Errands Done? Check.

I slept until 8:30 today.  Ahh, what luxury not to have to wake to an alarm.  Then I got an oil change, a new hubcap to replace the one I shattered on that rock last month (oops), and winter windshield wiper blades (they don't have spaces where snow & ice can collect), returned a book (I thought I had a copy but couldn't find it; it appeared once I bought a new one, natch), got 2 audiobooks from the library (FREE books, well, ones that I can't keep but FREE), picked up Durwood's Rx, stopped for birdseeds, swung into Aldi for 'shrooms at Durwood's request, and finally got a broken nail replaced.  And it only took me 3 hours.  The only bad thing is that I swung through the Panera Bread drive-thru after my oil change and got myself a cup of their yummy hazelnut coffee, my second cup of caffeinated coffee of the day.  My limit is one.  I can feel the caffeine dancing in my veins.  Uh-oh, this might not be good.  Perhaps an hour of yoga followed by 2 hours of knitting will let me sleep before midnight tonight.  You'd think that I'd learn but no, I have to test those boundaries, even at my advanced age.  Tomorrow DS & DIL1 are coming over to help me make sauerkraut.  I volunteered our basement to smell like decaying feet this time.  It's our turn.  Homemade is so much better than store-bought, you have no idea.  It's not hard to make.  The only ingredients are cabbage and salt, and time for it to ferment, then you heat it up, pack it into jars, and process it.  Zip, bang, boom--sauerkraut.  We meant to do it last fall but then Mom pulled her little stunt and the fermented cabbage fell by the wayside.  Not this year.  There'd better be 50# of organic cabbage at the Farmer's Market tomorrow with my name on it.  Today's Photo a Day theme is "on the table."  My first pictures were of the kitchen table, a real working table with newspapers and random pill bottles, crossword puzzles, pens, plants, recipes torn from magazines, Durwood's "piling" system, all sorts of things, but then I realized that a more interesting and less embarrassing table photo would be of the coffee table in the living room where my pretty knitting lives.  Much better.  I'm so excited; I'll be finishing up that gorgeous shawl you see there this weekend so I'll be able to wear it while it's cold.  I'm usually not so good at getting items finished in the appropriate season, i.e. the cotton anklet I cast on in May and is still not done.  Too late now.  But I'll for sure get it done for next summer, says the woman who has had a gorgeous red wool pullover sweater OTN (on the needles) for the past two winters.

October 12--El Greco, Christ Carrying the Cross.  "Well, at least he looks a little Middle Eastern," Mike said, standing back from the large oil painting with his arms folded across his chest, "but he has girl-hands."  Beryl jabbed him with her elbow.  "Shh, don't say things like that."  She looked around as if there were art police lurking in the gallery.  "Why not?  I'm right and you know it."  He hunched down to whisper in her ear.  "He's got girl-hands.  You know he does, I know he does, the whole world knows it.  This El Greco guy must have flunked "hands" in painter school, he sucked at them."  By the time Mike was through talking Beryl's face was red and there were tears in her eyes.  She was trying hard not to giggle.  She thought she was too old to giggle and she vowed never to take Mike to another art museum.  He was just fine in a science or history museum; they held his interest like art never could.

Okay, gotta print out a copy of the Knitting Guild's rewritten by-laws for Mitch before I forget to take it to knitting tonight and DD's friend Brenda's having a yarn sale tomorrow and I promised to take her flier with me too.  Toodle-oo.
--Barbara Sue