My 299th post. Wow. Well, I am able to breathe today. It’s been quite a week, six days straight of work and one more to go. Then I get Sunday to breathe and it’s back to work for four days before another breather on Friday.

I’ve managed to get little bits of knitting time in here and there but not as much as I would like. The essays for my application needed to be worked on so I committed myself to an hour a day this week for my personal statement and will do the same next week for my librarian interview essay. I’m mailing my application before we leave for Kansas on January 8.

I’m going to take some time off from the blog for a few days and then will be back with my 300th post, which will definitely have updates on projects, along with some Christmas photos of Bryan and I. It’s going to be a quiet Christmas with just the two of us and no gifts. We’re donating to a charity instead of giving each other gifts, we have everything we need right now and don’t want to spend the money on gifts that we don’t have room for.

Happy holidays!
(No matter what holiday you celebrate at this time of year!)

Goodness, I can’t believe it’s already been nearly a week since I posted. I started at the library last week and love it. This past weekend, Bryan and I went to Chicago to see my sister. More on everything soon, including updates on the mittens and B’s dad’s socks.

Well, the months of wishing on eyelashes has worked. I started at the library officially today. It was mainly a tour of the library and a bit of an introduction to the process of getting books and materials back on to the shelves after they have been returned to the library. It’s quite a complex process but it seems to work. I’m so excited to be there and my first day of training with another shelver is Thursday. Thank you to all of you for your congrats comments. Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever had 13 comments to one post!

On Saturday, we bought our Christmas tree and then decorated it on Sunday. It’s a great improvement over the 18 inch tree we had before, this one is 6 1/2 feet tall (1.9 meters). It’s a bit bare but it’s our tree and I really like it. :) I’ve bought a few ornaments at work.

This morning we were awakened by the sound of a Christmas tree crashing at 6:40am. We both jumped out of bed to find that the tree had fallen over. Both kitties looked quite guilty so we’re not sure who knocked it over. They were both very quiet all morning, I think the excitement wore them out. I suspect it was Chloe since Bryan said she was the furthest from the tree. They’ve both been fascinated by the tree, so I’m sure that Chloe was stretching her toes on the base and it fell over. One of the ornaments that I had bought at work, a crystal snowflake, was broken but otherwise all of the other ornaments came through just fine. A lot of my ornaments are gifts that mean something to me because they are dated so I’m relieved that they are all okay. And I’m definitely relieved that the kitties weren’t injured. Update December 14. Yes, George is at the bottom of the photo refusing to pose for the camera. We have since learned our lesson regarding the tree and have secured the bottom of the tree with those hand weights that we use all of the time lately. They aren’t pretty so I’m planning on making some sort of tree skirt tomorrow between working on my library school essays. Also I’ve loved reading your Christmas tree stories.

In a matter of a few days last week, I finished the first mitten of a pair for my grandmother, sans the thumb. I started the second mitten yesterday before work. I’m about 3/4 of the way through the ribbing now. I used a cast-on that Nancy Bush calls “Liidia’s braid cast-on” (from Folk Knitting in Estonia) for the bottom of the mittens. It really looks neat. I still have three weeks to work on them since Bryan and I aren’t going to Kansas until the second week of January to celebrate Christmas with my family. I’m also going to make a hat to match. The pattern is called Rosepole and is from The Mitten Book by Inger and Ingrid Gottfridsson. I’m using the old standby in great yarn – Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride. I made my Norwegian mittens out of Lamb’s Pride and they are so warm.

An update on my aunt, she’s doing well and is home from the hospital.

Before I forget, I should mention that I revealed who I was for Secret Pal 6. I’ve been spoiling Jessica for the last several months. She’s been so fun to spoil and she loved the secret socks that I sent her about a month ago. Her reaction to the socks was so great. I’ve had such a great experience with SP6 that I think I’m going to sit SP7 out.

Update December 14. I can’t believe that I forgot to post about my birthday last week. Bryan came home from class with flowers and a card in hand. It was so sweet and completely unexpected. The flowers were beautiful and I’m trying to dry them in the kitchen. My favorites were these little flowers, I have no idea what they are but they are so cute. I took the day off from work and spent part of it knitting, which is exactly what I wanted to do. That evening I went to my knitting group. Friday evening, Bryan and I went out to dinner to celebrate my birthday and my new job.
   

First of all, thank you all for your kind words regarding Heidi and my aunt. My aunt went in for another surgery yesterday to remove the second tumor that was growing quickly. She came through the surgery fine and is recovering. I am always so amazed how supportive the blogging community is and I sincerely am touched. Heidi will be missed and she will forever live in our hearts. (That sounds so cliched but it’s so true.) I know she’s probably racing around her yard in doggy heaven chasing squirrels and rabbits with an endless supply of turkey treats. :)

Now to the jumping around part. I got a call at 12:03pm today. I was in the middle of blocking Fleurette and thought Bryan was calling me after class. (Today was his last day of classes for the semester.) When I picked up the phone and heard, “Erica, this is … from the library and I’d like to offer you the shelver position.” I could hardly breathe, I wanted to start jumping up and down at that moment but I remainded calm and said, “I would love it.” I’m sure the excitement was apparent in my voice. When I had to go check the calendar in the kitchen, I had to keep myself from screaming with joy for fear that I would scare off my future manager. After I hung up the phone, I let out a squeal of joy and jumped around the room for a bit. I had to finish blocking Fleurette some of the celebrating had to wait. I called Bryan as soon as I hung up with the library, I had to leave him a message and tried to sound sad to fool him but I couldn’t hold in my excitement. I’m sure my voice reached new octaves during the phone message, but I know he loved it. He called me as soon as he received the message and we are celebrating tonight. Tonight was going to be our birthday celebration anyway, but it will be even sweeter with a new job to celebrate too!

Earlier this week, I decided that I need to make something for my grandmother for Christmas. I’ve never made her anything in the 10 years that I’ve been knitting. So I immediately started pouring through my mitten books for patterns. I’m working on the first of a pair of mittens and will post photos soon. The mitten is finished but it needs a thumb.

I just had to share the big news!

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Hello, Universal Knitting Contingent Committee Members, Spinning Wheel Calvary and Cross-Stitchery Salutatorians,

This is Bryan, Erica’s husband, writing a guest post on the fabled Leetle Knits blog. I’m sitting here listening to the Fiery Furnaces while Erica is out in the living room knitting mittens for blessed hands, trying to come up with words from the established vocabulary for otherwordly things like ‘love’ ‘perfect music embodied’ ‘warming sun’ ‘breathable air in a suffocating world’ ‘a woman unlike all the others’ and I just keep going round and round in triangular, quadrilateral circles thinking I can bump into the right word for my wife.

Yesterday was her birthday, and that matters because until she was born–December 7, 1973–I was little more than fleshy blob on cruise control, crawling around lost, looking under blankies, under pillows, peeking into scary closets, babbling to anyone who’d listen about who and what I was looking for. They thought it was cute. They thought I was dabbling in baby talk. But for a year and a half I was on the Earth without my dearest–the entire earth, i.e. no matter where I could possibly have looked, I wouldn’t have found her. It was torture. I didn’t think I would make it. I came pretty close to beating Elvis to the great Vegas Revue in the sky. But then somehow I got word. Somehow the news got to me. I wasn’t yet two, but when I was informed about what had happened a few hundred miles away in Hutchinson, Kansas, I relaxed a bit. My future now seemed tackle-able. It didn’t matter what happened because from then on I wasn’t alone on this planet. The one I had been waiting for finally arrived.

So, sing with me unto the canyons, ye good knitters. The word is the good, the good is the word, the word is the good, the good is the world. Erica’s still around.

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Yesterday, my dad called me with some very sad news. Heidi, who had been a member of our family for 15 1/2 years had to be put to sleep yesterday. She was born a White West Highland Terrier in June of 1990 in Naperville, Illinois and was known at the breeder’s as the “personality pup.” In early August of that year she came to live with us. She was definitely the personality pup and so much more. She was a very lively puppy and chewed through several baby gates that we had to keep her in the kitchen. I was telling Bryan last night some of my memories of Heidi as a puppy, such as how she would attach herself to your ankle while you were walking and you’d be dragging this little dog along with you. It was really annoying at the time but thinking about it now is really funny.

In November 1990, her friend Milly, the grey cat, came to live with us and they learned to live with each other, although I think Milly tolerated Heidi more than she would have liked. Lucy, the Persian, came to live with us in February 1991, she and Heidi co-existed in the house. Heidi loved chasing the cats through the house, especially at dinner time, I don’t know what they are going to do now without Heidi to chase them through the house. Heidi always thought she was part cat and tried several times to try to walk across the back of the couch. She really wanted to be both a dog and a cat.

When Calvin came to live with us in the fall of 1991, he and Heidi became instant friends. They romped around the house and outside together, they were the best of pals. It was so funny to see a cat chasing a dog through the backyard. She truly loved the snow and Calvin loved to go out and play in it with her. Calvin was hit by a car in 1993 and I know Heidi missed him dearly.

Heidi loved to be outside, she loved the backyard and could literally spend hours outside. If she went out when it was muddy in the backyard, we always had to be prepared with towels. She’d come in with mud up to her elbows and try to run right past you because she hated having her paws wiped off. Sometimes, she’d come in from outside and run a circle through the living room, dining room, front hallway and family room as fast as her little legs could carry her. The cold made her very lively and she’d tell us all about her playtime outside when she came in. Some nights we’d let her out at 11:30pm thinking she’d make a quick pit stop outside and come right back in, but nope after 45 minutes or an hour, we’d give up and just go to bed making sure that my mom always knew that she was outside.

Heidi was such a character. She greeted everyone who came to our house with such a silly bark the bark that I can still hear. Everyone who met Heidi just loved her. She really thought she could talk and would just talk and talk to everyone. She was one of those dogs that people always remember meeting.

When she went to “camp,” she’d always come home so tired from playing with the other dogs. There was one camp episode which I’ll never forget. She was staying at the groomer’s and the groomer had a pond in her backyard where she let the dogs play. Heidi jumped into the pond and was a complete mess. Fortunately, when we went to pick her up, she was beautiful and clean.

Somewhere along the way, Heidi morphed into Deidi, I think because she could get so dirty. To us, she will forever be “the pup” and Deidi. She will be greatly missed, Mom & Dad’s house just won’t be the same without the Deidi Dog to come and greet us.

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After taking about 10 days off from my first mitten, I decided on Tuesday evening that I must start my second mitten. It’s been cold outside and my hands have been cold. I wanted to wear my mittens today, so I woke up this morning and finished the thumb for the second mitten. Then I spent about an hour sewing in all of the ends. I love them and just wearing them around the house for the few minutes that I did, I know that my fingers will be toasty outside.

I have yet to repair the thumb of my other mitten, mainly because I haven’t been able to go through all of my yarn yet. The little leftover balls seem to have disappeared in the move and seem to reappear once in a while. When I finally find the appropriate yarn, I will repair the thumb.

I’m sure you’ve all been waiting anxiously to hear about the interview on Thursday. It went well and I’m just waiting now to find out about the shelving position. I’ll let you know as soon as I know. In the meantime, I’m working on my library school application essays.