Day of the Dead Swap

I'm headed off to another state to be a rock star tonight, which I haven't talked much about lately. First, I haven't been aggressively pursuing work and second, there hasn't been much to talk about. This weekend, with gigs tonight and Sunday, offers a surfeit of riches, however, especially since I've had a nasty head cold.

Mega doses of vitamin C, no dairy, salt water gargles, 9:00 bedtimes, lots of neckwarmers, and an equal quantity of feeling sorry for myself.

I had a student hand in his midterm today and ask me if the grades would be up this afternoon. I just stared at him.

I've been in a Day of the Dead swap for the past few weeks. As soon as my package arrives, I'll post pix of my projects. In the meantime, my package arrived from Wales.

First was a really well made project bag out of Day of the Dead fabric (currently housing a sock in progress) and 5 brass stitch markers made with skull beads decorated with roses.

The color on the fabric is an accurate representation, but for some reason (I think my camera gets unhappy when the house is very cold, which it has been) all the other pictures looks like they were shot with an amber lens.

Think bright colors.

It all came packaged is this pirate lunch box with some lovely sock yarn and a quantity of gums and chocolate. One of the gums is called "Black Jack," a fabulous licorice-flavored gum, if you like that sort of thing, which I do. Immensely.

There was a skein of lovely sock yarn in greens and blues and purples (I think my partner may have dyed it).

Also included:

• hand lotion
• a chocolate skeleton
• a hello kitty box
• a dog toy (plus another one, which I gave to the dog)
• a skull pen
• lip balm
• marshmallow candies (plus several others, which I immediately ate)
• a plushy named Catrina from their etsy store.

• a Day of the Dead Hello Kitty magnet (for some reason, I'm very touched to imagine this magnet winging its way from the US to Wales to be shipped back to me). That's Steu's paw, btw.

When I first opened the package, I thought all the candy had gotten soaked in the rain. Instead, the hand lotion had exploded sometime in the shipping process. The yarn soaked up most of it, and I was able to wipe off most of the rest, but I had to throw away a few pieces of gum. I gave the yarn a good bath in Eucalin and it's been drying for the past few days. What little lotion remains I'm hoping will soften my hands as I knit.

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From the kitchen: A tomato puff-pastry tart.