11 months until Christmas. And gloves.

Yes, that bugs a lot of folks.  While I do enjoy Christmas, I am not waiting with baited breath by the calendar.  That being said, I do keep an eye on how much time from now until then.

Why?

The biggest concern, I will make presents for people.  Not usually this early, but I do keep in mind, well, for example, if I would make a shawl or sweater, I would need a few months to work on it.  A pair of socks, oh, a week.  With the exception of one darned time, the yarn I needed for a pair showed up on the 23rd of December, and I did a pair in 2 days.

With very little sleep.

Which is probably why they didn't fit the recipient... Go figure...

And, I try, when I can, to see what people need, or want, and shop to get said things, so when Christmas, (or birthday, or X's Day, what have you), rolls around, I have the item in my "Christmas cupboard" ready to go.  Yes, an actual cupboard, It was a small entertainment center for a ginormous TV, which has long since gone to the place of infinite repeats, but the center was fine.  Strong, and big enough for most presents.

Okay, the 6 foot ladder for Mom didn't fit in it, but MOST of the items do.  Just an aside, do you know it takes almost a full roll of wrapping paper to cover a six foot box with a ladder in it?

So, when I see the 25th roll around, I do calculations, x number of months until Christmas.  Right now, 11.

So.  Now you know...  :)

Am I the only crazy one?  Please don't answer that...

And the forces of the internet universe aligned, so here is a picture of my "Grandma's rug" gloves.  Still working on the scarf...  Oh, and Mom said the rug went to one of Grandma's family in California.  That makes me happy!

Travelling 'n hot weather... And marriage.

Short blog, but I will be heading out tomorrow on my yearly trip to Seaside.  I won't be working on socks this time, but will get some pics of the project I am working on.

Husband will be staying home to care for the animals and garden, (which is growing pretty well right now, but I need to add some amendments to the tomatoes, don't want blossom end rot!), so the poor guy is going to get the brunt of a heat wave that is coming in... It's supposed to be near 100, and so I have admonished him to drink lots of liquids, please work early in the morning, and keep an eye on the animals.  He has assured me he will.

On other topics, Husband and I will be celebrating 25 years married near the end of the month, and we still surprise each other occasionally.  He'd mentioned that he wanted me to do a task, and I said, "Fine, write it down."
"Uh. Like a honey do list?"
"Exactly."

He seemed mildly flummoxed, but did so.  I don't know why that confounded him, I make lists all the time for what I need to do, if I don't, it has the very common fate of being totally forgotten.  Mom and I even have a saying for it:

If it's not on the list, it don't exist.

Husband and I get along very well, and this is one of the reasons, we are pretty willing to work with, and learn from each other.

We're still working on my higher mathematics skills, but hey, nobody's perfect.

Writing, old school style

I decided to present part of my blog entry a bit differently today, because of comments that were given me recently...
While my writing should be legible, my photography... Well, I hope it is okay...

In other blogging:

I have FINALLY planted my garden, pics up soon, (Husband deserves an award this year, the stuff was a grassy mess, and while we were out there, he churned up a six inch square iron plate!  (We have found lots of odd stuff, in fact, the previous owner gave us a "welcome" gift of two bottles that I have sitting on my kitchen window sill, that HE found while gardening.)

The bees in the aforementioned blog are doing nicely, so says our friend, they have built up comb and are starting to make honey.  (Yay!)

I took time off last week, it was Husband and my 20th anniversary.  We decided to have some "us" time.  He told the people he worked for that he was going "on vacation" and wouldn't be available to work, I told my volunteer groups that I wasn't going to be there, and found subs where I needed to, and...

We just stayed home!  We even sort of curtailed computer use (hence not a lot o' blogging).  We read books,  we did chores around the house with and for each other, we worked on setting up the garden... And Husband decided we needed new bookshelves.  I truly believe this was self defense.  I have a lot of books.  Let me rephrase that.  I have a big, honking, huge pile of books that really needed someplace to be other than the side of the hall, stacked like an avalanche hazard... So he bought 2 new bookshelves, which he said were "mine", and he claimed the old one as "his".

Of course, you realize this meant I had to remove all of my books and load them up on the new shelves, and getting them in some semblance of order.  And Husband wanted all the "nice" books closest to the front room, where people could see them.  (Meaning all my paperbacks were relegated to the second bookshelf, hidden away from general viewing...)

 Okay, there are some movies and DVD's too, but that's only like ONE shelf... Well, and he wanted to have the Polish vase, and a red glass float, and this... picture of me... Everyone likes this picture... EXCEPT me... on the shelves, but it still held all my books, with a smidgen of space left.  I have to start reading faster!!!

But, we had a quiet dinner out for our anniversary, and we read, I knit, Husband worked on the boat, I gardened, we walked, we chatted, I cooked, we cleaned stuff...

In short, we decided to just be together for awhile, without distractions.

It was sooo cool!  We might just have to do it again!!

(And on another note, I think that I will be able to comment on other's blogs, and respond on my own blog now, I have tested it a couple times, it seems to be working.  It was the suggestion of using Google Chrome that did it, and darn if I can find which of my blog buddies suggested it.  But if you did, thank you!  If you didn't, thank you for putting up with my griping!!)

20th Anniversary.

Well, on this day, 20 years ago, I almost died. Hit head on, by a guy who was full of road rage, wanted to go fight with his wife again, I suppose. Thank all that is holy, he'd dropped his little girl off in Day Care before the accident, or there would be 2 dead on his side. Thank all that is holy, I wanted seat belts in my 50's vintage truck, or there would be dead on MY side.

I had lots of bones broken. Mom had more. I had about half my blood replaced, Mom had more than all her blood replaced, if you include all the surgeries. (I had about 8, she had around 14.)

Neither of us was supposed to survive. We did.

Neither of us was supposed to walk again. We did.

Happy Anniversary.

Life goes on...