Dear Biden Supporter

 Do you remember back last November, right after your boy Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election, and you sneeringly asked, "Where are all the Trump supporters now?"

Do you remember what I told you?  I said, "We're stocking up on foodstuffs and preparing for the lean times to come."  

Remember how you mocked me, right before you blocked me?  

Well, I have just one question for you.

Where

are

you 

now?  

I've noticed you've gotten mighty quiet here lately.  So, where are you now when gas prices have tripled and store shelves are empty, inflation is through the roof, and your kids' and grandkids' Christmas presents have been sitting in a cargo container on a ship off the coast of California for two months?  

Why can't I hear you anymore?  

Come on now, brag on your boy!  Say it with me, loud and proud!

Let's Go Brandon!!

*All photos were taken today, Friday, October 22, 2021 in a Mississippi Walmart. 

Moo!

My coworker has a grandson.  He is six years old and absolutely adores cows.  She told me she'd taken him to a local place called Bull Bottom Farms.  They have a pumpkin patch, and a corn maze, and all sorts of things for kids to do.  They also have cows.  My friend said as soon as he saw the cows, he got so excited and started calling "MOOO!" to them.  

Beverly and her sister Judy have cattle, so when I was down in Texas, I just had to walk out and take a few photos of them for my friend's grandson.   

I managed to lure this one closer by holding out some grass for her. 

I don't think she was too sure about me, 

but she wanted that grass, she did!

The first thing my friend said to me when I got back to work was that her grandson said, "Nana!  I want to go to where those cows are!"  That would be a long way to drive, just to pet some cattle!  

That's all I have for you tonight.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go practice my piano.  

There'll be a piano post soon.  I promise.  

See, I said it out loud -- so to speak.  Now I have to stick with it. 

Back To Work

 The first day back to work after a few days off is always hard, and today was no exception.  Getting up at 3:30 after sleeping in until nearly 6:00 was the worst, so I'm not too sure how coherent this post will be.  But I did want to share a few more photos from my trip to Texas.  

I had planned on going down sometime around Christmas, but I woke up Wednesday morning to a text from Cody saying he was going, and wanted to know if I could come.  Of course I'll come!  I'm always up for a trip back home. 

Since I already had vacation for Friday, all I had to do was make a quick call to the vet to make arrangements to board Jesse, and we were good to go.  Suzette, as always, accompanied us. 

For those of you who may be new to the blog and don't know the story of Suzette, I had a dear, dear friend named Suzie, who left us last year.  Suzie had multiple health issues, which meant she couldn't do all the travelling she wanted to do.  She was in end stage kidney failure and had to stay tied to that dialysis clinic -- among other things.  

A while back, she'd lamented that she missed going to fiber festivals and such, so at the last Fiber Fun In The 'Sip -- in 2019, before the pandemic -- I'd fixed her up a little gift bag with fun stuff I'd bought there.  It had yarn, and stitch markers, kudzu soap, and this little alpaca, plus a few more things.  After Suzie passed away, the alpaca was the only thing I asked to have back.  I named her Suzette, and now she goes with me on all the trips Suzie was unable to take.  

Anyway, the trip down was mostly uneventful, other than a brief traffic delay for a wreck.  I'm telling you, we certainly picked the right weekend to go, because cousins I hadn't seen in years were there.  This is Beverly's oldest grandson Steven, with all his kids.  

That's Hayden, Charlie, Decatur, Steven, Wendi, and Stormi -- who is a little camera shy. Wendi brought her baby Liam -- who was the hit of the weekend.  

Not only that, but Beverly's second grandson Richard came with his family.  

Here we have Stephanie, Richard Jr, and Lizzie (holding Addlyn -- who is Shelbi's), sitting on the floor.  Beverly and James in their recliners, with Astra (who is Anthony's daughter -- long story, and for a different day) standing beside Beverly, and Richard and his wife Sharleen in the back.  

I just realized I didn't get a picture of Diane, Steven's wife.  I have one of her back, but you don't want to see that, do you?  

I took these photos with my new Kindle, which actually has a pretty good camera.  The only drawback is that it doesn't have a flash, so it doesn't do so well in low light situations.  My phone camera is messing up, and won't flash unless I manually turn the flash on to take pictures.  That's one reason I kind of want a new phone.  The other is that I've had that one for nearly 5 years, and want a bigger one anyway.  

By the way, if you've ever seen the Matthew McConaughey movie The Free State Of Jones, Richard was an extra in it.  Just thought I'd throw that out there.  I've got a screen shot somewhere.  If I can find it again, I'll post it someday.  But not today, for it is now past my bedtime, and I must go. 

Laters. 

Home Again, Home Again

Cody and I are back from our quick trip to Texas, and as always, I wish we could have stayed longer. I'll be posting more about the trip in the coming days, but for now, I have to show you my new candles from my friend Kristine's shop.  

Once again, she knocks it out of the park.

Not quite sure who that Brandon guy is, but everyone has really been cheering him on lately...*snickers evilly*

The other candle is one of her Halloween scents.  I think it was out last year, too, but I don't rightly remember.  

Back to Brandon, this candle smells like vanilla ice cream and musty basement.  

It smells a lot better than it sounds.  Seriously.  It does.  

In knitting news, I got this far on my cowl while I was gone.  

I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to make it.  I want it to be long enough that whoever receives it can pull it up over her head -- which means it'll need to be about twice as long as it is now.  What I'm probably going to do is wind about 25 yards from the opposite end to make a square in my blanket, then just knit until I run out of yarn.  

In the meantime, here are some cousins just having a bit of fun.  

Cory is Beverly's great grandson, and his parents have talked about how he just isn't into sports and that they wish he'd be more active and outdoorsy.  Part of the problem is he doesn't really have any friends his age down there.  They moved to Texas just as the pandemic was starting, so he spent the first year there doing virtual school.  Now he's in school, but hasn't really made many friends.  There are some kids in the neighborhood where he lives, but Shelbi doesn't want him hanging around with them, because they'd be a bad influence on Cory.  Other than his much younger sisters, he's pretty isolated.  

When we were there in May for my mother's memorial, he got out with my nephews Joshua and Paul, and they tossed a baseball around.   Cory seemed to really enjoy that.  This time, Cody asked him if he had a football.  He said he'd get out there and throw it with Cory, but alas, Cory had no football.   So, what did Cory do?  He got on the phone and asked his dad to buy him a football, which dad happily did.  

The next day, Cody got out there and they spent all afternoon playing football, which tickled his parents to no end. Then Cory came in and Beverly and I helped him with a paper he had to write for school.  I got to tell him a little WWII history, which totally geeked me out. 

Him, not so much, but it did help him with his paper. 

Alas, all good times must come to an end, and it's back to work tomorrow.  Sigh...

Not So Great

 I finished the cowl I'd been working on, and decided I didn't really like it that much after all.

Eh, it wasn't so terrible, but it wasn't so great, either.  It was a little too long and thin for my liking, but I'm not going to re-do it.  I'll stick it in the gift drawer, and I'm sure I'll find someone who will appreciate it.  I'm hoping once I've washed and blocked it, the edges will stop curling like that.  In the meantime, here's what the stitch looks like. 

I like the way the stitch pattern looks.  I might do another one some day, but something less than a 216 stitch cast on.  

I apologize for the crappy photos, as well.   I took them on my phone, and for some reason, it's decided it doesn't need to flash when it's on autoflash.  I have to turn the flash on to get it to flash.  Every tie I open the camera.  It's a bit tedious.  I still can't get into the website to order a new one, so it looks like I'm going to have to go into town to the AT&T store.  

Anyway, back to my knitting.  I'm determined to get  a cowl done, so I ran and got the other skein I'd bought from this same dyer -- Ravenswood Fibers -- and caked it up. 

This colorway is called Flickering Flame.  She has some gorgeous colors, but the yarn itself isn't so great.  I find it to be very splitty, and there were several spots where one strand had broken or frayed.  I probably won't buy much from her any more.   Even so, I caked the yarn up and cast on a new cowl. 

This time, I only cast on 160 stitches, which I think will give me the size I'm envisioning, and am knitting a simple diagonal lace. 

Once it gets long enough for the stitch pattern to show up, I'll be sure to post photos. 

In other news, I bought the cat one of those beds with the mylar layer inside of it.  

So far, she's not too impressed with it, so I moved it to Cody's bed, where she likes to nap.  

And she still won't lay on it.  I figure once it gets a little colder, she'll appreciate it more.  

Speaking of, it's supposed to get cold again this weekend, with lows in the upper 40s and highs in the low 70s.  I'm thinking when it does, the cat might want to stay inside at night more.  The downside of the cooler, dryer weather is that my fingertips have already started drying and splitting, which makes piano practice very painful.  

I'm trying to remember where I put my Working Hands lotion...

And finally, Cody and I will be making a quick trip to Texas this weekend.  The doctor has told my cousin there isn't anything more they can do for her in regards to treating her cancer, and she has been put into hospice care.  We're going to go spend a little time with her, while there is time to still spend with her.  

Dear Coworker

 If your primary purpose at work is to make sure everyone knows without a doubt that you're the boss, then you have no business being a supervisor.

Or anything else for that matter. 

Do your shift a favor and resign.

Yesterday.

Thank you.

That is all. 

I Suppose I Ought To Blog

 I suppose I ought to blog, huh?  

Truth is, I really haven't felt like blogging much here lately.  Sometimes, it just doesn't seem worth the effort.  But I suppose better writers than I am have felt that way at times, too, so onward we go.  

First, some good news.  The yarn has found a pattern it likes.  

You could call it a loose fitting cowl, or maybe it's a circular scarf.  Whatever it is, the yarn seems to like it.  The pattern is one I've adapted from a sock pattern I downloaded years and years ago, called Roundabout socks.  It's a really easy, almost mindless pattern, but I still managed to mess it up.  The yarn kept telling me I'd messed up, but I told the yarn it didn't know what it was talking about.  

Doggedly, I knit on, but when I came to the end of the round, I realized I should have listened to the yarn after all.  I had indeed messed up.  This one thing I knew, I was not going to rip and re-cast on 216 stitches in Chinese Waitress, so I did the only thing I could do.  I tinked nearly the entire round until I found the mistake, corrected it, and resumed knitting.  Yes, it was a lot of work, but not nearly as much as redoing the cast on would have been.  

The yarn has been cooperative ever since.  Well, except for collapsing into a giant wad of yarn barf, that is.   But other than that...I was able to make good progress while watching football all day yesterday.  

Speaking of, this has not been a good weekend for football.  Texas lost the Red River Rivalry, after leading by 21 points in the first quarter.  I guess nobody told them they had to play the second half of the game, too.  Navy lost to SMU, but I didn't really expect them to win that one anyway, so it didn't bother me as much.  I miss Malcolm Perry.  And I miss Keenan Reynolds.  Navy hasn't had a good quarterback since Malcolm graduated.  LSU got absolutely slaughtered by Kentucky.  I don't want to talk about it.

So, no, it hasn't been a good weekend...except for this:

Do you see it?  Do you see it???  Unranked A&M knocked off Number 1 Alabama.  Funny, those obnoxious Bama fans have been mighty quiet today.  As my old dad would say, the Crimson Tide became the pink puddle.  And I said, but just this once, GIG 'EM!  

My cousin David posted this photo (which I shamelessly swiped from his FB page) of his son's reaction.  I think it says it all. 

In more mundane news, I'm sure you've been hearing about the supply chain problems due to the ineptitude of the current administration.  It's affected everything from milk to dog food.  To small animal bedding.  I usually put aspen shavings in my snake tanks, but Walmart has been out since July.  I finally broke down and bought this stuff, and let me tell you, it's expensive! 

That one bag is enough to do three tanks, if I don't put in as thick a layer as I usually do.  I've gotten two tanks changed so far, before I took a break to watch football.  The good news is, Friday when I went into town, they had some aspen in stock.  I got a couple of bags, so hopefully I won't have to keep buying that pricy stuff.  

OK, then...

If you know me at all, you know I love my pumpkin spice.  However, there is a line I will not cross.  Pumpkin spice biscuits is that line. 

And in piano news, I'm almost done with my Michael Aaron course 1 book, so I went ahead and ordered the level two books. 

Well, two of them at least.  I didn't buy the theory or technic books, because I figure I already have enough of those kinds of books.  Here lately, I've mostly been playing in my Christmas books.  I'm trying to focus less on getting them note perfect and more on just enjoying playing.  It's why I wanted to learn, after all.  One of these days, I'm going to get you some music recorded.  Some day, but not today.  

Do you know how to tell you live a dull life?  When the highlight of your weekend is replacing the window blinds in your laundry room. 

When I first got the cat, in her panic to try to get outside of this strange place she was suddenly put into, she tore them up pretty good.  I mean, the whole bottom 6 inches were gone, and I always felt like whoever was driving down the road was looking right into my house.  They weren't, but I still felt like they were.  

Anyway, by this time, I'd figured the cat has settled down enough I can replace them and be reasonably sure she won't go berserk again.  By the way, ignore the giant hole in the wall.  It was there when I moved in, and it's on the list to get repaired.  The previous owner had put a mesh patch over it, but I guess they didn't know they needed to spackle over the patch, too.  I've hesitated, because I don't have any more paint of that color -- it's hideously ugly anyway-  so I would have had a giant white blob right in the middle of the room.  I may go ahead and re-paint the whole room.  I may not.  It won't be that green if I do, though.  I think I have some leftover white from the living room.  I'll use it.  Or else the blue from the bathroom.  I don't know.  I'll figure it out. 

While I was replacing things, I put new blinds up in the kitchen window, too.  They'd gotten old and brittle, and some of the slats were breaking.  

These look much better.  The next thing to do is find some sort of valance or window treatment to put up to give it that homey feel.  I guess when you spend so much time at work, you don't notice all these things as much.  Or you do, and they just don't bother you.  As much.  

And lastly, when you have disinfectant spray, but you forget you have disinfectant spray, and you also forgot you already bought more disinfectant spray, so you buy more disinfectant spray, you end up with a lot of disinfectant spray.  

I don't want to talk about it.  Here's a sunset instead. 

That's one thing I love about fall and winter.  The sun goes to bed before I do, so I get to see these things.  

What The Yarn Wants

 I think the yarn wants to be a cowl.  

In the meantime, I asked the yarn if at least part of it wanted to be a blanket square, and the yarn happily agreed.  I found the blanket and got it out to add a square, that's when I discovered I already had a square in progress.  

Now I know why I couldn't find my other size 3 needle when I needed it.  When I needed my needle...get it?  OK, never mind.  I can't even blame sleep deprivation this time, because I slept until nearly 6:00 AM this morning.    

Moving right along, 

I finished the square I'd already started, then knitted the new one.

By the time I was finished, I was pretty sure the yarn was telling me it wants to be a cowl, but the ball games had started.  As usual, I had one game going on the TV, and one on my laptop, so I couldn't search for a pattern.  

Speaking of football, Texas held on to win a nailbiter.  Hook 'Em.

Navy came from behind to win a nailbiter, for their first notch in the W column this season.  Beat Army.  

As of this writing, LSU is locked in a nailbiter with Auburn.  Geaux Tigers. 

All in all, it's been a good weekend for football, and will be real good if LSU figures out how to tackle Bo Nix.  Best of all, those obnoxious Alabama fans had to listen to Gary.  He he he...Now, back to knitting...

My friend Amy commented on my last blog post about wanting to start a scarf for when she needed some mindless knitting.  Naturally, I did what any red blooded knitter would do.  I dug out my mindless scarf and resumed knitting on it for a little while.  

It's real good for mindlessness.

And finally, on this date in 1835, The Battle of Gonzales was fought when the Mexican government demanded the Texians return the canon they'd given them.  The Texians refused, and in what later became known as Texas Lexington, the Texas Revolution began. 

Now, I'm down to one ball game at a time, so I'm off to search cowl patterns.  

Laters. 

Listen To The Yarn

When last I left you, I'd cast on a second beret after finishing the first one.  Same yarn, same pattern.  Magic Loop technique.  I got a few rounds in, and realized I'd messed something up.  I tried to fix it, but me being me, I ended up just making things worse.  After fiddling with the hat for a few minutes, I decided, "Eh, I'm only a few rounds in.  I'll rip the whole thing and start over."  

Off to the frog pond we went.  I started over, and just a few rounds in, I messed up again.  I frogged the hat.  Again, and started over.  Again....By this time, I was getting pretty frustrated and couldn't figure out why I couldn't knit this stupid hat.  After all, I'd just knit the exact same hat with absolutely no problem whatsoever.  Why was I having such trouble this time?  

By the seventh time I'd ripped and started over,  I sat there a moment, and just listened.  Softly, I hear the yarn whispering.  I leaned in close, and realized the yarn was telling me it didn't want to be that hat.  Again.  It wants to be something else, and was not going to let me knit it into something it didn't want to be.  That's why nothing was working right. 

Sometimes, you just have to listen to the yarn.  

Thus, the pattern is put away, the needles have been put away, and the yarn sits patiently waiting for me to find a pattern it wants to be.  In the meantime, I'm adding a few more rounds to this hat:

which this yarn is perfectly OK with being. 

Oh, and I think I know why I stopped wearing hand knit socks.  They never stay up.  I wore a pair yesterday to work, and spent the entire day pulling them up.  Otherwise, they stayed bunched up around my toes.  I might try going down a needle size and seeing if that helps.  It should, because it'll yield a firmer fabric.  

Other than that, and a bunch of rain, not much exciting has been going on, unless you want to hear about me sorting out my canned goods.  I looked through them all, and amazingly enough, only found two cans of soup that were out of date.  I opened one, and it passed the sniff test.  I went ahead and cooked it, and it passed the taste test.  I went ahead and ate some, and haven't gotten food poisoning yet, so I'll finish it off probably tomorrow.

The only other out of date thing I found was this, but I didn't buy it:

Just in case you can't see it, it's a can of tuna that expired in 2013.  When they brought Mr. Clark's cat over, they'd also brought all the cat food he had.  This was mixed in with those cans of cat food, so I'm guessing they didn't realize it was not, in fact, cat food.  The ends aren't puffed out, but I'll probably feed it to the dog anyway.  I'm not a big fan of tuna.  

Oh, and I found Pumpkin Spice latte on clearance at Walmart!  I started to get all they had, but I restrained myself and only got 4 boxes. 

I left the last two for someone else...he he he. 

In piano talk, I've decided when I finish the two Schaum books I've already bought, I'm not going to continue with that course.  

I'm just not enjoying it.  Honestly, I think if my childhood piano teacher had used this course, I wouldn't have stuck with piano, even if my mother had let me.  

I will continue through the Aaron and the Alfred's courses, though.  I've already bought the entire Alfred's course, and I am enjoying it, so I might as well.  I'm also really enjoying going through the Aaron's course.  I'm not sure if it's that feeling of nostalgia, or just that the songs are more fun to play.  There is one song my piano teacher had me learning that I wish I could find again.  It wasn't in any of the books, but was a separate sheet music.  It was called Stop Lights, and I loved that song.  I've looked online, but haven't found it.  I wonder if it's still at my brother's house.  I'll have to ask him to look for it. 

Well, I've got good news and bad news.  The good news is, Texas, LSU, and Navy all play at different times tomorrow, so I'll be able to watch all three games.  The bad news is, the first game starts at 11:00 AM, so I won't be able to run up to Batesville in the morning.  I may go Sunday after church.  If I can pry my butt out of the house, that is.  But I probably won't.  I'll probably just stay home and order what I need online. 

My friend and I were talking about it yesterday at work, how the older we get, the less we want to leave our houses.  My dad was the same way.  He used to sit at home with the doors locked, and peep out through the window blinds.  I thought it was sad and weird.  Now I'm the one sitting at home with the doors locked peeping out through the window blinds.  And I like it that way.  

The worse news, I still didn't call the guy to come fix my washing machine, nor did I call the plumber.  I don't know why I have such problems making simple phone calls.  I do know part of the problem is that to do the jobs I need them to do, they'll have to come inside my house and be there for a couple of hours at least.  I don't like people in my house.  Plus, I don't know who to trust.  Around here, contractors will rip off a single woman as fast as they'll kiss their mamas.  

And finally, the spider lilies are in full bloom.

It's fall every which way you look at it!  

Hats & Organs

 And here is the beret in its blocked state:  

Pretty nice, if I do say so myself.  I'd taken a photo of the other one, but I held the camera too close and the flash washed all the color out.  Eh, there's not much more to it than the last time I showed you.  

In other news, my brother and nephew recently participated in an organ symposium.  I have no idea what an organ symposium is, but here is my very talented brother playing his piece: 

And here is my very talented nephew playing his piece. 

Joshua has been taking piano lessons since he was little, but has recently started teaching himself to play the organ.  He also plays the cello in his school orchestra.  

And I'm still the only one in the family with absolutely no musical talent.  But watching them has spurred me to go practice more. 

One day, blog posts will be interesting again.  Today is not that day.  Enjoy the music.  That's all I have for you. 

Sunday Afternoon

Man, it's hard to believe how fast my three day weekend went by, but alas, it's Sunday afternoon and my days off are almost over.  

I still didn't get anything accomplished.  Well, except I finished knitting the beret I'd been working on.

The tricky part was removing the belly button cast on.  I was so worried I would drop one of the stitches, and I think I actually did.  

The pattern said to block it over a 12" plate, but I didn't have one, so I had to use a 10" inch.   Once I'd gotten it as stretched as I could, the stitches didn't seem as even as I'd like them to be.  We'll just have to see how it turns out.  In the mean time, I cast on another one.  

Same yarn.  Same pattern.  Different method.  When I was organizing my needles last weekend, I found I had a 40" circular needle of the size I needed, so I broke it out for the next hat.  I've never been that fond of the Magic Loop technique, but I thought in this case, it might be better than trying to juggle those DPNs.  I can already tell the center will be more even.  I'll let you know how it goes.  

I think I might give the second one to Cody's girlfriend for Christmas.   I'll have to ask him if she wears hats.  

The only other thing I did this weekend was to go through all my level 1 Christmas books and marked the songs I want to keep on playing. 

I probably ought to try to get you a Christmas concert worked up this year, since I didn't do one last year.  I'd intended to.  I even recorded a couple of songs, but made the mistake of putting my camera onto the end of my keyboard.  Every time I played a note, the whole thing would shake.  I was afraid you'd get seasick watching them, then I never got around to re-recording them.  I'm seriously considering getting one of those stand things with the light to record my songs on my phone.  I'm just not sure I want to invest in one if only one or two people will even be watching.  

Speaking of phones, I'm about ready to upgrade my iPhone 7.  Yesterday, I went to the AT&T website, and let me tell you, they have the most frustrating and convoluted site you ever did see.  I spent an hour just trying to find my way to my wireless account.  I was able to log into my email account, but they kept saying I didn't have a wireless account.   Um, yes I do.  I've had one for nearly 20 years.  Then the site said I could combine all of my accounts under the same log in.  Um, I thought I did that years ago.  But no, that log-in didn't work.  I tried one more log in, and it said my password was incorrect, but I'd just updated it.  

I was getting more and more frustrated, uttering more than a few unwholesome words for which I had to repent, when at long last, I finally got into my wireless account.  Wouldn't you know it.  I get an error message.

We're having trouble loading your cart right now. Please try again later.

Sigh....

You know, that's why I had to put my payment on autopay a few years ago, because I couldn't ever get into the site to pay my bill.  It's almost like they don't want to take my money.  I'm about to cut ties with AT&T, just for this reason.  I've never had any problem with the phone service, but their customer service leaves a lot to be desired. 

Now for a bit of good news, our Delta surge seems to be tapering off rather quickly.  This is a screen shot from the MS Health Department website:  

It peaked rapidly, and is falling off just as rapidly.  Even so, this week, the U.S. surpassed the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic in deaths.  And yes, I know we have three times the population, so it has affected a smaller percentage, but you also have to take into account we also have vastly more medical knowledge and technology available than we did 100 years ago, so it balances out. I mean, Alexander Fleming didn't even discover penicillin until 10 years after the Spanish Flu struck.  Can you imagine if we'd had to deal with COVID with only what they had available back then?  This is why I don't think it's all that helpful to compare COVID with pandemics from the past.  I mean, during the Black Plague, they had no concept of germ theory.  The idea that things like viruses and bacteria even existed was more than they could comprehend.  They thought you got sick from miasma, or bad air.  Even the word "malaria" literally means bad (mal) air (aire).  We know so much more today than even 50 or 60 years ago.  

On the other hand, they didn't have to deal with people getting medical advice from Facebook memes back then, either. So again, it balances out.  

By the way, Alexander Fleming saved my life when I was 11.  Someday, I'll have to tell you about that. 

In the meantime, enjoy this picture of Cutie, who has claimed Cody's bed for her own. 

I just have to remember to leave the door open for her. 

\

All That Didn't Happen

 I love fall.  

I love everything about it.  The cool, crisp mornings and warm, but not too hot afternoons.  The colors.  The smells.  The holidays...

But I think  the thing I love most is using my vacation days to take three day weekends for the last three months of the year.  And today, yes today was the first of those vacation days.  

It was actually chilly enough this morning I needed to break out the flannel pants for a bit, but never got so warm I had to close the doors and windows and turn on the A/C.  All in all, the weather was just about as perfect as it gets.  

I had so many plans for my day off.  I was going to call the plumber.  I was going to get the washing machine fixed.  I was going to find an oral surgeon.  I was going to do so much stuff...In the end, none of that happened.  None of it. 

Today, I was a cat. 

Except for laundry and dishes.  Those were my  accomplishments for the day.  Laundry and dishes.  

The most exciting thing that happened was I got some new candles from my friend Kristine's shop.  She has a new one out called Writer's Nook, and the minute she posted it, I knew I had to have it.  That was a good call, because it smells soooo good.  It might just be my favorite (non Christmas) of her candles.  Cutie approves, too.  

She wasn't too happy when I put the other three up there for the photo, though.  

"Do you mind?  I'm trying to nap here!"  

The other three are some I've bought before, and that I've bought them again ought to tell you everything you need to know.  The Gaudete on the far left, get that one.  Do not pass GO.  Do not collect $200.  Just get it. I think that one is my all time favorite candle of hers, and that's not an easy achievement to attain.  She has so many good smelling things.  

Well, I was finally able to get the cat a bed of her own.  I've been looking, but Walmart has been out of them for a while.  Supply chain issues and all that.  Thanks, Joe.  And all of you who voted for him.  

I'd gotten one for Squeaky a while back, but gave it away after she went to that great litterbox in the sky.  Of course, at the time, I hadn't planned on getting another cat, but then life happened.  My reasoning is that if Cutie had a bed of her own, she wouldn't be napping on my piano bench all the time, and it seems to be working.  She took to it right away.  It took the Squeaker several weeks before she'd even get into hers.   

And lastly, I was finally able to eat my Harvest Moon cookies, just a few days late.  

But it still counted.