Call Me Ish-Va'al
Hi there. You may not remember me--I've been missing from these e-pages for a while now. Sorry about that. Please accept this posting as a catch-up conciliation tale from 'way up here in The Nordlanmet.
The Church Holiday Sale MyJeff and I vendored at in mid-December went pretty well overall. Saturday was good, but Sunday was a drag sales-wise. Met some very nice folks, and received a few tips on sales events for NEXT fall. However, the weekend was flawed by someone stealing a blown glass figure from our display between setup Friday night and our arrival early Saturday morning. Whoever it was even cut the bottom off the price list card where I'd written the figure's cost--presumably hoping we wouldn't notice the loss. Not big dollars, but every bit does make a difference to me; and theft is always an insult and an invasion. Such is life in the Big City--even in a church basement.
Enjoyed a lovely Christmas meal and an afternoon of hanging out back at the Home Farm with Mom, two of my brothers and their families, and a selection of relatives-in-law on the 24th. Christmas Day brought a few family members to the Open House at Mom's apartment, but they'd all eaten recently so no one ate any of the LOAVES of egg nog french toast I'd made ahead of time for the event. Fortunately, it freezes well and my toaster reheats them just dandy. Had some for breakfast today. [Just so no one erroneously thinks my family is nutritionally disciplined or anything like that: everyone found room to consume cookies and toffee bars.]
The evening before MyJeff and I departed for Christmas with Mom in North Dakota, we received a phone call from J, the director of Keeshond Lovers United, asking if we could stop along the way and pick up a young stray whose allotted time in a ND city's pound was over. KLU is the breed specific rescue group for whom we've fostered several dogs over the last few years. (Those who've been with me for a while may recall that in the fall of 2011 MyJeff and I lost 3 loved keeshond dogs within 3 months. We were without canine companionship since mid-November.) To keep this post from becoming a novella: we picked up Arrow on our way back. His sweet friendliness and frightened efforts to ingratiate himself with us worked. I decided before we got out of that town that he was not going to be a foster dog--he is Our Dog. I'll post photos next time.
Arrow was found running along the interstate highway with no collar or other means of identification. The vet who checked him out back in ND estimated his age at somewhere around a year and a half. He has MUCH MORE ENERGY than we're used to from the mostly older dogs we've been dealing with. He's in good shape and reasonably well-behaved. We have some learning and adjusting to do together. For instance, Arrow is learning that "sit" means for more than 2 seconds; and I am learning to take several small chunks of time out of each day to play with him and to teach him the full meaning of "sit" and of "wait" and "back up" etc.
Various small adventures filled in the interstices of the previous weeks:
1) Have been looking at local writer groups listed at meetup.com, and found one I plan to join and a couple of others I'll look into more closely.
2) I've started reading Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird" which is feeding my urge to write.
3) A friend from my last writing group and I are poking at writing meetings and doing online progressive stories together.
4) Attended an auction or two in person (and a couple online) and bid on stuff; won some; lost out on some.
4.1) I LOVE the Linde Star Sapphire and Ruby I won at auction for a criminally low price. Although I've done a bit of jewelry making in the past, I believe I'll have one of the vendors I met at the Church sale turn them into something wearable for me.
5) Car issues with MyJeff's HHR hit us rather hard yesterday. We'll survive, but:
6) Am seeking a new outlet for disposing of the glitz and kitsch I've collected. Have found possibilities, but nothing decided yet. The need to move on this has escalated.
7) For cheap (read: free) entertainment, MyJeff and I have recently begun a little online gaming. So far we've managed to control our gaming urge to after supper time and have only gone a half hour or so beyond my usual bedtime. Pretty good, I think.
Here's hoping all My Friends (and most everyone else) has a superb 2012, full of delightful adventures and only enough danger/hardship to add spice.