I've always liked Albertsons grocery store somewhat better than Ralphs, for some indefinable reason. Now, however, I have a quantifiable reason.

After going through six other stores including Ralphs, Albertson's was the only one that had candied peel for the Christmas pudding and Christmas cake, and also the only one that had currants that would not put my Wonderful Husband into anaphylactic shock.

Ingredients all procured, due to persistance. Now he (since he has the day off) gets to make the things.

In this weekend of rain (she says, looking out the window to note that it is in fact sunshiny at the moment and she should set a jug of sun tea out to take advantage of this) we had a break yesterday, so I went out into the garden and got muddyish. I planted seeds for carrots, radishes, parsnips, beets, turnips, and snow peas. I also started leeks, spinach, and mustard greens. Last weekend I had harvested and started the sets from the top of my Egyptian walking onions; those are just starting to poke their tiny green heads up. I still have garlic, lettuce, and more peas on my list; we'll see if I get to those today or not, since the order of the day is trial run experiments for Thanksgiving, making my Grand Shopping List for said event, and sorting and filing patterns since we hit up Ikea for some pattern-suitable boxes yesterday. Have already discovered three duplicates. ^_^;;

Yesterday morning I went to an estate sale and got a few things of interest to me. The real score, however, was a vintage hand-embroidered linen tablecloth in fall colors, with eight matching napkins, that perfectly fits my mother's dining room table (without the extra leaves; oh well, people on the ends this Thursday can have placemats) for $6.53. I can't find a new tablecloth for that! ^_^

Trying to convince myself that the otherwise perfect ornament storage boxes at The Container Store are worth $27 + tax to store sixteen ornaments each. I mean, my vintage ornament collection isn't that big (2-3 boxes worth maybe?) but I would really like something secure to store them in. And I don't think cats jumping up and down on those boxes would break any contents; they're very sturdy. OTOH, that's a lot to pay for storage and I don't need archival quality....

At least we're not setting up the tree this year, so I don't have to worry about any ornament (vintage or modern) breakage. :)

Family Christmas party come and gone and cleaned up from. Everything seemed to go well enough and there's a ton of leftovers even after sending what I could home with everyone. My feet hurt and I'm going to sleep well tonight.

Four days until we leave for England. I need to write out a day-by-day list for my cousin who's feeding the cats and watering the plants for us; we need to pack; laundry of everything we're wearing before then will need to be done Wednesday night; and the tree needs to be disassembled and everything packed away for next year, so that we don't come home to find all the ornaments shattered on the floor courtesy of the kitties. Also need to finish up &/or give away all the food in the fridge....

Tree up! Window decorations (mini tree with dolls and such) up! Four presents wrapped and under the tree. And, for reference, an old muslin men's kimono mockup makes a lovely tree skirt. ^_^ Also screwed a hook into the kitchen entry wall... there was a nail there, but it was just barely enough to hold my aprons and Wonderful Husband kept accidentally knocking them down just by walking by. Now they should be secure. ^_^

Have had Christmas 2.0 with Wonderful Husband's family. The quilts I made for his grandmothers seemed to go across rather well, and I am now in the possession of some CDs I'd wanted, including a surprise one from Wonderful Husband of swing music so that we can better practice for our dance class, as well as a couple of books (UK edition of the latest Artemis Fowl book, yay!), sweets and rather a lot of British money, which kind of amuses me as there really isn't anything I'd wanted to buy while here. ^^;; There was no snow (not unexpected) but it's rather nippy out, at least for SoCal me.

Am ready for the holidays, round 1.0. Gifts are wrapped (all of them, not just for today), veggie tray has been done up, and gurka, of course, has been happily marinating in the fridge for a few weeks now. Am dressed up, sans shoes because slippers are wamer, jeweled up, and ready to rock.

( And I watched Ultraman Moebius 36.... )

Quilt #2 got finished last night amid signing the first half of the Christmas-cards-to-be-mailed, chatting with sandpanther, reading her latest fictional work (why can't my brain/writing run along similar characteristics?), doing a bit more Christmas shopping online, and reviewing Ultraman Moebius 29-33. Unfortunately, the first two activities interfered with one another when the pen slipped and marked on the quilt. It's not a large mark and fortunately it's on the back, but it's still THERE and didn't come out after the first wash last night, so I treated it this morning and tossed it back in. Hopefully it will be gone when I pull it out of the washing machine again in a few hours....

Work is back up and running (mostly; one computer died) and I'm practicing to get everything caught up in time for me to take off the week of Christmas and jaunt off to a foreign country again. ^_^ But today we got our Christmas bonuses and tomorrow we get our paychecks (and I get the paperwork to start putting money away into a 401K, which just makes me feel so grown-up) and now that work is over I go shopping for a Christmas gift for my Wonderful Husband....

And incidentally I am wearing one of the new sweaters today (the red one) and it still makes me feel attractive even after it's out of the store. I count this as a bonus.

I want the last month of my life back as a do-over. With Phenomenal Cosmic Powers or something because I'm sick and tired of losing those I care about, my eyes are burnt out with tears, and my stress level is such that I wake and walk in pain.

No, today has not gone well.

Hah. Christmas shopping and wrapping not quite done, but done enough for now and specifically for Christmas 1.0 tomorrow with my family. Christmas 2.0 will be on Christmas itself, in England, with Wonderful Husband's family, and then there's Christmas 2.1, a few days later with friends in Cambridge, England, and Christmas 2.2 at some nebulous point after returning to the US.... As someone once wrote, Christmas is whenever you get a present.

Saw The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe today. Not a /perfect/ film or adaptation, and there are some things I like better in the BBC miniseries, but not a bad effort and I really hope they make more of the series. It'll probably peter out after/around The Voyage of the Dawn Treader if they do, and A Horse and His Boy would be a tough sell given today's political/racial climate (pfaugh, say I, there are good Calormenes as well as bad), and The Last Battle is almost certainly right out given the hissy fit some sections are throwing over the relatively *mild* Christian flavor of this first film. Which is really a pity as it has my favorite scene (the gathering of the friends of Narnia into which Tirian comes as a dream-spirit) of the entire series.

I'm also suspecting there will be rather a lot of crossover fanfiction written with the Harry Potter universe. I just hope most of them take into account the 50+ years between the two stories. It's the steam engine train puffing through the British countryside thing. It could, I think, be well done in the right hands, and the thought amuses me--the movie that certain Christian sects decry for promoting witchcraft and thus, obviously, Satanism, crossed with the film that certain liberals decry for promoting Christianity and thus, obviously, the end of religious freedom as we know it. So mote it be.

I want to know who it was at the animal hospital that thought sending us a combination condolence/Christmas card would not hurt like hell. Because, you know, it does.

Have been working on my Christmas list and I think I've got it mostly bashed into final form. And it's really depressing this year because there isn't anything I actually /want/ as presents. Well, aside from a pair of slippers, but I've asked for those three years running and never gotten any, so I'm taking them off the list this year and buying them for myself. I mean, sure, there are things that would be useful and maybe even pleasant to have that I can ask for, but do I actually want anything? No. More dance lessons with my Wonderful Husband and my mother to teach me how to make bread is the sum total of things I actually /want./ Everything else is just feeling like so much social obligation at this point.

Maybe it's just the card.