Birthday Gifts, Other Stuff, and Christmas is Two Months from Today!!!

Hello!

Oi!  Or is it Oy?  Whatever it is, I am uttering it. The past couple weeks have been a mishmash of annoyance & confusion &, well, Oi!  Or Oy!  Or both!!!

Heart-related issues.  I'm not sure where this is going, but there's talk of a third surgery   : (   As Doris sang, "whatever will be, will be" ... but Oi/Oy! I have another followup with the doctor a couple days before Thanksgiving.  I'm assuming that he will discontinue my medication again and we'll see what happens after that.

Tiredness is a major problem.  I just don't get it. I'm pretty certain the majority of people in the world can get through their days without needing an afternoon nap for an hour or two.

Last week I had my credit card number stolen  : ( I wouldn't have even known it happened if I hadn't looked at my online bank statement to check something one day.  I was shocked to see a bunch of pending charges I did not make!  I immediately called the bank.  They asked me if I knew how someone got hold of my card number.  How would I know?  I purchase things quite a bit online but have never had any problems like this.  The bank issued me a new card, refunded the questionable charges back into my account, & launched an investigation.  I then changed my passwords to every password-requiring site I visit.  I hope they tell me how this person came to acquire my number.  I was told they could not have made charges with the number only.  They would've had to have known the expiration date as well as the 3-digit code on the back!  Very scary & annoying!

Let's see ... what else.  Our mower guy kinda cheated us.  One of our toilets has stopped working.  A mouse (Ed) made his home in our garage, & his brother & sister-in-law (Ralph & Alice) decided to make their home up the road in our cable box where they chewed through a wire that controls our phone line.  This resulted in an extremely loud hum on the line & we couldn't really hear anyone who called us for days.  The phone technician shooed Ralph & Alice away & made his repairs.  Hopefully the little fur balls won't try to set up housekeeping there again.    

On a happier note, Christmas is just two months from today!!!

I absolutely cannot wait!  I don't know why but I think I've been ready to start Christmas decorating since July!  Sometimes I have to literally force myself to not bring the tree downstairs & start stringing lights!  I guess the fact that John has been playing Christmas CDs for the past few months might have something to do with this ... or maybe it's just me   : )

The temps have been a bit cooler ... sometimes in the 50s during the day & in the 30s at night ... but we're getting a revisiting of bad weather (known to some of you as warm/hot weather) in the coming days.  It's actually predicted to be near 80 degrees one day!  Ugh!  Where's the barf bag?  All things considered, we've had a pretty nice autumn.  The photo below shows what is probably our favorite tree in the yard.  Its autumn color is always so beautiful!  Isn't it nice how God could have just given us plain ol' green trees all year round, but instead He makes the leaves have these gorgeous colors for us each fall?  

What a beautiful prelude to the most wonderful, magical season of all!!!  Yes, I'm talking about winter   : )   I am, as you can no doubt guess, eagerly anticipating the arrival of snow!  I will be so happy when the white stuff starts to fall!!! Think of me looking like this, but without such a thick beard & maybe with a little less hair on my head.

We were blessed with some cool weather earlier this week so I dusted off the hot chocolate maker & make myself a cup of yummy white hot chocolate using a Ghiradelli white chocolate bar! It's the nearest thing to heaven in a cup   : )

And instead of a cake for my birthday, I got to eat this very huge, very yummy cupcake purchased at Fresh Market in Lexington!  I could have eaten a dozen of them   : )

I promised to share with you the gifts I received from fellow stitchers, which has always been the thing one does here in blogland, so here goes.  All the gifts were very prettily wrapped but of course I only took photos after opening them.

From my buddie Michelle ... who also loves birds ... I received this pretty cut of fabric, bird-related charms, a cute little wooden hanging bird, & ribbon which says "Everything Stops for Tea" ... the "tea" being a little teacup.  And it does!  Also a lovely card.  

This next gift is from my sweet friend Robin in VA. A pretty card & beautifully stitched pin pillow.

My dear friend Vicki sent me a beautiful card & three charts from my Wish List.

And last, but not least, my good friend Sally sent me the cute card, cross stitching magnet, & gorgeous little lamb ornament.

Thank you all again for remembering me on my special day   : )

Hard as this may be to believe, I haven't done any stitching for the past two weeks.  I sent a lot of things to my finisher to be finished & knew she probably wasn't going to have time to finish anything else for me before Christmas, so after stitching three designs at the beginning of the month, I decided to do a bit of knitting.  I've always wanted/needed a shawl.  I purchased some bulky yarn & tried the Basic Prayer Shawl pattern, but my yarn was variegated & the pattern of the shawl was totally lost in the color changes.  I then un-knitted that bit & started again using a simple garter stitch pattern.  I'm not real happy with the results ... I made a few errors & you know how OCD I am with myself regarding that ... so I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.  I haven't blocked it yet, but here's a photo. 

I am now project-less.  I could start another knitting project, or a stitching project (I do miss stitching), but I'd best get after a few finishing projects I need to get done before Christmas.  I farm out my "pretty" designs to an outside finisher who is way more creative & skilled than I am, but plain primitive stuff I can do reasonably well ... I think. 

Well, just when you think things are looking up. Remember the non-working toilet I mentioned above?  I planned to call the plumber about it on Monday.  I mean really ... who wants to call a plumber on the weekend?  We have 2 other toilets. No big deal.  I did a load of laundry this morning, then decided to do another load.  The washer started to fill for the rinse cycle, & when I went to pour in some fabric softener, the water was very soapy.  Odd.  I decided to put the washer on double rinse to make sure all the soap would rinse out.  I then went into the kitchen & before too long something just didn't sound right.  It sounded like the water in the washer was maybe overflowing onto the floor, but I had just been in there & it was barely full.  I went into the laundry room ... no water running down the sides of the washer but I still heard the strange water sound. I then realized it was coming from the half bath across the hall.  I opened the door & the water was flowing like Niagara from that toilet.  I turned off the water for the tank & couldn't understand why it kept flowing.  I yelled for John to bring towels.  They barely sopped up the water which I now realized was soapy.  Was the water somehow draining from the washer to the toilet? I turned off the washer & the bathroom Niagara eventually stopped.  John & I got the floors all dried (we've now got a mountain of soaking wet towels in the utility sink) & then decided to look in the bathroom with the non-working toilet.  It didn't look pretty.  The toilet didn't overflow but it's very nasty looking in the bowl, & "stuff" backed up into the shower   : (   I called & luckily reached our plumber who told me something about the septic tank & a snake & a D Box. Apparently if the snake didn't work, the D Box would have to be dug up? That didn't sound good ... but everything worked out well.  He arrived, the snake did its job, & we were given the phone number of a septic company that we are to call to come "blow out" the tank.  This is the first time in our lives that we've had a septic tank.  Can't say I'm too fond of them after this experience, but it could have been worse.  I often put clothes in the washer, then we go out shopping or whatever.  Then when we get home, I simply need to take the clothes out of the washer & put them in the dryer.  Won't be doing that anymore!

It is now mid afternoon & I am thinking about how I had planned to accomplish things today other than washing a mountain of towels, sanitizing bathrooms & floors, etc.  Maybe tomorrow. Hmmmm ... reminds me of an old Iveys song from my youth.  (The group Badfinger was called The Iveys before they changed their name to Badfinger.)  The lyrics have no connection with the day I had today, but here's an old video for you to enjoy.  Maybe Tomorrow ... lip synced by The Iveys.