Happy New Year (Roman calendar)

I could look up which Caesar changed the new year to begin in January but I'm feeling too lazy to do that. There are lots of calendars so I could easily wish everyone a Happy New Year at least 3 more times without even thinking hard about. I'd just need to look up the exact dates as two of them are based on lunar calendars.

My goal this year is to post at least once a week. I'm not going to say what day of the week, but I'll strive for Tuesday or Wednesday.

Here are some websites I've been reading:
okay, this one I'm playing; creating custom miniatures for my characters
https://www.heroforge.com/
About women (some real, some fictional, some...in-between) who stand out
http://www.rejectedprincesses.com/
If you're on Twitter and had a problem with certain people who claim to be concerned about "Ethics in Game Journalism" you may find this tool helpful
https://github.com/freebsdgirl/ggautoblocker
I think this game looks adorable and I really want to play it
http://penguinking.com/games/costume-fairy-adventures/



My friend A.H. gave me a Japanese tatting book for Christmas, Tatting Lace Accessories. She went to Japan this past summer and I had asked her to look for one, more hopeful than expectant. She confirmed the difficulty in finding a book on a topic, a somewhat rare topic to boot, when you don't know the local name for it. However, she found one for me after the trip. Wasn't that nice?

Bracelet I made of A.H.

This is the scarf, around my neck and in my lap

My stepmom gave me a fabulous infinity (aka Moebius) scarf. A friend of hers arm-knitted it, using boucle yarn. When I put it on, the other end is somewhere near my ankles. I can wrap it twice and it serves as scarf, shawl, head cover, etc. My sister-in-law made me a pine cone wreath. I haven't put it up yet, I need to find my wreath hanger. My stepmother and Dad also gave me a lovely deep burgundy pashimi scarf. It's almost large enough to serve as a c. 1814 shawl; but then shawls that size could fit a twin bed as a coverlet.

My niece is in college now, she started this past September. I gave her a gift card to the school store and a bracelet in her school colors. She was really happy to see those. The small moleskine calendar and pocket Shakespeare seemed to be hits, too. I gave Dad a copy of Wilfred Owens poetry; to my stepmom, I gave some pods for her new Keureg and a small prayer box ornament from hungersite.com (note I don't know if that link goes to the Keureg she has, I just linked to a random one). To my brother, I gave a DVD about the development of roads and other travel in NC. For my Midwestern sister-in-law, I gave a book on Southern cooking. All the presents seemed to go over well.

For C, I looked at his list and bought a t-shirt he wanted; a 9 pounds of King Arthur Flour (pastry, pasta, and whole wheat pastry, the King Arthur flour baking book, and from mom a pastry cutter. I found a cute pair of socks for R and a couple things from her list. My one huge goof was giving someone a calendar, who already had 3. At least the one I gave him, The Big Bang Theory superhero one, is entertaining and came with cards.