Let's Pretend

Let's pretend I didn't ignore the blog for four days straight.  Christmas & my bandaged thumb got the best of me.  I really have no idea what I was thinking when I challenged myself to post every day in December.  When looking back, I apparently do it every year and every year, I fail.  In my defense, it's been a very busy four days.

One day was spent having my annual visit to the dermatologist and getting my hair cut.  The hair cut, even though it's just a trim, is an all day event.  My hair is so thick it takes two hours just to trim, thin and dry it.  Literally, two hours.  You can ask my daughter because for reasons unknown, she usually tags along.  I think it's because she sits in the waiting area reading & they give her cookies & soda.

Fair Isle Scarf

Despite my bandaged thumb, I completed the next color sequence on my Peppermint Icicle scarf.  I'm using Knit Pick's Palette sampler in the Peppermint Icicle colorway, thus it's name.

I can't type worth a damn with my bandaged thumb, but luckily I can still knit.  Sort of.

A hat or a sweater body?

For some reason, the bandage is causing me to knit extremely EXTREMELY loose.  I received another request for the same hat I knit last week.  I'm using the same yarn, the same needle, cast on the same number of stitches and Poof!  The hat was turning out three inches larger in circumference.  Three inches!  How is that even possible?  Instead of a hat, I was apparently knitting a sweater body.  For a pregnant person.  Good grief.

Version 2

I started over and now I'm pushing the deadline which makes me very uncomfortable.

Another day was spent jumping up and down with excitement over the mail delivery.  Besides receiving a big box of yarn, I received a few other unexpected packages.

Long, long ago, Leslie at A Friend to Knit With had posted that she had a ton of little clippy things she used as stitch markers.  She got them free from somewhere - work? the dry cleaners? I don't even remember now.  But the point was, she had way more than she'd ever need and she offered to give them away to whoever responded to her blog post.  Well, she was inundated with requests.  After sending out the ones she had, she made a list & promised to send them out as she collected more.  Well, this past week, my name came up on her list.

Thank you, Leslie!  I can't imagine the time, effort & cost that went into mailing me and everyone else  the stitch markers.

The next package wasn't really a package - it was an email.  I'd entered a random drawing over at Knitting Sarah's to win an e-copy of Everyday and I won!  I won!  I never win anything!  My family thought I'd lost my mind because I was jumping up & down shouting, "I won a knitting book, I won a knitting book!"  I even thought I knew which pattern I was going to knit first (Moonstone.)  It was going to be my Christmas Day Cast On project but now I'm not so sure.  There are so many items in the book I want to knit and the yarn I was thinking I'd use for Moonstone has really been marked for cabled cardigan.  So now, I don't know.  I've got 16 days to figure it out though.

Wait, sixteen days?  No, try six.  I have six days until Christmas Day Cast On.  Dammit.  Along with failing to blog daily, I also failed to change my How Many Days Until Christmas Christmas decoration.  Dammit.  I'm just slightly behind schedule now.

Next on the list of the day's receivables was news that Sarah, my daughter, not Knitting Sarah, scored a 100% on her biology final!  I'm so happy and proud of her.  For a homeschooled kid who'd never been in a classroom, taken lecture notes, or even taken a test, she is rocking college life.  We celebrated with cake.  :)

Another day was spent baking without water.  But that's a whole other story.

Giving Thanks, Day 30

Giving Thanks, Day 30, otherwise known as thank the Lord it's the end of November & I can go back to posting only a few times a week.  I'm proud of myself for posting daily for a full 30 days though.  Actually, I didn't.  I missed yesterday.  Instead of blogging I cleaned & purged the house and made a giant pile of stuff to take to GoodWill.  And I'm thankful for that.  I was also thankful for Amazon yesterday.  Actually, thankful might not be the right word.  In total awe is more like it.  The fuel pump went out on my car Saturday.  Saturday night, around 8:30 p.m. (8:41 to be exact) my husband ordered a replacement pump from Amazon.  Sunday morning. when I came down stairs around 9:30 a.m., the pump was sitting on our front porch.  Not only did Amazon deliver it on a Sunday, it was delivered less than 13 hours from the moment we ordered it.  I am in awe!

I'm also thankful that the replacement pump works and that my husband was able to install it and my daughter can take my car to school today instead of me having to drive her in the company truck.  (She's not insured to drive the truck.)  My husband is thankful that Nissan's fuel pumps are located under the back seat instead of where ever Chevy puts theirs.  I'm not sure where Chevy places their fuel pumps, but I know replacing them involves a full day in the garage with the vehicle completely torn apart, lots and lots of curse words from my husband and bloody knuckles.    The Nissan's fuel pump replacement took about an hour and a half and no Bandaids were required.  Thank you Nissan!

But that was yesterday.

Today, I'm thankful for a wonderful mother-in-law who wishes to remain anonymous and a terrific brother-in-law who makes my sister very happy.

So, thanks for being you, Irene & Boots.  And happy birthday to you both.

Giving Thanks, Day 27

It's Day 27 of this Giving Thanks thing and I have so much to be thankful for.

It's Black Friday and I am NOT out among the crowds shopping.  I have lots of friends who live for the excitement of pushing and shoving and standing in Black Friday lines and I realize they save a ton of money, but you will never ever see me in a Black Friday line.  I try not to even leave the house on Black Friday.  So today, I'm thankful that we came home from Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's house with enough leftovers that I don't even need to stand in line at the grocery store today.

I'm thankful that Thanksgiving went well and was drama free.  There were no baking emergencies, no one got sick, no fights or arguments, no 911 calls, the weather was perfect, the food was even better than the weather and I finally got to meet my great nephew.  Good Lord, I can't believe I'm a Great Aunt.  That just makes me sound so old!  So while I may not be all that thankful that they are teaching him to call me Great Aunt Jeannie, I am thankful I finally got to meet him.  He's precious!

I'm thankful that the season of pumpkin flavored everything is over and the candy canes have arrived.

I'm thankful my Christmas cowl is blocked and almost dry.

Christmas Cowl

And I'm thankful that I finished all the knitting projects I'd promised myself I'd finish before Thanksgiving.  There's currently nothing on the needles.  It's a very strange and slightly scary feeling.  But that's about to change.  I have just a bit of frantic Christmas knitting to get done.

Giving Thanks, Day 25

Today, I am giddy with thankfulness that tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  I can not wait!  I'm so excited for the excuse to over eat.  I LOVE turkey but for some reason, I never cook turkey so the holidays are about the only time I get turkey.  And it goes without saying, I love pie.  And I love my daughter's pumpkin spice cake roll and my sister's macaroni & cheese, and my niece usually bakes some kind of yummy desert... And then there's how much I love annoying my family by making them listen to Alice's Restaurant on repeat.

But besides the food and awesome song lyrics, I'm also thankful for Thanksgiving because the next day means Christmas!  I get just a tiny bit excited about Christmas.  I'm like a two year old waiting for Santa.  I don't go overboard with decorating or shopping, in fact I'm fairly low key with both decorating and shopping.  But you can bet, I'll be happily setting that dreaded alarm clock Friday morning so I can get up nice and early to turn on the Christmas tunes, put the candles in the windows & plop myself in front of the Holiday Movie channel with a candy cane and begin the Christmas knitting frenzy.  I can not wait!

Meanwhile, today I'll keep myself busy with accidently dropping pies on the floor and finishing up the blue striped hat

OTN 11/25/15

and the second faux cabled fingerless glove to match the hat I listed for sale yesterday.  Sadly, I didn't even get the second glove cast on last night.  I'd planned to finish it but never even started it.  Although it doesn't have the nice ring to it that Second Sock Syndrome has, I think Second Glove Syndrome has set in.  I've got to do something about that though because come Friday, it's Christmas Frenzy Knitting time.

Well, it looks like I have a busy day cut out for me.  I have pies to burn, a hat and a glove to knit and I must go que up Alice's Restaurant.  Sing it with me now,

"This song is called "Alice's Restaurant."  It's about Alice, and the restaurant, but "Alice's Restaurant" is not the name of the restaurant, that's just the name of the song.  That's why I call the song...."

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!

Giving Thanks, Day 24

Gosh!  I'm on Day 24 & I haven't missed a single day yet.  That alone is something to be thankful for.  Maybe not for you, because really, besides me, who cares what I'm thankful for?  Probably no one.  Oh well, get over it.

So, besides being thankful that I've made it to Day 24 without missing a beat, what am I thankful for today?  Besides the fact that there's only another week of this thankful nonsense to go I mean, because that is something to be thankful for!  Anyway... what am I thankful for  today?  Well, it may be well past noon as I write this, but noon is still "early morning" to me.  I'm still on the 'sleep all morning, work all night' sleep schedule.  I can't seem to break it.  I may have to resort to setting the dreaded alarm clock.  Yikes!

Okay, refocus.....

Today... what am I thankful for?  Besides large doses of coffee?  Once again, I'm thankful for my daughter.  She may have gotten home from school (in my car) so late yesterday that I missed knitting group, but she did take it upon herself to hit grocery store after grocery store until she found pecans.  I have pecans now!  Thanksgiving has been saved and I'm oh, so thankful for my daughter's thoughtfulness and diligence.  And she doesn't even like pecan pie all that much!  Thanks, Sarah!

Meanwhile, in knitting world....

Faux Cabled Slouchy Hat

I finished another faux cabled hat.  The color is just gorgeous.  It's not really blue and it's not really green.  The yarn manufacturer calls it Fjord.  Which is actually a perfect name for it.  It's the exact color of the water in this picture of a fjord.

holeclub.com

In case you're wondering, the definition of a fjord is "a long, narrow, deep inlet of the sea between high cliffs, as in Norway and Iceland."  The shirtless guy in the photo is just an added bonus of 
stealing pictures from Google Images.  

Faux Cabled Fingerless Gloves

Currently, I'm knitting a pair of fingerless gloves to match the hat.  I didn't get much knitting done last night.  There was a lot of drama going on in my geared-towards-teens,-Netflix-soap-opera that forced me to do a lot more mindless cookie eating than knitting.  Hopefully tonight's knitting time will be more productive.

Giving Thanks, Day 23

Today I'm thankful for my family, specially my sister.

Playing dolls

Even though she's ten years older, growing up, she always took the time to play with me.  I also got some great hand-me-down dolls from her.  Based on their hairstyles alone, you can tell those dolls were well loved.  Perhaps not treated well, but well loved.

First day of college

She helped ship me off to college.  And that was more help than you know.  I was one-armed due to a shoulder injury from playing way too much corner tag in the pool.  Have you ever played corner tag?  It's brutal!

Peach taffeta

She even wore that peach monstrosity of a bridesmaid dress for me without complaint.  Well, not too much complaint.  But I'll cut her some slack on that because, well, who wouldn't have complained about wearing that peach monstrosity?  Good Lord!

But around the holidays, I become more thankful than ever for my sister.  And do you know why?  It's because, being ten years older, she always hosts the family gatherings.  Family gatherings like Thanksgiving.  So while I'm here, boozing it up over not being able to locate a bag of pecans, she's at her house, scrubbing and polishing and wrangling a giant turkey and fifty other side dishes.  Thank you, Cary!  I am forever grateful for having you as my sister.

Meanwhile, in knitting world, I finished the faux cabled hat from yesterday and started this simple striped hat.

Blue Stripes

The yarn is Patons Kroy Socks in the Singing the Blues colorway.  Have I mentioned how much I love Patons Kroy Socks yarn?  (And no, that's not a type-o/grammar thing.  It's an official name thing.)  For local, pick it up at the big box craft store yarn, Patons Kroy can't be beat!

And now, I'm off to go in search of pecans.  I really need pecans and I will not be denied!

Giving Thanks Day 22

I've got to admit, it was hard to come up with much to be thankful for today.  About all I'm honestly thankful for today is a well stocked liquor cabinet.

It was just one of Those days.  I woke up too early so I went back to sleep, then when I woke up the next time, my back was killing me because I'd been laying in bed too long.

The spouse was between me and the coffee pot and he didn't appreciate my cheerful, "Move!"  His inappreciativeness had us bickering first thing in the morning afternoon.

I had to go grocery shopping.  Thanksgiving grocery shopping.  Thanksgiving grocery shopping on a weekend.  And if that wasn't bad enough, they were out of pecans.

When I went to the grocery store, dear sweet, unappreciative hubby asked me to run by the Verizon store and pay his company's phone bill.  Verizon wouldn't allow me to pay the bill without the company's tax id number.  Never mind that I had both the bill and a credit card with the company name on it.  I drove all the way home, got the tax id number, drove all the way back to the $$@$% Verizon store and the lovely employee proceeded to tell me that the tax id number I had didn't match their records and I still couldn't pay the bill.

I should probably apologize to the Verizon chick but I was under-caffeinated and just a tad bit pissed that she wouldn't allow me to pay the bill.

I got home from the second nonproductive trip to Verizon to discover that the dogs had eaten the brand new loaf of bread I'd just bought an hour earlier.

At least they didn't get into the liquor cabinet.  But I did.

So, tonight, I'm thankful for a very tall, very stiff drink and some lovely yarn.

OTN 11/22/15

By tomorrow, I hope to be thankful for another hat to list in my Etsy shop.

Giving Thanks for Friendship

Today, and every day, I'm thankful for my wonderful friends.  My crazy friends, my almost normal friends, my co-worker friends, the friends I see daily and the friends I only see once every 16 years, my knitting friends and my non-knitting friends.  Where would I be without you?  I don't even want to think about that!  I love you all!

But before this gets too mushy and you begin to wonder where the sarcasm has gone...

Two-toned fingerless gloves

Okay, so that's for one (or maybe 3 or 4) particular friend(s).

Anyway....  I love you all and am blessed to call each & every one of you a friend.

And, in case you were wondering, I finished the two-toned, faux cabled fingerless mitts.  They won't be showing up in my Etsy shop because the thumb hole on one is a row higher than the other.  Oops.  Not a big enough oops to bother fixing, but too big of an oops to sell.

So yeah, some lucky friend will be getting miss-matched, two-toned fingerless gloves for Christmas.  Aren't you glad we're friends?

Giving Thanks, Day 20 & the Delete Key

Wow!  Day 20 of giving thanks!  I can't believe I've kept up with this.  While I am always thankful for the things (the people, experiences as well as the material things in my life) in past years, I've been horrible at publicly stating them on a daily basis.  Anyway.....

Today I'm giving thanks to the Delete key.  Good Lord!  I don't know where I've suddenly been on the web that's made my Spam folder explode with advertisements for young girls, cheating house wives, virility meds for men, vitamins, ocean cruises and cars but.... Thank God for the Delete key!  I should also thank my Mac.  This baby has always been awesome at spotting spam email.

I'm also thankful for the Delete key after last night.  I had a little too much birthday cake, got a little snarky in a public forums and was able to delete my snarkiness before I ever pressed Publish.  Thank you, Delete key!

Meanwhile, between the cake eating and all that deleting, I've been knitting.

Marigold Sock #1

I finally finished the first Marigold sock.  It's only taken me, what?  Two months?  I need to hurry up and cast on the second sock and knit the ribbing before Second Sock Syndrome sets in.  Once I get past the ribbing on second sock, it normally flies off the needles but doing the ribbing..... Yikes!  SSS has already set in.  It's not helping that I oh so badly wish I'd used a slip stitch pattern for these socks.  The yarn just begs for slipped stitches.  I'm not ripping this sock though.  Guess I'll just have to buy more yarn.

Giving Thanks, Day 18

I'm just glad to be alive.  Sarah, my daughter, took me on another hike this past weekend.  We went to North Anna Battlefield Park.  It started off nice.

North Anna Battlefield Park

There was an easy path to follow.

North Anna Battlefield Park

The path quickly became covered with leaves but it was still an easy walk.

North Anna Battlefield Park

We walked beside and/or over several different little creeks.  And then, then we came to the sign.

Dangerous Slope

You see, before we crossed the first creek, we'd had to choose between taking the Blue path or the Gray path.  Sarah let me choose after telling me only that the Blue path was a little longer than the Gray path.  It was a beautiful day and we both needed some exercise so I chose Blue.

North Anna Battlefield Park

Let me tell you people - if given the choice, never, ever choose the Blue path.  When allowing me to make the choice between Blue & Gray, Sarah never bothered to mention that the website has a Blue Path warning.  We had to walk, slip, slide & crawl from the top of one mini-mountain to the top of the next.

North Anna Battlefield Park

And while we walked, slid, climbed & crawled, we could barely even see the path under all the fallen leaves.

North Anna River

A few minor heart attacks later, we finally made our way to the river which marks the end of the trail.

North Anna River

It's a pretty little river, but wait....  We're at the end of the trail.  The trail doesn't loop back around?  I've just suffered about 16 minor heart attacks climbing up and down hills and now I have to turn around and do it all over again?  In reverse?  Needless to say, my dear daughter is no longer the favorite child.

Toad

We eventually made it out of the woods and back to the glorious sight of our car.  The only wild life we saw, thankfully was one very large toad.

And after all that, somehow, my dear daughter has talked me into going back next week to give the Gray Path a try.

Giving Thanks, Day 17

Today, I'm giving thanks for the beautiful fall weather we've been having.

Sarah & Max

It's been perfect dog walking weather.

And it's always knitting weather.

Fingerless Gloves

In an effort to use up a little of yarn I have left over from all the recent hat projects, I'm knitting a pair of two toned fingerless gloves.  The yarn is Patons Classic Wool and I'm knitting a mock cable pattern.  I love mock cable patterns.  Well, I love cable patterns in general, but I hate having to keep up with the cable needle.  You'd think keeping up with the needle would be easy considering 99% of the time, I'm parked in front of my computer & Netflix but.....

Giving Thanks for The Guy Who Sews

Today I'm giving thanks to The Guy Who Sews and the adorable project bag he made for me.

Sheep!

There are sheep on it so of course I love it!  It's a knitter's dream and I love it for many more reasons than just the sheep.  But the sheep are pretty great!  Since the sheep have little pink noses, I requested my bag be lined with pink fabric to match.  Honestly, I was a little worried when I requested the pink lining.  I'm not all that fond of pink, but I wanted something light colored but not boring white.  Anyway, even though there were many colors to choose from, I chose the pink and am super glad I did.  It matches the sheep's noses perfectly.

The bag is the perfect size.  I wanted something large enough to easily hold a hat or pair of socks, but small enough to toss into my purse.  I should probably admit that my "purse" looks more like a brief case.  It's huge.  But what ever.  I wanted a simple project bag that would easily fit into my briefcase sized purse.  All my other project bags, even the small ones that barely fit one sock, are too bulky and have handles and.... Well, I could come up with a million reasons why they aren't what I wanted.  But this bag is perfect.  I can fit a pair of socks and a hat into the bag and it still easily closes with room to spare, yet the bag isn't huge and bulky.

And speaking of closing easily, the bag's drawstring is perfect!  The drawstring moves easily through the fabric so it's easy to open and close and yet it doesn't accidently come open when it gets tossed around.  It's apparently a magical drawstring.  Oh, and another great feature - there's no velcro in sight.

I was also delighted with the customer service Sean provided.  Sean is The Guy Who Sews by the way.  He was great at keeping me apprised of the status of my bag and he was quick to address my questions and concerns.  The Guy Who Sews definitely knows how to please a knitter!

Giving Thanks - November 15th!

My entire family is giving thanks for November 15th finally arriving.

You see, growing up, my mom refused to turn the heat on until November 15th.  She said it was the law and as a young child, I honestly thought it was a law.  The heat didn't get turned on until November 15th and it got shut off for the season on April 15th.  It's just the way it was.  And as much as I hated freezing half to death for the few weeks leading up to November 15th, I've kept the tradition.  My family hates the tradition, but they do enjoy teasing me about it.  And luckily, they are pretty good sports about it and are happy, or at least willing, to wear coats and gloves in the house on those few super cold days we have prior to November 15th.

And since my family are such good sports about the Heat Law,

Fingerless Gloves

I knit a pair of fingerless gloves someone can wear on April 16th when it's still too cold to turn the heat off but I turn it off anyway.  Because really, it's the law!

Giving Thanks, Day 14

Today I'm giving thanks for two things.  The first is that I've stuck with this Giving Thanks thing, at least so far.  I'll be the first to admit that when I publicly declare that I will do X on certain days, it's pretty much a guarantee that I will never, ever do X again.  But so far, so good.  I'm quite thankful for the Blogging Gods or the Gods of Public Declaration or who ever it is in my head nudging me to put the knitting down & turn off Netflix for a few minutes each day so I can write these posts.

The second thing I'm thankful for is my son.  While it kills me that he's all grown up and talking about moving out, I'm oh so thankful for the fun, yet responsible young man he's turned into.  And since he's such a responsible young man, he received his first credit card in the mail yesterday.

He's feeling pretty smug about it.  Or at least he was until I suggested he use it to buy me some yarn.

Meanwhile, I knit another hat.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/JeannieGrayKnits

I absolutely love the finished results of this one.  The yarn is Patons Classic Wool in the Light Grey Marl colorway.  Every single time I go to the yarn store, this wool taunts me.  I love the colorway in the skein but I'm rarely happy with the way tweedy yarns look knit up.  Each time I visit the yarn shop, I pet a skein of the Light Grey Marl, tell it how pretty it is, then move on because I know I'll be unhappy once I start knitting with it.  But on the last trip, the yarn fumes got to me and I tossed a skein into my basket.  And I'm so glad I did.

Giving Thanks on Veterans Day

Today all of America gives thanks to our veterans.  We thank and honor them for the sacrifices made so that we may enjoy our freedoms.

We thank people like my father who served in WWII,

R. M. Owen, WWII

and we thank those who served in Vietnam,

R. L. Hudson, Vietnam

and we thank the troops who've served our country whether they went to actual war or not.

G. S. Wiant, South America

A double thanks goes out to those last two.  I admit it - I stole their photos off their Facebook walls.  Over the years I've known many, many military personnel but for some reason, I don't have photos of them in their uniforms.  Worse, I can't find the photos I have of my great grandfather in his WWI uniform or even my husband in uniform.  Since the only photo I could find was of my dad, I decided a little thievery was in order.

Thievery or not, from the bottom of my heart, I thank all the men and women of our military for your protection and service.

Giving Thanks to the Yarn Gods

I'm giving thanks to the Yarn Gods today!  Remember I started these fingerless gloves the other day?

Fingerless Gloves

Well, I played a mean game of Chicken with the yarn.

The yarn's band said the skein weighed 50 grams.  I didn't weigh it before I began knitting, but when I'd finished the first glove, I had 26 grams of yarn left in the skein.  One gram more than exactly half.  Excellent.  Excellent as long as the skein had actually weighed 50 grams when I started.

And so, the game of Yarn Chicken began.  I got a little nervous doing the second glove's bind-off.

Completed Fingerless Glove

But in the end, the Yarn Gods blessed me with a spare 6.5 inches of yarn.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, Yarn Gods!

Giving Thanks, Day 9

Today, I'm giving thanks to Twitter for providing me endless hours of procrastination.  Specially today.  Etsy's Forums are down so no procrastinating getting done there.

No knitting photos being shared today either.  I don't know what I did yesterday, but what ever it was, it wasn't knitting.

Giving Thanks, Day 8

So yesterday was a weird one.  This weekend is the first weekend I've had off since the beginning of March.  March people!  That's a long time to go without a Saturday and Sunday off.  All the cool, fun things happen on the weekends and I miss out on all of it.  That's one downfall to the job I love so much.  Another downfall is that working the long hours that I do and never having two days off in a row means that the one day off I do get is spent sleeping and doing laundry.   My entire summer is spent either at work, sleeping, or standing mostly naked in front of the washing machine.  When the season ends and I get to go back out into the real world, it's a bit disorienting.  Literally.  I have to re-learn how to grocery shop, how to cook dinner for the family, how to interact with cashiers and how to be social.  It sounds weird, but it's true.  And I'm not the only one who feels it.  Other co-workers have mentioned they feel the same weird disorientation when they finally get the opportunity to go out into the real world (as opposed to theme park world.)

Anyway.... Since I woke up sick the very first day after the season ended this year, yesterday was my first day out of the house. (I woke up feeling much, much better thank you very much.)  Of course, while I was waking up feeling oh, so much better, the rest of the family was waking up feeling ughy.  Ha!  That's what they get for 'allowing' me to wash dishes while I was sick!  Pay back's a b*tch.  (Picture the evil Mom grin.)

Anyway....  After enjoying a cup of coffee that I could actually taste (glory hallelujah!) I got dressed in real clothes (no uniform!) climbed into the car and hit the Real World.  The Real World being Target.  Now, keep in mind I'm suffering from Real World disorientation so every single thing seems slightly weird, exciting and surreal.  But several things happened while I was there that seemed noteworthy.  First, there was the Halloween 70 - 90% off sale and lucky for me, the only candy left was candy corn.  You know how I feel about candy corn.  I am now the proud owner of six bags.  Six!  Good Lord!  I was also interested to note that the only costumes left were banana costumes.  That may not seem strange to the majority of you, but my closest friends will understand why that would be "a thing," specially when I'm still feeling slightly Real World disoriented.  And then, as I was walking toward the cash registers, I passed the kids' toy aisle and I overheard the most precious thing.  One little twin boy drags the other twin boy over to some special display (looked like Lego's to me, but it was secured in a special glass case so who knows) and the first twin says to the second twin, "Let's talk about The present."  It was so cute!

Next up was a trip to Michael's craft store.  You know I spent hours and hours wandering up and down every single aisle, some of them more than once.  Okay, most of them more than once, some of them more than twice.  The weird thing there  - there was a customer with a bunch of children on the spray paint aisle.  They were down on the floor, spray painting a wreath bright blue.  Spray painting!  Spray painting a wreath on the store's bare floor, with a can of paint off the shelf.  What the Hell??  You don't even get to see that kind of behavior at Walmart!

Next on the docket was a trip to Barnes & Noble.  Where a little boy who looked to be about four was throwing one of those fits that only a four year old can throw.  But this kid's fit was extra special.  While he cried and flung snot every where, he was also kicking his mom and loudly screaming, "I'm gonna beat your a$$!"  Good Lord!

At that point, I decided that I'd had enough of the Real World for one weekend and went home.  Home where I'm grateful to be an American.

#GivingThanks

Okay, that's cheesy, I admit it.  But there's something I just love about the simplicity of this row boat and flag on the edge of the pond.  And I couldn't very well say I was dedicating an entire Giving Thanks post to 75% off candy corn.