Refilled With Awesome

Friday, there was a box on my front step. As I'm expecting a few more Christmas gifts to arrive, this is not a surprise.

I know this box. It's another box of awesome from Meredith. She makes me laugh when I open it because there's all sorts of stuff stuck every which way in the box. There's one big package and a whole bunch of smaller ones, all wrapped in brightly colored paper.

I took them all out and put them "under" my tree. Pilchard is annoyed because this is where she sits. Well the other side of the table was covered with wrapped packages waiting to be packed and shipped. I have three to hand out tonight and then I can rearrange things so there's room for the cat under the tree. How do I know she's annoyed? Have you ever had a cat? You just know by the tone of the "meow". 

I just love Meredith's boxes of awesome. I actually have a few things to send to her so I refilled the box and it's going back. One of us is going to have to toss it, eventually. Right now, it's still very sturdy. 

She said I could open these but I can't. It's not Christmas. I want them tucked under my tree for the month. Usually there's nothing but the creche and a cat under the there. The tall tree with a skirt and nothing under it looks a little sad. This year, I decide on a small tree and I have so many presents, there's no room for the cat. I'll take that awesomeness. 

Beverage:  Huckleberry tea

Deb

Almost Like Stars

It might be a bit hard to see, but there are two pinpoints of light in this photo. Funny how the big DSLR camera from work that we use in our inspections wouldn't take a picture of this, yet my silly cell phone camera would.

These are the solar lights next to the edges of the deck stairs. I blogged about them last month. You can see that it's not a whole lot of light. It's more a measure of where the stairs are than a real big illumination.

My back house light hasn't worked in a long time and, right now, there is no money for an electrician. I have a bunch of other electrical projects I would like him to do so I'm saving up. These pinpoints of light are just what I need to find the stairs in the gloom and make it into the house without incident. They give off a nice pattern, too, when you get close but I couldn't get a photo of that to look like what I see.

A $10 investment yields big dividends. I like that.

Beverage:  Huckleberry tea

Deb

Reclaiming the Table

Two posts down is a view of the table with all sorts of wrapped packages. I was out of package sealing tape and would have to wait to box everything up until more was purchased. On a trip to the post office Friday, I bought a roll. We set it aside so I could mail a couple of bubble mailers and then I promptly forgot it. The clerk did, too. She even looked around to make sure we had everything. It was 7:00 p.m. before I realized I didn't have it.

Perhaps I would have been believed at the post office, had I gone in first thing and explained the problem. It wasn't much money so if they said, "Without clerk verification, we can't do anything," I wasn't too upset. In the travels of yesterday to finish everything off, I just picked up another roll. I had a coupon at JoAnn Fabrics and that made the roll really cheap.

When I got home, there was a package in the mailbox. I am down to waiting for ordered items to arrive so I wasn't surprised. I was surprised when I opened the package and here was the roll of tape. Since I was mailing flats with my address on them, it was very easy to match up who bought the tape, get my address and send it to me. Complain all you want about the post office, that's service.

So, last night, I wrapped. I have been saving boxes since July. I look at a box and think, "Hmmmm. Will this be a good size for Christmas?" I used to save all sorts of boxes, from 6 inch square cubes to 2 foot by 10 inch by 18 inch rectangles. You just never know when you'll need a box.

But boxes take up space and the more you save, the more space they need. They don't always nest well and they had taken over the space on the kitchen table. Last night, I cleared all the boxes off the table.

I was up until 1 a.m., but, dang it, I was on a roll. I wrapped and wrote the card and found the box and packaging. I labeled and addressed and stickered. The post office is advertising Sunday hours but I have too much to do today to head over there. This is going to be a process. Tomorrow, the red bag gets mailed. I did all the cards that don't need a personal letter. I have two flats that have to go to Canada tomorrow. It takes at least 2 weeks to get items there so I need to get those out this week if I hope they are in time for Christmas. The parcel to Australia went out on Friday.

What's left? Well, I'm waiting on stuff to arrive. Then it needs to be wrapped, boxed and shipped. I'm organized this year. I can actually sit down and not worry that something has to be shipped or I don't know what I'm getting someone and I have to endure the crush of shopping in a struggle to find "the perfect" gift.

I'm done.

I keep waiting for something to pop up and mock me. "No, no you're not."

Beverage:  Huckleberry tea

Deb

Oh My!

I took the last cross-stitch of 2012 to JoAnn Fabrics to be framed. Amazingly, although I probably shouldn't be surprised, since it was December 1st, it will be done on or before December 15th. With luck, the recipient will have the cross-stitch under their tree BEFORE Christmas. Astounded, I am. 

As I was leaving the framing department, I passed this display. 

Now, I've been thinking of taking up my crochet hook. Look at what we have there. Iowa Hawkeyes/Pittsburg Steelers colors to be sure. Bears colors at the lower left and Packers colors at the upper right. They had Jets colors in a bin below this. I see Minnesota and the blue and red of the Cubs. The blue and gold of Michigan was below and the upper left is Vikings. 

I can see scarves, 4 feet long, in the team colors of everyone I know who actually roots for some sporting team. I don't know that I actually have a crochet scarf pattern, but something like that is bound to be easy to find on the Internets. I have a wide variety of sizes of crochet needles, too, so I'm sure to find just the right size to make the project go reasonably fast. 

Tempting. So, very, very tempting. I love cross-stitching, as you probably have guessed, but there is something to be said for revisiting an old hobby. I used to crochet, a lot, when I was in college. I vowed this month would be a month of not doing any cross-stitching. I would read instead. After seeing this, and I have a feeling this yarn is available all year 'round, I'm thinking my reading is of my craft magazines to plan who gets what next Christmas. I couldn't afford to buy any yarn until next month but I could plan. 

Is it a sign? 

Beverage:  Huckleberry tea

Deb