I wanted to thank everyone for entering my little haphazard mini giveaway. It's been a lot of fun reading your answers and today I wrote everyone's names out, put numbers next to them, and had Handsome Helpful Boyfriend pick a number between 1 and 21. He picked "2" which means that the winner of the giveaway is....

SHARINE!
Yay! Congratulations, Sharine! I've already picked the perfect thing for you, so give me a week or two to get it together and I'll send that out! Thanks again, everyone!
I meant to participate in IHSW this weekend. I signed up and everything, worked on Saturday, got sick today and stitched all day, and then I realized that wait a second - I'm stitching secret stitching and can't show you guys :( It's coming along nicely, though, and I really hope I have it finished for Handsome Helpful Boyfriend by Christmas, but I'll definitely report back. 
In other news, a few weeks ago I got an e-mail from Jo of Serendipitous Stitching asking me if she could send Handsome Helpful Boyfriend a present. I had no objections and about two weeks later got a neat little packet in the mail. We opened it up and imagine our surprise at the loveliness enclosed! Picture below, along with my last TUSAL jar of the year.
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Isn't it WONDERFUL! Thanks so much, Jo! We really love it! The Hobbit is one of Handsome Helpful Boyfriend's favorite books, so this was quite a treat getting us very excited for the movie.
Which brings me to my next story for this post. Handsome Helpful Boyfriend finished the well he was on Wednesday night, and came home at 3am Thursday morning! We had been invited to go see the midnight showing of the Hobbit Thursday night, but declined thinking that Handsome Helpful Boyfriend had to get up at 5 to go to work Friday morning. This was no longer the case, but we still thought we'd just go see the noon showing Friday since we both had the day off work. Well Thursday night we went out to dinner with a bunch of people who were going to the midnight screening. Turns out they had extra tickets and somehow convinced Handsome Helpful Boyfriend to go to the midnight screening. Here I was thinking I was going to be enjoying my warm soft bed that night but no... off to the movies we went after a quick stop at home for a cup of coffee. 
It was a good time, though. This is a small town so only about 1/3 of the theater was full and some people dressed up as characters as well. The tickets were for the 3D screening, which didn't have much effect on me because of my eyesight, but the movie itself was immensely enjoyable. I loved all the tie-ins with LOTR and the little extras they added. True, it was a tad long, but at least I had fun. And Benedict Cumberbatch plays Smaug and the Necromancer, which brings me to my next (and final) story for the night.
SHERLOCK.
Holy crap I'm super addicted to that show! If you haven't seen it yet and have access to it via Netflix Instant or other avenues, WATCH IT, I say! It is such a refreshingly modern take on a classic without being annoying or over-the-top. Well, ok, a little over the top but Sherlock Holmes' character has to be a LITTLE over the top. There are two seasons out so far, with three episodes per season, each episode being an hour and a half long. I have watched both seasons all the way through, and then watched season one all over again. I keep looking over at Handsome Helpful Boyfriend and saying, "I want more Sherlock." "ok, I'll go produce some." Season three is coming... and I wants it now, precious.
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