Today I went back up to PA to a wonderfully cozy new yarn shop in a little town called Seven Valleys. It was a beautiful drive, just over the border and a few miles off of I-83. The owner was in one of my classes at a conference and now I am going to be teaching for her. We get along well and were able to work together easily. She’s done a really great job rehabbing of all things an old butcher shop and making it warm and inviting but chic and well put-together. The walls are a soft sage green and the old, gigantic freezer doors are painted in a barely-metallic soft coppery color. It really works.

Anyway, I left the house at 9:15, got home around 1:15, napped for a minute or two, then got going on the usual afternoon activities. It was a good day. Tonight I am alternately working on proofing pictures and writing scriptures on Advent Calendars. I will not be getting them all sent in time for December 1, but I am really okay with it. I’m proud of myself that I’m not depressed or yelling at my kids or pulling all-nighters to get them out the door. I’m finally getting that there is little in life that is worth that kind of stress. I’ll have them all done by the weekend, and that’ll do pig, that’ll do. Everyone helped me pound nails and paint stars for FHE last night and it was really fun to work together. It will be a fun memory that will be woven into the calendars that hopefully my family will use for many years. If I had gotten them all done last week when I wanted to, I might have missed that moment.

Now this catalog thing has become an obsession. Even the kids are in on it now. Today’s count was 11. That included two copies of Title Nine Sports, one of my favorite catalogs and my 4th Lands’ End Catalog in a week. No Joke. I have not ordered from Lands’ End in about 5 years. There is a tie for the winner of today’s unusual catalog and I have nothing but complements for both: Pajama Gram, from whence you can order a gift of fun jammies and other accessories to be sent to your pal on just the right day; and Wind and Weather, from whence you can order all kinds of nifty, geeky weather predicting and monitoring items, as well as interesting timepieces, windchimes, and the like.