Greetings from Oklahoma

I can't tell you how much I wish I had some pictures for y'all. Maybe tomorrow I'll try to find out if someone around here has a camera with a camera cord, or how to move pictures from my camera phone to the computer, but for now I am pictureless.

Since Christmas Eve, Dave and I have been hanging out in his hometown, an eensy dot on the map somewhere near some larger dots you've never heard of, in Oklahoma. We're guests of his brother and his girlfriend, both very good people with an enormous TV and lots of good food and patience. This is my first Christmas away from my parents and brother, but we had such a good visit a few days before Christmas, and I'm having a great time here.

This somewhat vacation has pretty much turned into a real vacation, as most of the books I brought have proven totally useless for the paper I wanted to write. Fortunately there should be some good stuff waiting for me in the libraries back home, and I think I can get through it pretty quickly. As I haven't been reading much I've been knitting a lot. I'm on the foot of the second Monkey sock and just finished part of something that will have to remain secret for now.

It was a very yarny Christmas for me. My grandparents and aunt and cousins got me a whole bunch of pretty stuff--so much I may have doubled the size of my (admittedly smallish) yarn stash in one swell foop. Among the goodies are two balls of boucle that, I swear, are almost twice the size of my head.

Mom got me two balls of alpaca DK that I'm gonna use for socks. She got some for herself, too, and is working on a pair loosely based on the pattern for dad's socks. She also got me the yarn for a sweater I've been wanting for a while, but I'm not going to tell you which one until I have pictures.

Dad loved his socks, and mom loved the mini-Clapotis I secretly knitted her (pictures someday, I promise!). I made a few extras of those sock ornaments while I was home and they were all very well-recieved. I plan to make bunches more next year--for myself and everybody else.

I'm having a great time but haven't been at the computer much, so sorry if I haven't been keeping up with your blogs! Hope everybody has a happy new year!