them.)

The walkers then walk around to the other end of the field (and these were HUGE fields!) and trudge through the field, towards me and Annette, with the dogs. (By the way, dogs LOVE this.) The dogs would flush out the birds, which means to nudge or scare them until they fly up. Then, the birds fly up. It?s a male pheasant, somebody yells ?Rooster!? and anyone who has a shot takes it. Pow. If it?s a female pheasant, somebody yells ?Hen!? and NO ONE can take a shot. It?s a big bad deal if you shoot a hen.

Then, we get the birds we shot, load back up in the truck, and drive to another area to see if we can get more. Easy, right?

NO. It?s so hard, especially walking through snowdrifts. I was a blocker most of the time because I?m in such bad shape, but the two times I walked, I was about to fall over out of exhaustion. (Note to self: New Year?s Resolution will be to get my heart rate going at least three times a week?.gee, how many years have I made THAT resolution?) The boys (Jacob, his dad, and his granddad) were all really good shots. I sucked, of course, but it was still a lot of fun. Annette was definitely better than me, but she didn?t get to take too many shots?the hens liked her! We got 34 birds altogether.

Of course, as hard as it was, it was still beautiful. Look at the landscape
we were hunting on?you can see for miles and miles in South Dakota, and it?s so QUIET out there. One time I was blocking by myself at the end of a field and it was DEAD SILENT, and three deer galloped by me. No kidding. It was like a freakin? Disney movie! {I guess I was the villain:)}

The little town we stayed in was pretty cool too. Burke, SD ? we could walk to the grocery store and the one restaurant in town. The house we rented had some really groovy 70s d?cor going on, complete with crazy lamps and a velvet painting. Oh, yeah.

Now, since you read all that, you get to see some knitting pictures! Here is what I knitted for myself on the way up there?gotta keep your head warm. I made Jacob this one
to go under his bright orange toboggan, and he wore it all week. And finally, I made this scarf
on the way home when we were stranded in Alabama for 3.5 hours....

I also have pictures of Jacob's new and improved birthday hat. Go check out the finished projects page to see the results!

Posted by Carrieoke at 2:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Whew. I'm tired from my vacation!

Pheasant hunting in South Dakota is not a walk in the park, people. Why didn't you warn me? Why didn't you tell me about the four foot snow drifts? The icy winds? The walking...oh, the walking!

But seriously, my Thanksgiving trip was a blast and you will get to hear all about it in my soon to be posted three part mini-series entitled, "Rooster!" I know you can't wait. There will be pictures and lots of adventures to tell.

I did get a crap load of knitting done. I'm nearly done with one Christmas present (Mom's) and a good 1/3 of the way through another (my twin sis Cathy's) and I have the yarn ready to roll for some more. And listen to what I knitted on the way there and back, just for fun:

* a hat for me
*a hat for Jacob
*a really long skinny scarf for me!

And I still got lots of Christmas knitting done! Aren't you proud of me? I am.

Well, this has to be short and sweet because I've got lots of work to do but I'm so happy to be back and I can't wait to tell you all about my trip. Can't wait to go visit everyone's blogs, either. I have to echo Rachael ... I am totally reliant on my computer and I hated being away from it. I love being connected like this...

Yahoo! I'm home again! And it's never been so warm and cozy. A good long vacation sure makes ya appreciate the old home front again....

Posted by Carrieoke at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)