On Being Thankful

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the US of A and I'm counting my blessings.

First, there's my husband.  I know, I give him an awful lot of grief most of the time.  Today however, he's winning the Best Husband Ever! award.  He's doing the Thanksgiving grocery shopping.  Of course, I will have to do some serious sucking up when he gets home but serious sucking up is still way better than standing in a mile long grocery line.  And we may end up having steak, beer and ice cream for our Thanksgiving meal, but again, that's still better than me having to stand in a mile long grocery store line.

Believe it or not, I'm thankful for Walmart gym socks.  They always come with a very sticky label/band thing around them.  I always complain about the band because when you rip it off, half the sock fiber sticks to it and after I've thrown it away, the dogs always get the label thingy back out of the trash.  They leave it on the floor and I step on it, normally in the middle of the night, and then I'm left with a sticky foot.  But it gave me an idea of how to label the socks & gloves in my Etsy shop.  I created my own label bands.  Mine are not sticky however.

I'm thankful that I found four hats that I'd knit, stuffed in a drawer and promptly forgot about.

I'm thankful that my husband and I both realized that we seem to be outgrowing our clothes at the same time.  It makes it so much easier to try to eat properly when he's trying to eat properly.  And, he's buying us an early Christmas gift - a treadmill.  Running on a treadmill is unbelievably boring, but considering how out of shape I've become, it will be nice to use.  It's so much easier to get back into the habit of running when a treadmill is available.  I won't have to worry about the weather or the darkness.  I can run for 5 minutes 3 or 4 times a day if that's what it takes to build my stamina back up.  And I have to admit, I do enjoy watching the numbers click by.  And best of all, Mike will use it for walking.  We tend to get a bit competitive with our weight loss  So, if he walks, I'll make sure to run.

I think I'm thankful for this thread meant for cross stitching.

My plan is to knit with it.  Exactly how thankful I am remains to be seen.  But the colors sure are pretty.

And of course I'm thankful for all the normal stuff.  My family, our health, my friends, their health, a roof over my head...  I tend to take those things for granted and I know I shouldn't.  I have a friend who's spending Thanksgiving in the hospital with her child.  I have another friend, actually several, who have either recently lost their home or are fighting hard to keep their home.  I may bitch and moan, but I'm actually very thankful for the life I have.

I'm also pretty thankful for my four-legged children and the unconditional love they provide.  Not to mention their entertainment factor.  Today, I've been enjoying watching Minnie guard a paper bag full of empty notebooks that I keep forgetting to take to Good Will.

She's been sitting by that bag for over 5 hours now.  When Max comes to close, she barks her, "Get away from me!" bark.   I'd like to say that she won't let me come close enough to the bag to shut the file cabinet drawer or to put the vacuum away, but....

I'd also like to say that I'm thankful for the photos on this blog.  They show me over and over again what areas of my house need to be cleaned.

But mostly, I'm thankful for my husband for doing the holiday grocery shopping.

What are you thankful for?

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

All a Twitter

I have slammed myself head first into the 21st century it seems.  First real, high-speed internet (which I still haven't figured out if it's high speed, highspeed, or high-speed) and now I've gone & signed up on Twitter. I'd love to have you follow me - I can be found at JGKnits, but I don't promise I'll be taking you far.  The bowling alley is about as far as I go these days.  Also, it seems that the moment I gained the ability to share my wit & wisdom in 140 characters or less, all wit & wisdom immediately left the building.  I suddenly have nothing to say.  I'm sure I'll think of something though.  Eventually.

In the mean time, I've been busy knitting.  Can't show you what because I seem to have lost my camera.  It has to be here in the house though, or, and this one terrifies me, but it may be out in the yard somewhere.  I was taking pictures out there the other day.  But those pictures have been loaded into the computer so the camera had to have come back inside with me.  But did I take it out again?  I just can't remember.

I'm suddenly a nervous wreck about my knitting.  I filled out the application to participate in a holiday bazar this December.  The first few minutes after dropping it into the mail box were full of excitement and hope.  Then reality struck.  OMG!  I've got to get busy knitting so I have something to sell.  OMG, I'll need a table cloth.  OMG, I'll need shopping bags to put people's purchases in.  OMG, what if I buy a bunch of shopping bags then don't sell anything?  OMG!  I'm going to have to listen to people make snide comments about my knitting.  That's one terrific thing about selling on Etsy - you don't hear people saying mean, horrible things about the items you lovingly slaved over.  You can pretend that everyone who sees your work oohs & aahs over it and the only reason they didn't immediately buy it was because they fainted from the item's sheer beauty.  And of course, there's the final & most dreaded OMG, what will I wear?

And then there's the concern about my hair.  What if my hair is pumpkin orange, which it very well may be by December.  I dyed it for the first time ever the other night.  Last Wednesday, to be specific.  It turned out great.  Slightly darker and just slightly redder than my natural color, but 99.9% of the gray was gone and that's what I was aiming for.  But, and there always seems to be a but.  Each time I wash it, it seems to get slightly redder.  Except it's not really red, it's orange.  I'm still at a very brown stage of orange, but I can just picture my big, gigantic pumpkin head by December.  Aack!

Speaking of washing my hair....  I'm coming up on 2 months without using shampoo.  I can't remember when I stopped using it, it was late August or early September.  My hair was doing SO much better before the dye job.  It was getting shiny, and not oil slick shiny, but healthy shiny.  It was curling so much more, but in a controlled, ringlet way, not in my normal frizzy, triangle head way.  Even the top was curling and the top never curled before.  The dye job totally straightened my hair for a few days, then it returned to it's old, frizzy state.  Today, it's obviously on the mend, but still pretty frizzy.  Granted, a trim would help. It has been over a year.  But the point is, my hair is SO much healthier since I stopped washing it with shampoo.  If I ever find my camera, I'll post pictures.