Guess it's been a while.  We went to Dan's in San Jose for Thanksgiving (if I've not already blogged about it) and had a great time playing games, eating and visiting San Francisco.

Now it's time to get ready for the next set of holidays when they'll all come here to visit.    Getting games ready (I'm chairing a games group for Temple, so will have to drag out a number of games Monday night for that).  Thinking about what to cook.  And getting very tired of Nutrisystems' foods.  Especially since cookies keep popping up in front of me (and of course I MUST eat them)! 

Saturday we had 3 parties to go to.  Why does everything get scheduled for the same day?  They got more enjoyable as the day went on, but the food got kinda overwhelming.  And it snowed most of the afternoon, making getting to party #2 quite difficult.  By #3 the snow had let up and the salt trucks had been around - and Tom decided he was partied out.  But I had a good time without him.  Lots of friendly people.

Right now I'm getting ready for my first crafts show (as a vendor).  It'll be just 4 hours on a Thursday evening, but I've got lots of finishing up of polymer clay items to do, as well as shrink wrapping and pricing some of the pieces.

Still eating mostly chicken soup and jello - with some occasional chocolate.  Well, I know it's not recommended for stomach upset, but it's soooo good.  Haven't been doing much besides reading and sleeping, waiting for this to go away.  I'll take it easy for today, then attempt to resume normal life, such as it is. 

I did go to PT yesterday morning, came home and slept for 2 hours.  Maybe today I can go through the 54 emails I've been ignoring since Wednesday.  And get some claying in?  I MUST be feeling somewhat better.

It's been cold and snowy all week here, and I still have these 2 clematis plants that were supposed to go into the ground before it froze - except I couldn't figure out where to put them since I'd decided to pull out all the arbor vitae along the fence next spring and along that fence (behind the arbor vitae) is where they're supposed to go.  I guess I'd better see if there's a soft spot somewhere and just get them into the ground for now.  Same for the daffodil bulbs that got dug up when the tulips went in.

Guess I caught whatever Tom had the last 3 days.  Not feeling much lie bolgging or anything else for that matter!

Getting some reading done, put some tassels on bookmarks, went back to bed.  Supper time now - not hungry.  I MUST be sick!

Last night we went to Bravo Italian Restaurant up north in Cranberry Township to have dinner with my stepdaughter Anne and her family.  I brought a bookmark for Anne and then Molly wished she had one, too, so I gave her the one I was using in my book - I can always find my place again somehow.  We all had a good time and ended up playing "tennis  - elbow - foot" so Molly wasn't bored any longer.  (She's 9 years old, and wrote in crayon on the paper covering the table "I'm bored" - grown-up talk isn't much fun for a 9 year old.)

Actually, I had a very productive day yesterday.  Finished my book first thing in the morning, then did polymer clay bookmarks thru early afternoon followed by some bookkeeping on the computer.  Felt like I'd gotten a lot done before we left to go to dinner.  My new scheme for bookmarks worked out better than the previous one, too.  And I figured out how to cure them so they'd stay flat - put tiles on top when I put them into the toaster oven before they start heating.  Now all I've got to do is put tassels on them.

It must be winter - there's snow on the rooftops (but not especially on the ground).  Just a dusting, but enough to see.  And flakes are drifting lazily down out there.  It's right around freezing right now.  (7:30AM here.)  So I guess garden season is about over.  And I still have 2 clematis (real small ones) to put in the ground.  Hopefully the ground is still unfrozen.

Today I have lunch with 2 friends and we'll play Mah Jongg afterwards.  Yes, you're supposed to have 4 people to play, but we manage with 3.  This particular restaurant lets us use a table at the back after the lunch crowd is gone and, since we arrive for lunch after most of them are gone anyway, it all works out well.  Can't say I'm crazy about Mah Jongg, but I do like getting together with people.  Since I just learned to play about a year ago, maybe it's an acquired taste and I'll like it more at some future time?

I just got finished cutting Charlie's (the cat) claws - well, all but 2.  That's when he lost patience and left.  Maybe he'll come back but right now he's being wary - although he's sitting across from my computer chair and eying me.  If I'm not typing, he can get his belly rubbed while I'm on the computer.  If I am typing, he gets invited to leave.  Itty-Bitty needs her claws cut, too, but she's harder to get ahold of - doesn't like to be held or petted much.  Very cat-like, independent.  But boy does she love to play!

Tried Wii Fit for the first time since my surgery this morning.  5 minutes of balance exercise is enough for now - my knee was wanting to complain.  I've gained about 5 pounds - probably been avoiding the Wii because I didn't want to know that.  Story of my life - losing and gaining the same 5 pounds and seldom making it to goal weight.  And, when I do, staying there about 30 seconds before starting to gain again.

I downloaded a new game a few days ago onto my computer and now I'm addicted.  It's called something like Chuzzles, and seems to consist of blowing up colorful creatures that sorta look likeTribles (as in Star Trek) in groups of 3 or more.  I'm easily amused, I guess.  However, I'm not getting anything else done!

They really gave me a workout this morning - short-arc quads, long arc quads, "deep" (not very) knee bends.  If I keep on doing this kind of stuff, I may be able to go upstairs using BOTH legs soon!  Downstairs will take longer.  I also got to the swimming pool for some water walking and snorkling today.  So I'm feeling reasonably (for me) well exercised for a change.

Spent the weekend working on polymer clay bookmarks.  Really easy to do and fun to experiment with new techniques.  I'm getting ready for an arts and crafts fair in a local church, sharing a table with a girlfriend who strings beads.  She'll have necklaces and bracelets, while I'll have the bookmarks, pens, clocks and, if I can find them, polymer clay covered switchplates for sale.   Hope it'll be fun.

  Lots of book marks

Some individual ones up close.  I tried sparkly sprinkles, rubber stamping, patterened canes and 'mica sift' techniques as well as clay blends.

I'll also try to sell these pens (these are the ones that still write) that I did several years ago, and also

the strange pseudo 'books' we ade when the book guild teamed up with the polymer clay guild.  These things can fold in several different ways.  They're held together with tough waxed string.

Rain storm Friday night took down a lot of the leaves finally.  Maybe I'll have stuff to compost after all.

What will CNN do with all those newscasters now that the election's over??  I've become a news junkie over the last few months.  What will I do now?  Watch Obama get his administration organized, I guess.  For now.

My knee is slowly recovering, but I keep overdoing and ending up with sore areas in muscles.  It's supposed to take at least 12 weeks to 'get back to normal' and right now it's only been 8, so I guess that's to be expected.  It sure would be nice to go up and down steps faster than one step at a time, get both feet on that step and then take the next.  Some day, I guess.  At least it's no longer such a shock when I forget and do go up the more usual way.

Gardening is slowing down for the year, but I keep on getting these shipments of plants I ordered over the summer and wondering where I thought I was going to put them.  I've still got 2 clematis to plant that were supposed to go on my side of the neighbor's fence, but recently we've decided to replace the scraggly arbor vitae along that fence and I'm sure they'll be trampled in the process.  So I'm waiting for inspiration, I guess.  The directions say "roots in the shade and tops in the sun'.  A problem.

This morning I laid out all the tulip bulbs on the flower bed and my helper dug holes and planted them.  As many as I'd ordered, there still weren't quite enough.  But he'd dug up sufficient crocus, mini-daffodil, wood hyacinth and other small bulbs that we just filled in the front of the bed with all of those things.  Now I've got some perennials to put in and hopefully the planting will be done.

My stepdaughter is visiting through tomorrow, so we went out to eat for dinner.  Not good for my food plan!  No dessert, but I had a garlic pizza - the restaurant was having a garlic festival.  I'm afraid to exhale!

Tomorrow there's a seminar on Native Plants at the Garden Center.  Wish I could find the brochure so I know what's supposed to happen.  I did know back at the end of August when I signed up.  Anyway, I guess that will tire me out again.

Other than all that, today was one of those "if anything can go wrong, it will" days.  Went to take my shower - no hot water.  Looked out the front window - the outside gas lamp was out.  Tom tried to light the hot water pilot light since I can't get down on my knees right now, and gave up in defeat.  So he was late for his 7 AM meeting and I had to drive him there instead of his taking the bus as he usually does.

So I called the gas company.  The man who answered the phone didn't know about trouble in this area, but said he'd send someone out to check.  (I did remember seeing gas company trucks around here all week, so thought he should know.)  When the guy got out here, he found water in the gas meter!  But HE knew that this problem had been going on all week, and called for a crew to come out.  At this point, I went down into the garden to start on the tulip bed.  When I got back up to the house for the next load of tulips, Tom stopped me in the hall and said he couldn't get the TV in the rec room to go on.  So I went in there to troubleshoot and in the process the bucket with about 25 bulbs got dumped behind the TV and under the bed and table in the rec room.  And Tom had to get down on hands and knees to find them - well, only about half of them.  Anyway, we never did get the TV on until Joe showed up and poked around it some - he found that the power connection was loose up by the TV.

Got back to the tulip bed, got the rest of the tulips laid out and discovered I had 4 minutes to clean up and get to a committee meeting.  (I wasn't any too cleaned up, but I got there.)

When I got back to the house, there was a backhoe digging in the yard of a neighbor 2 houses over, and a nice lady from the gas company came to my front door to turn the gas appliances on for me.  Fortunately, right about this time, Joe and Tom got back - I had no idea how to turn the outside gas lamp on, but Joe knew. 

So now (I hope) all the gas stuff in the house is working and we'll be able to take showers, wash clothes and dishes and such tomorrow.

So - I'm hoping to post some more flower pictures below, if they upload.

Toad lily                                                                                                                        Maybe Tiarella "Painter's Palette"

Red Heuchera (Coral Bells) with light shining thru leaf                          Blue Aster

Late Season Tomatoes                                                                            Another view of Blue Aster

I hope the labels lie up with the photos!

Knee has been bothering me for about a week, but I think I've figured out why.  About a week ago, I decided I'd better begin my abs exercises again.  One exercise has me holding one leg up while doing crunches.  My operated leg is not yet ready for that kind of 'activity'.  So my PT gave me an alternate way to do this exercise, which I plan to start on this morning after I finish all the leg exercises - and the iceing of my knee.

This past weekend I went to the local Polymer Clay guild's retreat for only one day instead of 3, came home and slept for 3 hours.  Still not quite up to par, but it sure was fun to see everyone and get to do some claying again.  I was in awe of some of the work various friends are doing.  My thing is making canes - things you take slices off of to enhance various objects or to build up a flower or some such.  Maybe I should start selling canes on eBay, since they're just accumulating here.  I used 2 of my canes to make about 18 beads for a friend to use.  I don't mind making beads, but hate stringing them!