Ah. The holidays are so, so lovely. I've been sleeping until embarrassingly late hours, wearing my (new) pajamas all day, and knitting constantly. One of the perks of a university job is that the university is closed the last week in December, so I've got lots of time off. It's a wonderful thing. Luckily, Jacob works with schools as well, so we're both at home relaxing. It's given us lots of time to put the house in some kind of order and play with our Christmas presents.

Christmas was totally awesome. We got all kinds of great stuff for the house, loads of gift cards (LOWES! HOME DEPOT! BEDBATHANDBEYOND!) and lots of other fun things. I got some great Sephora stuff and the perfect jewelry box. So much good stuff.

The Pants gave me two ultimately awesome presents: this necklace

SchmooTag.

and... a camcorder!

I'm gonna video you.

That one was a bit of a surprise. So. Excited. About. Video. I have a feeling that videos of Bella, Chili, and other adorable thingsin my house may be making a more regular appearance on this here blog. Woo-hoo! I also taped ridiculous amounts of nephew cuteness on Christmas Day -- the child has gotten SO. BIG. I got to feed him a bottle, which was really fun and also kind of scary at the same time.

Here's the BigHeadSchmoo:

I'm the king of this blanket.

The sis finally got her Central Park Hoodie, for keeps:

Finally!

And there was also some intense game playing: both Texas Hold 'Em:

Jacob won. Again.

And Clue DVD:

Wes is a sleuth. He had the time ALL NARROWED DOWN.

Good. Times.

Now? I'm going to sit on my butt some more and surf blogs and knit and not have any responsibilities. We are having folks over for New Year's, so at some point I need to clean a little more, but NOT NOW. Now is for lounging. And building a swift...more on that later.

Hope everyone is having a happyhappy with their family and friends. This is the FOURTH Christmas I've celebrated with my blog, can you believe it? I can't. Time flies when you're having fun. And other cliches.

Happy New Year from our house to yours!!

Posted by Carrieoke at 2:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (34)

I upgraded ye olde blog to Movable Type 3.3 last week (used this tutorial, went smoothly). I noticed while I was importing my entries that my first entry on this here blog was on July 27, 2003.

Three years!

Hooray for bloggy good times. Here's too much information about my blogging history: I actually started blogging earlier in 2003 using a free Geocities website, but I was having so much fun that I quickly upgraded to a Pretty Posies account with Becky. I checked lots of books out of the library on Movable Type and web design, etc, and got lots of encouragement from Becky, my sister Cathy, and my comments.

After two years of fun times with Pretty Posies, I decided to branch out on my own, get some webspace, and buy a domain name (carrieoke.net). I've learned so much about web sites and PHP and CSS and all kinds of other nerdy things from my blog. I've also met lots of incredible people, and several are actually in my real-in-person-everyday-life now (HEJ! Mary Jessica!)

But I don't have to sing the praises of blogging to you guys. I just wanted to say happy birthday to my blog, and thanks to all of you for making it so fun to postpostpost. I'm constantly blown away by the kindness and generosity of people in the crafty blogging community, and I'm so happy and proud to be a part of it.

Not to get sappy or anything. (Sniff.)

Speaking of getting sappy, I'm going to cry my eyes out this weekend when my best teamies Drew and JoAnna get hitched!

Somebody's get marrrieeeeeeed....

It's going to be the best weekend ever. Quality time with the teamies, a WEDDING, and then more hanging out with some of my dearest friends in the whole world. There will be animated conversation:


Hey guy!

And AM and I are going to rock the music at the wedding - there will be keyboards! And the flute!

And maybe if we give her enough booze, this girl will clog for us:

Sultry teamie!

Congrats to Drew and JoAnna!

And finally, in knitting news, I've been knitting away on my La Luz silk razor cami:

So. Soft.

This yarn is a dream to knit with, and the colors are so rich. I can't wait to finish this one! Maybe I'll have some knitting time while I'm rolling with my homies this weekend...

Posted by Carrieoke at 8:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (35)