We had a rude awakening this morning - so much for the peace of Christmas Eve.  At 4:45, the smoke alarm started going off, and I could smell, for lack of a better term, burning rubber/burning wires.  It was pervasive throughout the house, so I think something is going on with the HVAC unit.  The smell seems to have lessened some and the smoke alarm stopped beeping, but...I'm up, I'm up!  (Nothing like a little adrenalin shot at 4:45 a.m.!)  I checked everywhere I could think of and found nothing, so.....I think it is the unit.  I tuned it off for now, so it shouldn't keep doing whatever it is it was doing, and hopefully Ralph can check it out today.  

I had the alarm set to 6:00 this morning, hoping to sleep in a bit, since Alli doesn't have school for the next two weeks, but...I was up at the normal time.  (I even stayed up later than usual last night reading a book!!!)   I did get all the Christmas presents wrapped - or at least all of the ones that were stored in the garage.  I didn't see any reason to wake Dawn up at 5:30 getting packages out of the guest house to wrap.  They can wait until tonight - my normal time to wrap presents anyway.

I was digging through e-mails this weekend, and found a photo from the Madrigal Dinner earlier this month.  This is Meredith, Veronica, and myself at the dinner.

I did it!  I finished the quilt top (not the whole quilt, mind you!) before Christmas!  This was the last project of the year for the quilting club, and....I actually finished it before the next club started! I'm proud of this one - it isn't perfect, and I may never make a perfect, or even close to perfect, quilt, but this one turned out pretty darn good!

I got a special request from my son.  He saw a crocheted 'knight's helm' on-line, and asked if I could make him one.  Of course!  Hmm...let's see.  Just how would you go about that???  I know - google it!!  I found a pattern last week, and sat down yesterday afternoon (after finishing the quilt!) and made one up.  Here is the first parts of it - not put together yet.

Here it is - finished and all out together.

One happy kid!

He even let Dallas try it on.  (He asked me to make one for Dallas too, and we wanted to see if this one was too big - the answer is yes!)

I'm happy with it - it is an easy pattern to make.  That's a good thing, because not only does AJ want one for Dallas, he wants one for his friend David too.