The holidays are upon us.

Well, we have a nice, quiet Thanksgiving at my Aunt's house in Medford with my Mom and the Dogs (my Aunt's poor cat was under house-arrest in her room all weekend). We successfully avoided the mall on the worst shopping day of the year, though we did buy two things, of which i am not proud. But I got the yarn I wanted to make myself a cardigan (whenever I finally finish my endless gift knitting) and we finally got a frame for our print of a watercolor of the Ponte Vecchio R got in Florence while he was in College. It went up in the bathroom, and looks nearly perfect! Sorry to anyone who had hoped we might be in Portland for the weekend. We are still arguing over whether or not we will be up for the weekend before Christmas for an early family celebration before my Mom and Aunt leave for Cabo (flights didn't go down enough for us to go, regardless of swiftly dropping fuel prices).

I worked every day last week (though 2 were training for Head start substitutes, which pays half my regular rate), and am working the first 2 days of this week (science, yay! lots of time to knit during videos). So I've been pretty busy, and on top of that, I've now got a nasty cold, of the yucky nasal & chest variety. It's made me feel weak at gymnastics, which is sad, because this is the last week. I've got the round-off, back-handpring combination on the floor fairly well, along with front handsprings. Now I'm learning "fly handsprings" where you jump into it, not step into it. I still can't properly land front tuck flips, but that might be due to the 6 inches of mat, which would be 6 extra inches to stand up if I could brave doing them on the floor itself.

Dispite my being sick, this weekend was a whirlwind of productive home-improvements for R. He finished sealing the concrete at the base of the outer garage walls, put up a frame to hold the laundry sink in place, and got the garage organized. I hope this truly is the last time we have to move that giant shelf. Then he put a small light over the shower, which made a world of difference, wired our potrack light, and put up the track lights in the kitchen we have been wanting for 3 years now. Now we'll never need to turn on the hideous humming flourescent tube lights again, hooray! I made double-ginger cookies and lasagna, and started my Mom's Christmas present blanket, which is going to take forever. It will be a really cool pattern, but not one I can memorize and do quickly.

I don't know why, but apparently even though I have blogger set so that anyone should be able to comment, no one can. But I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, and that you have a peaceful, reflective early holiday season. I miss you all!