On Holiday Stuff, TV, & Stamps…

This coming Thursday is Thanksgiving here in the states, though I don’t think it’s really sunk in just yet. We’re not doing much, just going to my brother-in-law’s for dinner. If all goes well, it’ll probably be boring, to be honest. But he’s a bachelor who doesn’t cook much, and hasn’t ever cooked a turkey, so there’s definite funny-story potential there.

My only real plans for the rest of that day are to sleep in, make a nice egg & sausage brunch for hubby and myself, and probably work on crocheted Christmas gifts most of the day. Should be very relaxing, I think. I have a bunch of comic books that need to be put in albums for storage too…

Speaking of Christmas, hubby and I were actually in the mood to shop this past Saturday, so we braved the weekend crowds and got nearly all of our Christmas shopping done. Now I just need to finish up the crocheted items I’m making, and we’ll make a trip to the wine store and the candy store a little closer to Christmas, and we’ll be all set. I’m hoping to get the crocheted gifts done this week, so I can make some gift bags as well, but we’ll see. I do tend to over-reach a bit in the goals department, but we have plenty of gift bags if I don’t get them done, so it’s not a do-or-die type thing.

Dang it, that reminds me. I forgot to tell Mom I’d love a small tin of butter cookies for Christmas. I love those things, and hardly ever get them. A small tin would last me a long time. Must put that on my list!

Most of Sunday was spent on my butt in front of the TV catching up on some of the shows we missed last week, which would have been far more productive had I grabbed some yarn and a crochet hook. Instead, I decided to try to write this post, and considering I’ve deleted the whole thing twice and it’s now a quarter to one on Monday morning, you can guess how well that went. I don’t even know why I try…although now that I think about it, that’s not entirely true. I try because I think it’ll be more efficient, and give me more time later. But that never works – I need quiet and focus to think and write, and I can’t ever get that while I’m sitting in front of the TV.

TV and crochet (or knitting), however, go together like caramel vodka & apple cider. And I would have been that much closer to having my Christmas gifts done (and it would have been a nice break from the small screen, too). Ah well. We all make stupid decisions occasionally, eh?

We also went to a play this weekend – a local production called “Mauritius” that one of my co-workers was acting in. It was a lot of fun, and had a stamp collecting theme which is, of course, right up my alley. I’m not a terribly new collector, but aside from the inverted Jenny (which I’m slightly obsessed with finding one of the new upright errors), I wasn’t really “up” on the high-dollar/priceless stamp lore. So it was really interesting from that standpoint, as I learned about the Mauritius “Post Office” errors, and promptly looked them up online in Denny’s after the play when we stopped for dinner.

I haven’t had a lot of time to do anything with my stamp collection in the past couple of years, and I think it’s time I remedied that. I have a bunch of stamps to go through, catalog & put in albums, and it would be fun to set aside some time each week just to do that. Sunday nights might be perfect, now that I think about it.

So…lots going on lately, but in a good way. This week I’m working every day except Thursday, and I’m kind of looking forward to Weds & Fri being slow days at work so I can get caught up on a couple of projects I have going. The beauty of working around major holidays is that most everyone else takes vacation days. Quiet, uninterrupted work time is a rare and precious thing…

To all my US peeps, Happy Thanksgiving, and to the rest of you, have a great week!

Jamie DeBree

Writer | DBA | Dog Wrangler