Like everyone else today, I awoke to a new year. Rather than ponder what resolutions to make, I went out and shoveled the fresh snow off the sidewalks and driveway and enjoyed the fresh air (until my neighbor fired up his snowblower, at which point the fresh went out of the air). I can […]
The metaphorical sun is setting on another year, and I am letting it slip away quietly.
Evidently my flurry of roster moves in the last week didn’t spell doom for my fantasy football team because they won the championship game yesterday. Back in September, I promised to buy the winner of the league a lovely I Hate The New England Patriots, but now that I’ve seen how things turned out I […]
Today I went for a run for the first time in way too long, and it felt surprisingly good. I didn’t go too far, and I didn’t go too fast, but I did go, and that’s a start. After that I got on our newest fitness toy, the Fitter, which is supposed to help with […]
I have a nice long to do list for this four-day weekend. Taking a picture of this Big Boy might have been on it if I’d managed to write out my list before Mr. Karen and I went for our meeting with the financial planners this morning (this was the meeting in which we […]
When I was looking for my quilting UFOs the other day, I came across some sketchbooks that I started when I took a class based on the book Color and Cloth. These are filled with what I guess I should call my NYSs, projects I’ve not yet started and maybe never will. Almost any page […]
I had to update some software on my work PC today; between prompts from the install programs I cleaned out one of my desk drawers and found almost everything in it could go right into the secure document disposal bin in the hall. Reports printed by a customer from their legacy system in 2004—out with […]
So remember when I wrote about my fantasy football team making the playoffs? As you may recall I wasn’t feeling too hopeful about my chances, what with all the Patriots on my opponent’s team (including Tom Brady and Randy Moss). I was even less hopeful after I watched the Vikings game on Sunday night; I […]
I’m back at work today after four days off and so far it’s been blessedly quiet: no calls from customers, no urgent support requests in my e-mail, no project managers getting all up in my mix. So nice. Mr. Karen and I went to Illinois for the long holiday weekend, spending the first half with […]
Even the saddest donkey smiles at Christmas. ***** One year ago today, I took Christmas off. Two years ago, I wrote about a special Christmas. Three years ago, there were Christmas lights. Four years ago, a a Christmas song made me teary. Five years ago, I was on the road, not at a keyboard.
This is the Christmas stocking my mom knit for me when I was small. She knit one for my brother, too, though I can’t remember exactly what his looked like. I have a better memory of the dog’s, though: it was smaller and had a steak on it. Now that I’m knitting again, I love […]
The shopping is done, the presents are wrapped, the wind is whipping the snow around outside but I don’t have to go out again tonight. Life is good. ***** One year ago, I was amused by a clothing tag and felt sad about my lost glove. Two years ago, I looked back at September. […]
Earlier today, when I probably should have been sewing on the quilt that’s on my felt wall, the one meant for the baby that turned one at Thanksgiving, I took an inventory of the unfinished objects in my quilting stash. Some I’ve already written about here: the Treehouse quilt for the Modern Quilt-Along, the strip […]
Nostalgia Friday continues with this excerpt from the book Summer Is…, which I wrote and illustrated. Unfortunately, I did not date it, so I can only guess that I completed it sometime in the early 1970s based on my handwriting and the way I spelled “picinics”.
(Today I offer an essay I did for Period 10 English in 1977. I haven’t even corrected the two run on sentences the teacher marked.) One of the most memorable days I’ve had occurred when I was in the third grade. I attended a private school that held classes in a large Victorian house. My […]
I misspoke when I said that the tree in my office was going to be it for holiday decorating. I also have this seasonal Kleenex box. So purple! So pretty!
I just finished reading A Perfect Mess, which is subtitled “The Hidden Benefits of Disorder–How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place”. Just reading that on the cover when I saw it in the new non-fiction section at the library made me feel good. I have crammed closets! I […]
I had a fantasy football team for the first time this season. I expected that at this point I’d be reporting that my season was over, but no, I made the playoffs. In the first round, unfortunately, I have to play a team that’s already beaten mine twice and is well stocked with New England […]
Yesterday I added ornaments to the tree I put up in my office Friday night. Even before I finished I got compliments on it. A couple people did say it made them feel like a slacker; they didn’t even have a tree up at home, they said, and here I was with a tree […]
I had such high hopes for this past weekend. I was going to get stuff done, lots and lots of stuff. Saturday morning I made a list. I am somewhat reluctant to admit that I made this list on a fresh notepad because I could not find the list I made the last time I […]
Saturday we got up around 10:30 and made our way to Epcot. We went on an energy adventure with Ellen, and I continued to miss the old songs and the monochromatic dinosaurs because I’m cranky that way. We shopped in Japan and waited in a very long line for kaki gori, because kaki gori is […]
Mr. Karen and I spent a rare night at the theater, going to see a show at the Detroit Opera House. (The Lion King, whose run here just happened to start the same day as our WDW vacation.) Nights like these would be less rare if I could be less anxious about them; I […]
One might think that with our time growing short at WDW, we might want spend as many hours as possible experiencing the attractions we had so far not been able to get to. One would be wrong. We slept in until around 11 and didn’t manage to make it to our first park of the […]
I started decorating for Christmas today. The tree is up and the lights and garland are on. Ornaments come next, which means making choices, since I didn’t put up the big tree, just the noble Presto Pine. But that will have to wait until Monday, because I put the tree up in my office, […]
Thursday we had to get a 9 a.m. wakeup call in order to be sure we’d have enough time to make it over to Animal Kingdom for our afternoon Backstage Safari tour. We got there early enough to go check out the capybaras, except the capybaras have moved out and there were porcupines in their […]
(I admit there is no new hope in this entry; I just liked the title. Pictures from this day are here if you’d rather follow my trip that way.) Wednesday we woke up remarkably early (meaning, before 10) and fortified ourselves with Tonga Toast before heading off to Downtown Disney for our big shopping outing. […]
Somehow we managed to sleep so late on Tuesday that we ended up having to rush to make our lunch reservation in World Showcase, and it was for 2:15. I never thought when we booked it that it would be an issue. But we did get there and got to try the restaurant in the […]
Through sheer force of will we managed to get up and out of the room in time to make it to Captain Cook’s Snack Company before they stopped serving breakfast at 10:30. Not much before, true, but enough that we were able to get some of the famous Tonga Toast, which used to only be […]
So yes, I spent the first nine days of this month on vacation in Florida, more specifically at Walt Disney World. Mr. Karen and I took 809 pictures (okay, that was almost entirely my doing), walked about 200,000 steps, abandoned our normal sleeping and eating schedules (stay up ’til 2! sleep ’til 11! have wine […]
This was me this morning, having breakfast outside, wearing shorts and a tee shirt, already melting a bit in the heat. This was me about an hour ago, scraping ice off the car in the parking lot where we’d left it last week while we were vacationing in sunny Florida. And it sure […]
Can it be? Another finished knitted object only about six weeks after the last one? Yes, indeed. This is the baby blanket I made for the daughter of a friend. Little Kate is only two months old, which I think might be a record for the youngest baby I’ve managed to finish a gift for. […]
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