moon madness

They're finished! The men's socks and the black neckwarmer! In time for Christmas - except that the recipients are 2,000 miles away and won't receive them till next week.

I'm also still waiting for some items I ordered more than a week ago that have to go into the packages I'll be sending. It seems that this year mail delivery is slower than ever. At least around here. My small local post office has been understaffed this month and every time I go there lines of waiting people are snaking out the lobby doors. For the last four days I've received one piece of mail each day. What are they doing with all the surplus? Since there are no small children back east waiting for a New Mexico Santa to arrive (the youngest is only a month old) it's okay. We'll all be grown up about it. However, their gifts to us arrived last night and I couldn't resist opening the smallest package in the big box which turned out to be a sweet sparkly charm for my Pandora bracelet! And then I received a note from my Santa Fe knitting friend who said she has to speak to me soon about her obsession with Pandora! Love it!

Yesterday morning snow on my sheepy doormat and everywhere else. Today it's all melted and temps are in the high 40's. They're celebrating up in the Ski Valley and things are just as they should be. I'll be shopping tomorrow for my husband's birthday dinner on Thursday and maybe spend a day baking cookies. I haven't done that in a couple of years, but somehow it seems right this year. We've been through a lot of stress and angst lately and in lieu of too much wine, we'll eat cookies.

I was out on the deck last night in my Garfield PJ pants and a thick sweater trying to take pictures of the full moon and the deep rose cloud that floated beneath it in the sky. My eyes saw a crisp and clear moon, but my cameras saw a thick milky haze around it. I simply could not capture on camera what my eyes were seeing no matter what camera settings I used. No doubt an astronomer could explain it to me, but I don't happen to have one handy. So tonight (soon) I look forward to an early darkness as the winter solstice kicks in. And then I look forward to that wonderful gradual return of light.