Tempus is fugiting

I don't feel a lot of holiday pressure this year, thanks mostly, I guess, to the need to mail most of my presents. When you have to ship packages, the pressure – such as it is – happens earlier in December and mostly involves the dread of lost shipments. Fortunately everything has been delivered and only a few mitten-shaped cookies broke in transit.

The decision to not make a lot of handknit gifts this year eliminated most of my usual tension-filled evenings. I don't often sit-and-knit during the day, because I like to watch television when I knit, and there's only so much HGTV I can stand. (I do like Color Splash, but it comes on about the time I'm usually starting dinner.) Evening television viewing around here is mostly MSNBC, which I like in much smaller doses than He Who Controls The Remote.

Sigh.

Thank goodness for college football bowl games! (Live sporting events are my programming of choice, my own personal reality TV.) While I have trouble staying awake until the final minute, I can get a lot of knitting done between kickoff and halftime.

See what I mean? It's a cuff! The first one in the first pair of three Pop-up Paws mittens on my to-do list.

The yarn is a blend of wool, cotton, acrylic and nylon, certainly not as warm as pure wool would be, but I like the texture and the little halo of red fibers, and it's machine-washable. Since this pair is going to my daughter-in-law – the mother of four children, all younger than three – I think machine-washable trumps pure wool. (And yes, I know about superwash wool, but it stretches out after a few launderings, so I prefer using it for blankets and throws and pillows, oh my.)

Moving on. I'm two whole pounds lighter this year than I was a year ago. I'm okay with that, because I didn't have a very good relationship with food in 2010. The coming year promises already to be one in which I'm not fighting myself about food. I got a good start this year, took a short and very educational detour a couple months ago and feel like I'm on track. Losing all the weight I need to lose probably won't happen in 2011. But the months are going to roll by anyway, just as they have this year, and I have a much better attitude about the possibilities before me.

The Big Carrot dangling in front of me is running a marathon next fall. I know for sure I couldn't complete one at my current weight. And I know for sure I want to complete one in 2011, the year I turn 60. As long as my desire to run a marathon remains Priority One, I should be okay.