Are you a resolution-maker? I've always been one. Often my resolution has to do with how I deal with people - I resolve to be more patient, more compassionate, more communicative. Often it has to do with work - I resolve to be better disciplined. Often (most often, if the truth be told), it has to do with diet - I resolve to lose those eight pounds that seem to be my yo-yo shadow.
This year it's different, which isn't to say that I'm better with regard to all of the above, just that this year I'm taking a different approach.
I've always envied those people who could bake scrumptious cookies, decorate them, package them in pretty tins, and give them as gifts. Or bake a loaf of moist homemade bread, and put it in plastic wrap with a big red ribbon on top. Or take a glass canning jar and artfully layer it with the ingredients for something indecently good (like butterscotch brownies), screw the top on tight, and tie the recipe on with a ribbon.
Being a knitter, I think about homemade gifts a lot. Actually, how can I not?
What do you do when you want to contribute to Thanksgiving dinner, but you can't just pile food in a bag, because you have to take a plane to get where you're going and you do not - I repeat, do not - check luggage? That's the dilemma we face this year. We're spending Thanksgiving with two of our sons and their families, and they want my traditional butternut squash bisque.
So here's the challenge.
Come November, I sure do. If my neck is warm, the rest of me is warm. If I get too warm, all I have to do is unwind my scarf. That's a whole lot easier than pulling off a tunic or - horrors - a sweater with stuff underneath that you don't want to people to see.
I just did my annual fall migration, meaning that I pulled all of my scarves from their summer hideaway to a front-and-center winter spot. Do I have a scarf collection?
What with the state of the economy, we're all feeling the pinch this year. Sadly, charities are holding their collective breaths, fearing that charitable giving this holiday season will be down at a time when the number of needy is up. A charity needs money, clothes, and toys. How about free books?
I have a plan, but I need your help to carry it out.
Huh? Magic Carpet? Well, isn't this a magical, mystical trip we take each time we go online? Think about it. With a few clicks, we're anywhere in the world. Maybe you don't see it that way. Maybe, if you've been surfing the web since you were a wee tot, you see the online world as your backyard. I don't. I surf every day of the week, yet I still see the World Wide Web as something of a miracle.
And the things it allows me to do?
If you are, then you must be suffering as I am with the darkness of autumn. Oh yes, the sun has been bright this fall, the foliage gorgeous, and the air warmer than the norm. But all that happens after eight in the morning. I'm here in my office at six, with windows to my left and right showing ... nothing at all. It's like it's the middle of the night.
So what do I do?
What do you do for a cold? What makes it shorter? Is there anything that will prevent it?
I'm asking for a reason. When my kids were little, I had colds constantly. Then they passed the constant-cold phase, I started taking Vitamin C, and I had no more than one cold a year or two. Now the colds are back. If this is the price of being a Grammi to very young grandkids, I'll gladly pay it. But how to deal?
Here's the immediate problem ...
