Three years and a sock

Here is one completed sock. It's mostly to the letter of the pattern, with some "alterations" in the form of mistakes. The first one is that I made the heel flap two rows too long, but that worked out great. I suppose I have a long heel or something because it works. Because it's "too long" it caused me to need to pick up two extra stitches on either side, which also worked out because I have a large circumference ball of the foot. I ended up keeping said stitches until the toe decrease. That brings me to the second alteration - the toe decreases. I made the foot a half inch too long, and decided to just take it out of the toe decreases. I could have ripped it back, but I was in no mood because I wanted to finish. It's probably not the best decision, but it worked out fine. My only small pattern gripe is with threading the needle through the last stitches to close the toe. This makes for a little knot which sits right on the end of my second toe (which is longer than my big toe. Let's not get into what that says about me). It bugs me for the first few minutes I wear them, but then I get right over it. I've looked and the toes on the other ribbed socks are all different, so I doubt I'll change any of the them. I am, however, fairly certain that if I ever see another pattern with this closure that I will change it to grafting. I like the seemless thing much better.
The second picture here is the beginnings of the second sock. I forced myself to cast it on, to prevent myself from from using the needles to start a different sock. I'm so excited about this knit socks thing that I have to rein it in a bit to get the second one done. I feared that I would start a new sock, and then have a mismatched pair that would either never get mates, or worse, get unmatched mates due to forgetting my "alterations". Ofcourse, I figured I'd forget my alterations no matter what I did , so here you see my notes, and the crazy amount of yarn that's left over from my first sock. Any ideas on what to do with this?

Oh, and the three years thing? Today is Boyfriend and my three year dating anniversary. We've been through so much, I can't believe it's been three years already. What a lifetime apart things are now than they were then. Amazing.