Thermal is taking a little break right now. I still like the pattern, and am excited for the finished product, but I need some instant gratification knitting. Also, I caught myself wondering if I could get away with a Thermal-esque vest and somehow "misplace" the rest of the yarn. You know, standard crazy talk.

Enter Christmas knitting. I stopped by Aylin's (love them, and they finally got their air conditioning sorted out), and picked up enough yarn for a few small gifts for the fam.

Now, Christmas is a time of strife in my family. Greed, Midwest passive-aggression and holiday induced alcoholism (not so holiday induced for my dad) all work together to cause me migraines and credit card debt. But not this year! I have a plan, a plan that does not include the words, "Master" and "Card" even!. And hopefully the hand-made hard work I put in will obviate such holiday cheerfulness as, "why the fuck did you buy me a doll in Thailand? I don't play with dolls." My dad, ladies and gentlemen! Hm, suddenly I'm thirsty for some heavily fortified eggnog.

One hank of Crystal Palace Cotton Chenille for a reverse bloom flower washcloth. This will go to my great aunt. It will also be completely unappreciated, because she sucks. This is okay, because now she'll know how I feel when she gives me her Avon freebies (CHAPSTICK FOR CHRISTMAS WTF), and I will enjoy knitting it all the same.

Four balls of Adrienne Vittadini yarn I'm going to use to make a scarf for my dad. I fully expect his ungracious ass to have something snotty to say, as he does every Christmas no matter what he gets (see above re: gifts from a fucking FOREIGN COUNTRY), so you know what? I bought this yarn on CLEARANCE. Hah! I'm sure it will be nowhere near as cool as the now traditional garage sale/dumpster diving find my dad will give me. I put on my psychic hat and I see...A single brass candleholder! Because I liked candles when I was 15.

Two balls of Plymouth Galway (100% wool) for a hat and mittens set. They will be for Grandpa, and he will love them because unlike the above two, he rocks. I'll probably just use the simplest pattern I can find, so that he'll actually wear them.

Yay, only three months until the angriest time of the year! It'll still be cool, my aunt and her boyfriend are awesome and my grandpa is the shit, so I think I can handle drunk dad and the racist Avon lady. Also, the liquor store in Luverne is always open, and it's next door to the gun shop.

The weather has been beautiful here in Virginia. After a summer full of sweltering days, we've finally had a week of cool-ish, nice days. We can actually do things outside! Without dying!

Last weekend the Monkey King and I went to Eastern Market and bought some pictures to hang in our living room.

We got six in total, and the living room looks so much nicer with "real" pictures on the wall. Once we clean in here I'll have to take a picture. For my stalkers, you see.

As the title says, there has been very little knitting in Casa d'Thermal, hence the week with no posts at all (also, I am really behind on reading/commenting on blogs. I suck.). I finished the main body and have started on the sleeves. I'm using magic loop and, for some reason, it's taking foreeeeeever. This represents about 1 week of knitting.

Sad. I blame not having any good movies to knit to. You can't watch Survivor and knit. Or Top Chef. It just doesn't work. I have a wealth of experience to back up this claim.

Is there anything more tasty than a Maryland blue crab steamed and saturated with Old Bay? Rhetorical question, because the answer is obviously, "No. Wanna fight about it?"

Crabs courtesy of Captain Pells and the giant HOLE IN MY WALLET. Jesus, for an animal that eats junk off the floor of the ocean, these guys really cost a lot. Think "Cashmere of the Sea."

Oh, I'm using Flickr to host my pics because I exceeded bandwidth last month. Let me know if there's any problems viewing!

Here is the artsy, "Before" shot. As in, "before we lost all vestiges of humanity and went to town like seagulls in a Denny's dumpster."

And here's the aftermath. Actually, there was as much crab byproduct on my shirt as on this table. I may degenerated to the point of cracking the little fellows open on my chest. Like an otter. (Okay, not really, but it was pretty messy.)

Awesomely, we had leftovers so we were able to recreate the carnage at home the next night. We just resteamed the crabs for about 5 minutes and they were good as new. As you can see, we were not as well equipped as Captain Pells, so we made do with the tools we had available. Tip: Glad Force Flex bags make great tablecloths. Hammers make great tools to nail things to a wall. Not so great for extracting crab meat.

I would like to point out that no matter where you eat crabs, there will never be any dignity to it.

And finally, requisite Thermal progress. I'm about halfway or so up the back and it's kind of putting me in a coma. On the plus side, it makes for a great knit to watch, "Hot Fuzz," by.

Yeah, so, work is kind of slow now:

You can make your own faux motivational poster here.

Also slow, THERMAL. I finally made it to the split for the button band and now I'm only able to work a row or two before my eyes clamp themselves shut and I fall into an uneasy, dreamless sleep.

The cure for this terminal boredom is, of course, a new project. Tragically, I do not have one. Oh, I have yarn and stuff, but a bad case of the knitting blahs is keeping me from brainstorming anything new. So, one word to sum up my knitting this week: *holds hands up to face and makes fart noises*

Okay, enough grumps. Happy Friday, everybody! Enjoy the weekend, later on I will post up some pics of me and Monkey King enjoying a crab feast not once but TWICE. Those crustaceans better watch out, or I'll make a motivational poster out of them. (Totally not an idle threat.)

My own recipe, I call it, "Kim's Nutella and Peanut Butter Surprise." The surprise is a curious mixture of satisfaction and self-loathing.