Advent

What an awesomely mild weekend this has been.  It was almost 10C on both days, which, for the end of November, is really quite warm.  Plus it was sunny, which just added to the beauty of the weekend.  The tiny dictator has been out enjoying the weather, barking at everyone and everything, and trying to get the attention of dogs that were up to a half-block away.  He’s waiting for Sam now, who promised to come take him out this evening.  He’s trying to separate me from my orange segments, because he’s of the view that I should share them!  Don is doing well, and is on the phone now trying to negotiate some Black Friday deals with various providers (my cell phone deal is great).  I slept a lot this weekend on both days and could have slept for several more hours.  I think that my holiday is catching up with me.  Or else I’ve probably overdone things more than I realized. I don’t think that I’ve done a lot, but people always seem to disagree with me on that point.  

I’m working on my crochet flower ideas.  I ordered some yarn, which is due today, and I have a few patterns to try out.  I’ve sat myself down to remind myself that I mustn’t make it too complicated.  It’s really easy to do that — I can find dozens of ideas and then I’ll get lost in them and never actually complete the project.  I’ve found about 30 patterns that I like, and I’m working on narrowing them down to maybe 5.

I confess that I’m feeling down on myself.  I learnt yesterday that a friend’s health has deteriorated and I feel dreadful that I allowed us to fall out of touch enough that I didn’t know what was happening.  I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to be supportive but I do hope that she will allow me to be there with her.  Somewhat ironically, I was reminded today of a kindness that I’d done way back when I was a teenager; I honestly have no memory of it, as it was something that (to me) was very commonplace, but apparently it deeply touched the person.  I hadn’t seen them since until a video call today when they were visiting my father, and they thanked me for it.  It’s one of those things that cheered me up a bit, as it was so unexpected.

Do you know that it’s less than a month to Christmas?  I was going along, blissfully unaware of the date when it suddenly clicked that it’s almost the end of November, and therefore fewer than 30 days to Christmas!  I haven’t really done any decorating, and I’m not likely to, as all my balcony stuff is occupying a large portion of my living room — they’re allegedly almost done, but I don’t have a date for regaining access to the balcony, and therefore clearing my stuff out!  I have to say that I’m thankful that Don is the type of person he is (although he sometimes drives me nuts) because almost anyone else would be having major conniptions about the mess and congestion.  Apart from that, though, I was browsing movies on the streaming sites, and it occurs to me that I really wouldn’t want to be a person with a different holiday at this time.  There are virtually no movies or shows featuring any holiday other than Christmas (and a very secular, materialistic Christmas at that!) It shouldn’t surprise me, as this has come up in the past, but I treated it as I do Halloween — something that I don’t celebrate, and I occupy myself with other books or shows until after the date has past.  But having spent time with my niece and nephew in the approach to Halloween, I fully appreciated for the first time that having a minority belief (and children) would make it much more difficult.  

I’m really going to have to work harder on being more perceptive and understanding.  Missing out so many obvious signals is really shaming.  Sam is here to take Jerry, so I’ll sign off and use my “free” time to do something that I can’t manage with a little dog hovering over me.  Good night!