At what point am I a spinner? Can I call myself a spinner now?

Or should I wait until I've resolved those funky little twists in my yarn? Can you see them in there? This is some Cotswold pin drafted roving I purchased from a lady on my spinning list. She put together a wonderful box of roving for me to play with!

I'm not spinning as much as I'd like right now---I'm lucky to get in 15 minutes each day! But, I'm getting pretty close to finishing the two pairs of slippers for my in-laws for Christmas (one pair's ready to felt and the second pair is half-finished). Then I've got a couple other projects I may or may not get to in time for Christmas--I really hope so, 'cause they'd be really neat. I can't say more here 'cause the...interested parties...read here occasionally.

I'm listening to a lot of audiobooks---unfortunately, the 4th book in the Saga of Seven Suns isn't out on Audible yet. *sigh* I've finished "Darwin's Radio" by Greg Bear, and am currently listening to the sequel, "Darwin's Children". I really need to find more books I'm in the mood for right now!

I guess I could spin a little more. I've got 4oz of that Cotswold and what's spun up isn't even half of it, I'm guessing! Which is good, 'cause I need the practice to get those twists out of my yarn!

I've linked the images to their location on flickr (I think I did it right), so you should be able to click through and see the notes I've put on the photos---apparently I can't get that part to show up here.

I meant to post last night, but we had to kick some Zergling butt for a while.... *grin*

I found a solution to my yarn dilemma: buy more yarn. ::snickers:: Yeah, I know. Totally original. However, I justified it by the low cost of the yarn. I selected Wool of the Andes by Knitpicks. The beauty of it is, there's so many freaking colors, Nick was sure to find one he wanted. And, he did: Sapphire Heather. Oooo.... Aaaahhh....

And to further the insanity, I thought Randy might like a matching sweater (in his own color of course). So, I offered to knit him one for Christmas! Instead of being nice and helpful and picking out the color he wants, he said.... "Surprise me." Oh, no pressure or anything. *sigh* Since he reads here on occasion, I can't actually *name* the color, but I can tell you this: 6th row, 2nd one. Uh-huh. (Hey, Randy, if you peek, fine. I'll probably knit it in front of you anyway! ::grins widely::)

I got a call from my FIL today---wow. I haven't talked to him in ages! Randy usually calls home and talks to them. He's really excited about my knitting and wanting to get into spinning. He mentioned Alpacas and how cute they are---ah, no wonder I like the man: he has taste!

I was talking about felting and how cool it is---for some reason I've had the image of really huge unfelted slippers in my head for a while now. So I mentioned them as an example. He said, "I'm a size 12." Squee! Don't you wish all Christmas planning was that easy? I prompted for MIL's size and he said she's a 10, so there's two more projects in my Ravelry queue.

What am I doing talking to you guys? I've got knitting to do!

Well, I've had one inquiry on some yarn but no sales thus far. *sigh* And yet...

If you look to the right, you'll see the bright green progress meter tracking my fundraising efforts. How did that happen? Mom chipped in for my Christmas present early. Thanks Mom!

Now, I just have to raise enough money for the rest of it!

And hope the right wheel comes along at the right time, so I can snag a good deal.

In the meantime, maybe I'd better use some of the yarn I'm not destashing! *grin*

I got a pretty good "haul" for Christmas. I haven't posted about it, so this is a good time.

First, Randy surprised me with one of these little darlings. Yes, it's green! I've already moved some of my favorite music to it (Disturbed, Tool, Blue October, Black Sabbath, Nirvana...) and started a membership over at audible.com. The first book I bought is called "The Travellers" by John Twelve Hawks. It's been really good.

But the goodies didn't stop there. Randy also bought me Ptolus. This is a full campaign set within one city. Monte Cook and his team wrote this campaign as a "play test" of the 3rd Edition rules for D&D. The book comes with an envelope full of full-color handouts and a CD with another 400+ pages of material. The book itself is a hefty 640 pages! Talk about a little "light reading"!

I wanted this because I really like DMing, but as a writer, I have a hard time letting go of the story and giving the players the chance to write it. Role-playing is a collective story-telling experience and my need to control the direction of the story was hampering game play. I'm hoping having someone else create the campaign will free me up and let me relax into the game-play more.

Continuing in the role-playing category, I got a bunch of Reaper mini-figs as well:

He bought me another half-dozen of Ed Bourelle's Skeleton Key Games tile sets over at RPGNow.com.

I got so many books for Christmas...and after Christmas! Look at all these books:

I told you it was a lot of books!

Mom bought me these. *grin* And she got me some excellent pajamas. Her gentleman-friend bought me some of the cookie sheets I love. Mmmm....cookies!

As if all this wasn't enough, I was pricing computer parts, planning on building me a "game computer" (I just built one for Randy using spare parts we had). I found a Gigabyte motherboard and an AMD Sempron CPU combo for only $90! That was too good to pass up. I started spec'ing out a full system and had it pretty close to finished at under $600... Randy continued his Christmas giving by saying that my getting another computer was a justifiable household expense and told me to order it. I managed to talk him into letting me add on that motherboard combo for him and an upgraded video card for him as well.

So Thursday and Friday were "geek nights" here at the Kaelber household. I built my new system, then raped it by installing Windows XP. *sigh* I upgraded Randy's WinBlows system, helped Nick install an additional hard drive in his computer and Randy installed a hard drive in his Linux box. Right now, in my living room, there are a total of seven computers (two of them servers)! Randy's got the "little" 17 inch monitor Mom traded us for some hardware and tech knowledge. He's running dual monitors now. We're both running our systems with a KVM switch (his for 4 computers, mine for 2) which saves having to have multiple keyboards, mice, monitors and so forth.

I've got my computers set up so I only have to move one cable to get sound on one system or the other. And the last little gift for Christmas was "Lego Star Wars II" for PC....which is absolutely a blast to play! I'd recommend getting a PC game controller for it because it's obviously focused towards the console-style movements and instructions. Still, the game itself is not just a kid's game.

Whew. That's a big list. I've got to get going so I can play with some of it!

I'm still here. Mostly. We went up to Mom's for 4 days to have our delayed Christmas holiday. Apart from some tension which I'm going to chalk up to being the first Christmas we've shared with my family in 17 years, the visit went well.

I won sock yarn over at Susie's blog and helped Miss Violet at the same time. Randy's last Christmas present was in the mailbox when we got home. It was two computer games for Linux. Turns out I bought him computer crack. Hehehehe....and I'm addicted too!

The last two nights, I haven't gotten to bed until at least 4am. Then I'm in pain the next day and sleep half the day away to hide from the pain. Real grown up of me, I know. Today, I finally dragged my butt out of bed and showered around 4pm---and I'm still wiped.

As for Christmas booty....I got books!!!! I got so many books, I don't know if I have enough bookshelves for them. It's time to go through my shelves again and see if I can re-arrange them better.

Maybe I ought to go through all those romance-ish paperbacks Mom gave me and see if she wants to give them to someone else. My default answer when anyone asks if I want books is, "Yes!" I can always pass a book I'm not interested in on to someone else. Or take it to a trade-in store for credits. *grin*

I suppose I could clean up the bookshelves that were hung over Randy's desk (before we re-arranged the living room and office) and move some books to them. Yeah, I think that would work. Ugh. Sounds like too much work, indeed.

I think I'll just head back to bed...after I take another crack at Darwinia. (It's legal crack, I tell ya!)

If you're a sock yarn lover---or know one---mosey on over to Susie's blog to check out "Stormbow" and the auction to raise money for Miss Violet of Lime and Violet. Go on, I dare you to top my bid and take this beautiful skein from me. (No, seriously, if you can/want to bid more, it's in a good cause and I'll totally understand.)

It's Christmas Day, elsewheres, but here in the Kaelber Household, we're holding at "day before day before Christmas" until New Years weekend. Although... "Santa Claus" did make an early stop when he dropped off 2 iPod Nanos here... Mine's green! (Are you green now?)

And Randy gave me my "big" gift early, so I could start reading it: Ptolus, City by the Spire. He's already a little envious, I think...

Now if I can just keep my own secrets for a few more days!