Before, no after (yet)

I had thought about stopping somewhere for dinner on the way home last night, but it was raining, and I decided to just go home, fix a quick dinner (salad and spaghetti with my favorite pasta sauce in the world--Bertolli's Black and Green Olive--amazing!), and knit. I finished the knitting on the main part of the bag. Here it is, hanging by two magnetic hooks that I use to hang the Christmas wreath on our metal front door:

And a close-up of the stitch detail showing the pretty heathering in the yarn:

I had intended to make the straps out of the purple yarn, but I don't have enough, so I guess I'm going to use the beige. I have to wind it into balls first, though (this yarn comes in hanks and has to be wound into balls before you can use it, and in this case, I'm using two strands held together, so I have to wind each hank into two somewhat-equal balls).

I wish the yarn had come earlier so that I could have used Bob as my ball-winding helper. I remember a long time ago, when I used to knit with Aunt Lydia's rug yarn, Bob would sit with me and hold the yarn between his hands while I wound it off. Without him, I had to use one of the dining room chairs, and you can imagine the help I got from the cats . . .

At least I managed to make a real dinner for myself last night. Monday night I was so wiped out by the time I got home that I ended up eating chips and salsa and, I'm ashamed to say, about half a bag of peanut M&M's for dessert. (And, okay, I ate the other half of the bag last night while I was knitting . . .) I had stopped at Target for something on the way home that night, and was caught by a display of red, white and blue M&M's. They really do exploit the holidays, don't they?? Well, not exploit, I love it, love buying Christmas candy in red and green colors, and Easter candy in pastels. I think it's great. But it is seductive.