The following is what I would have posted yesterday, if our Internet provider’s server hadn’t lost a series of boards. But I had a lot of writing time after the family went to bed, so once I managed to un-grit my teeth, it wasn’t all bad.
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My feet hurt right now, but it’s a good hurt.
It’s a shopping hurt.
As is our Day After Thanksgiving tradition, the family went to the big crafts show one town over and spent two hours crawling all over it, looking at wood carvings, jewelry, quilts, boxes (lined or unlined), beautiful noisemakers shaped like frogs and crickets, the latest couture for dolls and humans and concrete geese (lined or unlined), dog treats, pens made out of bullets* and spark plugs,** ornaments made out of lightbulbs, garden flowers made out of iron, knitwear made from alpaca and/or emu wool, candles and soap made out of soy and/or goat’s milk and/or emu oil,*** stained glass made out of the usual, and pretty much anything and everything that could possibly be made out of fleece.
I found a great hand-carved wooden Santa for my MIL, who collects them,^ a little box with fairies on it for Sunny, who keeps swiping the one we bought for her sister last year, a fleece hat for Janie, who outgrew hers . . . and a pair of copper bracelets for me:
One says, I am the Queen of my Decisions and the other says, Delay is not Denial.^^ I think they go very well with the gray rubber one I’ve been wearing lately.
Tonight, turkey soup and homemade bread. It was going to be matzoh ball soup, but the last person to use the matzoh meal^^^ put the box back with only a tablespoon and a half of meal in it.
I’m going to go put my feet up.
What are you doing with your leftovers? And if you didn’t eat your body weight in turkey yesterday, the question still stands.
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*Nope—bought one last year.
**Yep— bought one this year. It’s springy!
***Mom and I don’t know how one gets emu oil. We’re hoping the emuherders just squeeze them gently over a bucket when they’re being fed and let them gambol away, happy and slightly drier than they were. If we’re wrong, please don’t tell us.
^Or at least, we all give them to her, which amounts to the same thing.
^^Not sure if these are affirmations or warnings—and whether the warnings are directed inward or outward. Figuring it out should keep me busy for a while . . .
^^^Yeah, okay, I’m the Queen of my own decisions. But I’m fine with adding it to my shopping list for later—delay doesn’t mean denial.
Earful of Cider 