One of my coworkers and his wife raise alpacas.

I know, right? How freakin’ cool is that?!

This brown guy was a bit shy — curious enough to get close, but preferred not to be in the spotlight.

This one, on the other hand, was an attention whore. Had to be front and center. Had to give my coworker kisses. Even spit at us a few times (although the wind — which was strong that day — simply blew his spit right back into his face).

So freakin’ cute. And so freakin’ cool! I’m thinking I need to buy some yarn from them…

Earlier this month I found myself on the brink of a sugar coma. I had four parties to go to within a three day time span. I survived, although there’s still no end to the holiday sweets.

One of those parties was my knitting guild’s annual Christmas gathering!

Chris and Kristine settle in for some knitting

Marci, our host, and Birgit — deep in conversation about toe-up socks, I think…

Carol, Mary, Aubrey, and Patricia getting their knitting on

And there was yarn there, too!

Our swap table

I got some nice yarn through the swap, but been too busy to take pictures or upload them to my Ravelry stash. Maybe after the last of my holiday parties this season…

It’s that time again — time for me and Natalie to swap some more Pleasingly Perfecto Personal Presents!

Natalie’s gift to me this time was a DVD of Snow, one of those sappy, silly, made-for-tv Christmas movies starring one of our favorite actors, Tom Cavanagh. Every year at Christmas, Natalie and I see how many cheesy (or not-so-cheesy, or actually-good, or so-cheesy-they’re-too-awful-to-watch) Christmas movies we can watch by Christmas Day. This particular movie was one we stumbled on last year, and were happy (is “happy” the right word?) to see that the sequel came out this year! But, thanks to Natalie, I can bask in the cheesiness that is “Snow” for years and years to come.

She also sent me a copy of Natalie Cole’s Christmas album. I love listening to Christmas music!

Thanks, Natalie!

(And don’t forget to check out what I sent her!)

I know, I know — this blog is seriously lacking some actual content lately. I’m getting on that, I promise.

But, until then, this is my shameless attempt at winning something. Specifically, one of the fabulous holiday giveaway items over at Steamy Kitchen. Not only have I posted a comment in hopes of winning something, but I’m also blogging about it here in order to qualify for her “bonus” drawing.

Yeah. Shameless. I know.

A few weeks ago, Natalie wrote a Dear John letter to Bloglines because they’d been screwing up her blog feeds. At the time, I was so swamped with, well, life in general, that I wasn’t really keep up with my blog reading and had no idea that I, too, was a victim of the same problem with my feeds through Bloglines.

Last week was when I finally took notice. And the problem was bad enough that I took Natalie’s advice and checked out Google Reader. I have to admit — I like it. It’s very user friendly.

So, I’ve made the switch from Bloglines to Google Reader. The only downfall is that now I won’t be listed the knitting-related blogs I read in my sidebar anymore. But, that’s probably for the best — I’ve been reading so many lately (plus a variety of non-knitting-related blogs) that the list was becoming really, really long.