Potential for coherence

I feel that I should apologize for the completely incoherent nature of that last post. Although I appreciate everyone who commented as if I had made any sense at all!

I have been buried the last three days, which is why I haven't posted or written back to anyone or anything. I came home Saturday, as you know, completely exhausted, to my family plus one addition. We have a distant relative staying with us this whole week, as he is moving his family out here and has had to start work before their house is ready. This is a fine thing, as he is nice and personable and an easy house guest, and we're glad to connect more with this branch of the family. But it does mean that what little time on the computer that I might have had has pretty much been gone in the evenings, as I have not wanted to rudely bury myself in knitting blogs. He's at a holiday party for work tonight, though, and Rick isn't home yet and the girls are practicing piano, so I'm grabbing this moment while I can. I've missed you all!

I've also had to get through 55 candidate files for a hire that we're doing this year. That has been an absolutely insane job, complicated by departmental politics. I got it done before our meeting today, but it's involved not eating much or sleeping when I'd like. And it's meant very little knitting, blogging, or anything else that I like to do. Alas.

In spite of all of this, though, I have made significant progress on the Marie Antoinette socks -- even though I'm now knitting them for bigger feet than mine (not hard). Here's the first one, which I actually wet blocked (I'm halfway down the foot of the second one).
Check out the top of the cuff, which leaves me utterly charmed every time I look at it:
And the foot:
How does Anne do it? And how can she possibly be brave enough to let me test knit these lovely things of hers? Either way, I'm grateful.

And, to top it off, I came home the other day to find a package from Anne containing this beauty; talk about making it easy to give away socks, when you immediately receive the perfect yarn to knit them again for yourself.
This is Kim's sock yarn in the Tupelo Honey colorway -- this picture hardly does it justice, it's so lovely. The only question I have here is, do I knit bees (the Marie Antoinette socks again), or acorns (the socks Anne designed just a bit ago that I've had a hankering for)? I love it when it's just impossible to go wrong in a decision.

I also got my box from the Ravelry Holiday Swap (thanks, other Anne, for getting me into this one!), and my swap partner just spoiled me rotten. First, tell me this yarn isn't just me all over.
Do you see those hints of brown in there with the blue? Love it. It's Lorna's Laces, too. Mmm.... And then there were all the tempting personal spa-type goodies.
How lucky was I? I only hope her buddy was as good to her as she was to me!

Now, all of those were present-type objects, and did not come due to my penchant for impetuous purchases. These, however, are all my own fault.
and
But how could I have helped myself? (I should mention that there are two more, which will be waiting under the tree for the girls on Christmas morning, but the girls are home with me now, and therefore it is not possible to take pictures of those bags.) I mean, with all the great yarn I've been getting, I need project bags, don't I? And clearly, Bea (whose glorious creations these are) is a woman of great talent and I couldn't let those bags just sit there on her etsy site all alone and unpurchased, could I? It was a public service. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The next couple of days should be very busy with grading and reading thesis proposals and going to meetings, but nothing like the last three. And if I can get the grading done, I might (fingers crossed) be able to file grades on Monday and start getting those last-minute, must-do-them-in-person-not-online holiday things done. Wouldn't that be nice?