My guests are due to arrive any minute and then I am getting smashed! Happy New Year!

I'm exhausted! I love the holidays but they consume so much energy! This year we have my aunt from San Diego visiting, and last week I had her up at the house for a couple of days. Then she went back to my parents' house, and we joined them all (we even brought the cats) for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Natalie and I decided that this year we were going to do the formal dinner on the eve so that we'd have nothing much to do except open gifts and nap the next day, and my mom admitted it was nicer this way. Even though dinner was at my parents' house, the cooking was up to me and I made a big prime rib with yorkies, potatoes and parsnips, and a red wine gravy. I also made an overnight french toast for breakfast the next day, which we ate while opening presents.

Yesterday I got an email from Jeremy's mom about a collaborative birthday gift they're all planning for his grandmother. We need to take a decent photo of the three of us and send it over because they're putting together a memory quilt full of phots for Grandma's 87th birthday. We'll be visiting them the weekend of her party so we get to see the quilt when she opens it.

In horribly sad news, my Peace Fleece cardigan is just not right. Blocked and half-seamed, I had to face the fact that the armscye doesn't work for me and it sits funny. Usually I work out my own armscye but this time I followed the general numbers for the set-in sleeve pattern in this book. The armscye ended up too shallow which made the sleeve pull a bit and the front didn't fall over my chest the way it should. I'm putting it aside to worry about later. I'll probably frog the whole thing and knit something completely different. I'm spending the rest of the year spinning on my spindle instead.

Happy New Year! See you in 2007.

Rochelle tagged me, so I'll happily post six weird things about myself, but I won't do any tagging. Feel free to copy the meme anyhow, the full rules are on Rochelle's blog. For this list I had to ask Jeremy to help me because weird is a matter of perspective and I think I am totally normal, ha ha!

1. I think buttermilk is a delicious, refreshing beverage and I'll often eat a bowl of buttermilk with rye bread cut up in it as though it were cereal.

2. I have memorized most of the dialogue from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, one of my all-time favourite movies.

3. I can move my eyes independently of each other. Some people think it's really gross, others think it's funny.

4. My jaw dislocates and in the past 6 years I've had to go to the emergency room twice to have it relocated - it got stuck open. That's a whole new kind of pain, kids.

5. My name is Margaret and I'm named after my grandmother, Margarita. When I started grade 3, my teacher thought Margaret seemed too old for me and asked if I'd like to be called either Maggie or Peggy. What if I had chosen Peggy? Would I be a totally different person right now?

6. When I was 8 and my sister was 6, she got a Strawberry Shortcake bike for her birthday. It came disassembled in a box and my father promised to assemble it for her the next morning. I was so jealous of her and I wanted to ride the bike so bad that I got up in the middle of the night, assembled it myself and rode it all around the house. The next morning my dad was shocked. He told me how proud he was of me for being able to put the bike together, then he grounded me for a week for appropriating my sister's birthday present.

On Wednesday I got 2 braids of some Fleece Artist merino and got started. Yesterday I plied it, and now I have this. It's a bit heavier than I had intended...my goal with the spinning is to make my own sock yarn. It's a light worsted, so it looks like I'm going to end up with some heavy socks. I don't know how far it'll go, so I'm going to knit toe-up until I run out. I can't tell you how proud I am of this skein. I made it myself and it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Last night I taught Jeremy how to spin - he's a natural. He said he'd been watching me over the past couple of weeks and wanted to give it a shot. I showed him step by step everything that I know, and he ended up with a plied strand of yarn far better than my first attempt! I'm going to wash it today and then take a photo. He's so proud!

I decided not to post the pictures from my trip to Jersey because I don't feel comfortable posting shots of people and their kids without permission. I uploaded a very few to my Flickr site, though.

We got back from our trip on Monday evening. We all had the greatest time. I haven't sorted out my camera yet so I don't have any photos right now, but my lazy ass will get around to it this weekend.

We arrived last Wednesday afternoon and finally got to see the new Freak/Geek house. Seriously, Freakgirl's photos don't do it justice, it's beautiful. Very big and airy and the layout is perfect. The next day we went out to get our hair done and I finally got a decent haircut - so happy. We also did a teeny bit of shopping and I got a couple of nice tops for $2.98 apiece. I'm totally serious. I love Target. Thursday night was really fun which I'm sure you already know if you've read my previous two posts.

On Friday the guys headed into NYC to see a comic exhibit at the Jewish Museum, but it was closed. What a disappointment! Freakgirl and I nursed horrible hangovers and then shopped and did prep for their holiday party. Saturday was all party, all the time - here's the evidence.

Sunday evening we went over to Lisa's adorable apartment for dinner. She made us a strata (layered bread, sausage, veggies, cheese soaked in an egg and half-and-half mixture and baked) which was the most delicious thing I've ever eaten. I'm thinking of making it for breakfast on Christmas morning, maybe Lisa will be willing to share her recipe with me.

Leaving Jersey always sucks and it takes me a few days to get over missing my friends. Charlie gave us a gorgeous tile he made himself, which was just so thoughtful and a complete surprise. I'd been coveting it for ages. I need to find a plate stand so I can display it on our bookshelf.

Thanks for the hospitality, fun, booze, smoked gouda, outdoor fireplace, company and Tivo, guys! We miss you.

WE are sitll hanging in there.

We are durnken. There was a deer and it ate the bird feeder. We had so many bogttgles of wine. We laughed about I peed outside. No one saw, don't worry, it was too ark. I frgihtened the deer when I gbot up to get myu laptop. Anyway, I spun things during Survivor. It's warm enough outside that we have been sitting on the patio drinking wine. It rained, but we hung in there. We're hardy. I love visiint ng New Jersye.