On Socks, Mittens, Fast-Growing Nephews, Christmas Presents, and the Unreasonable Expectations of the Utility Companies

It is 11 am on Thursday morning and according to my to-do list, what I was going to do today was finish up a reading lesson and then clean the living room top to bottom. My list is very specific. It says I am to dust (once a year, whether it needs it or not), clean the glass, and vacuum. Implied in that is a general pickup of the floor, since sucking up books into the vacuum makes it run less efficiently.

But what I *want* to do is sit in a green living room chair ignoring all the stuff on the floor, and wrapping a blanket around my shoulders, work on my Christmas knitting.

I don't ordinarily have a very long Christmas knitting list. The truth is that I don't think most people like knitted gifts--plus my knitting skills really didn't improve much until the knitting olympics of last year showed me that if I was willing to be a little more obsessive about it, I could indeed finish projects in a reasonable amount of time. My lack of skill didn't/doesn't keep me from making knitted gifts, especially if a relative makes the mistake of showing any interest whatsoever in what I'm knitting--but it does keep me (most years) from making very long lists.

Well before Christmas I have to finish Max's mittens. He wants Rudolph Mittens. I have the first almost half knit.

Then I wanted to finish a pair of socks for Chris, Max, and the twins.
Then I have the Finnish mittens which now have an intended victim recipient. One mitten down, one to go.
I still have to finish my nephew's outfit.
I still have to finish the sweater I started for a California Baby. I brought it with me on vacation--but duh, forgot the directions.
I have come to my senses (it was the look on Aunt Charlotte's face when she saw how much I had done so far that accomplished that) and understand that the Orenburg shawl will be NEXT Christmas' gift for the piano teacher.

So I thought the simplest thing to do would be to take the month of December off from work and just knit, right? I wrote up a nice letter explaining the situation to all of the utility companies and the nice people at the mortgage company . . . but Chris says they're notoriously unreasonable about not getting paid, so until I hear back from them, I'd better get my workwork done before I sit down with the needles. Sigh.