Avon ‘perfume’ pins…jewelry & perfume in one treasure!

replete with little girl finger marks in the solid ‘perfume’:

She is from 1971!

Bless my Mom’s heart for initially supplying me with these, preserving them when I outgrew them & passing them on to me many years ago.

Back to shredding & packing. Oy! It is a wonder houses don’t compress the ground under them from the weight of the stuff!

With packing for the move well under way there are not enough unpacked dishes in which to cook, not enough remaining dishes to serve and no where to sit and eat since the dining room has been converted to a packing station. My Mom is cooking the entire meal - except for veggies. What is my sad little contribution?

And store-bought pumpkin, pecan & apple pie. Not sure if I can, but I may try to make some yeast rolls tomorrow morning. Really, I don’t miss all of the peeling, scrubbing, standing, lifting, sweating, rising and timing.

I especially don’t miss cleaning the bird. In my hands under the faucet an uncooked turkey reminds me of a bathing a baby (on the chubby side) and a cat (on the skinny side), which leads to me feeling sad for the formerly living turkey creature and contemplate vegetarianism. It is a fleeting crisis of conscience, but a pang nevertheless. Later the thoughts of the health benefits of vegetarianism are chased away by the succulent smell of the cooking bird. This year I will skip right to the smell of cooking turkey!

Instead of spending this day preparing I had a day of luxury! I took Favorite Son & his friend to a skate park.

Twice. (Actually, I spent a few Golden Hours there knitting & listening to NPR.)

And I got to visit the Auditors office in our new county (near the skatepark) to file for tax exemptions.

I also went to the grocery (for aforementioned frozen vegetables), stopped into Joann’s for supplies for FS’ science fair wind tunnel, where I happened upon…

and

All of this & I still had time to take the kids to the mall, return some jeans that did not fit Him, do a bit of web work, do several loads of laundry & write a post! Usually, the days before Thanksgiving are a whirlwind of lists, cleaning, preparing and cooking, but I never realized how much I forgo to to prepare a monster meal from scratch. Maybe I will enlist my entire family to go out for Chinese next year! I’m kind of serious.

and delivered to my Mom.

Due to thickness & ease of care both my Mom & sister love Kroy’s far more than Malabrigio & I much prefer cranking out socks when using super quick Kroy.

These are Cameo Colors Kroy Fx.

From web-site:

Here kitty has made his improvements by finding and placing an old Nerf projectile on the rug & adding his own fur…

This rug has an odor - like the smell of dye or something - which attracted Mr. Kitty’s attention at once. We are very hopeful he does not take it upon himself to add his own special brand of scent. Please, Mr. Kitty, let me have a rug you don’t ‘freshen’. We have the ceiling fan on high to release the inky smell, but we are in love with this super thick and soft rug!

On Friday I ordered three rugs for the new house for an absolute steal, got cash back & paid $1 for shipping! Imagine my shock when the rugs arrived this morning!!! Today! I think the Overstock staff have ESP & sent these rugs b/c they knew I would order them in the future - what else would explain how I could order three very heavy rugs late Friday night & receive them on Tuesday morning?

Also, the rugs could not be nicer!

On Overstock:

In real life:

The ‘little’ doggie approves of the new rugs & favorite son says they are perfect for the new Tony Hawk game, which he absolutely loves. We are laying them out (conveniently, in the living room) so that they will be nice and flat when we move to our new house at long last.

Why do some people treat their customers shabbily? Why-why-why don’t some people do good work? I hope it is b/c they are not able, but I really think it is b/c some people are mean & not earnest about customer service, which, in this sort of a situation, causes stress.

Stress does have a silver lining: the frustration of this nonsense has lead to intense knitting!

Sock #1 of a new pair for my sister. Patons’ Kroy FX on 2.25mm needles. I think I cast on for this sock on Weds. Then, I had hours of knitting while watching Ghost Adventures Live with boys on Friday night, which was a perfect knitting night - rainy & windy w/ live creepiness on tv. The boys were riveted to the live feed from the many cameras placed throughout the Trans Allegheny Asylum…so much so that their eyes burned from watching the little live screens so intently.

I love zealous enthusiasm! It is a sincere delight to see anyone love something, even a small event, with such a fervor that they throw themselves into it. Sort of how I throw myself into a sock.

Passionately giving oneself to something else (be it work, knitting or ghost watching) and the resulting state of calm is a joy to achieve. In spite of the frustrations of papers & people missing deadlines on my behalf, I have the gift of perspective: buying a house isn’t dealing with a catastrophic emergency, it isn’t some global problem or true suffering  - it is just a financial transaction, which isn’t very important to the overall well being of the world - or even me & my family.

You know what is important? Warm feet! Maybe that was the problem with the aforementioned worker: cold, even clammy feet. I would bet a set of Signature Needles the person’s feet were clad in some machine made foot covering with a fair amount of acrylic & nary a bit of wool. And she doesn’t have the power of knitting a humble sock to buoy her spirit. Now, that is stress! Poor thing.

Our table at Deano’s Vino with a Coke, beer, water, omnipresent knitting & Iphone.

The Sunking Pale Ale is so good I wouldn’t have traded it for wine.

The Crustacean Pizza was so tasty we recommended it to a friend who joined us after seeing Rocky Horror Picture Show with the boys. She loved it, too.

Who would guess the crab cake was not fried? Not me! So delicious on top of a Caesar Salad.

His house salad topped with a sirloin & raspberry vinaigrette was amazing, too.

Our table had both of the desserts: pumpkin cheesecake (supah, supah yummo!) & the lambic brownie, which one boy reports is good if you stay away from the sauce, but I am telling you that sauce looked delish!

How fun to be out on Halloween, instead of home passing out candy, for the first time in 13 years!

Oh, I can’t wait…

Know-mmms?

Sorry, I am cracking myself up.

But this is seriously amazing…

Also, the Mac packaging is a treat to all of the senses: