It's a New Month

November 1st.  Really?  Can it be November already??

Before I go too far with this whole "where has the year gone?" theme, let me post a couple of photos I took as October wound down to a close.



Ghosts and Houndz on Halloween

 This one (left) is of our front door, with the 30+ year-old ghosts adorning the porch lights and the dogs behind the glass (see Gus and Duchess down at the bottom, looking out, with Elmo sneaking up behind them?).  Behind the glass, guys.  Stay!  Yea, like that was going to work with all those kids-in-costume coming up the steps...obviously here just to pet the houndz, right?  I had both door and dog duty on Sunday night...something I didn't think I'd be able to handle by myself.  But, I employed a system that worked surprisingly well.

I kept the fence up at the top of the steps.  Fence, you say?  If you've been to our house, you know we have about 6 or 7 steps leading up from the front walk to the front door.  At the top of the steps is a wide front porch that is about 8 x 25 feet.  Mr. T...inventive man that he be...came up with the idea to create a removable "fence" at the top of the steps, re-purposing (love that word...:) one of the "old" wire closet racks (remember...from the Master Disaster in our closet when we'd first moved into the house?), turned on its side and fitted into a rack-anchor attached to the bottom of the hand-rails on either side of the steps.  Clever, isn't it?!  Fence up:  dogs can go out the front door and see what's happening in their front yard, but can't get off the front porch...safe and sound.  Fence down:  people can come and go without ever knowing it was there...unless you notice the anchors and wonder what they are for.

So, with the fence up, I left the wooden front door open, with just the glass storm door shut.  That way, I could see the little ghosts and goblins as they approached the front steps, even from where I was sitting in the great room.  Then, before anyone could get past the fence and ring the doorbell (which just sets the dogs to barking without stop), I could go out the door, saying:  "Don't worry about the dogs; they just want to greet all of our guests."  The dogs were contained, but happy to be able to interact with everyone that came to see them.  And, almost all of our Trick or Treaters got excited to see the puppies.  One or two exceptions to every rule, of course.



Christmas UFO Being Blocked on Halloween

 Anyway, while I was working my system and waiting for the next visitor to come trooping up the steps, I was putting the finishing touches on one of my UFO's...that red vest I'm making for someone's Christmas gift (right).  It wasn't detailed work...or anything that required me to concentrate on a pattern or a complicated stitch...I'd done all that already.  Mainly stuff I could work on, put down quickly when someone came up the steps, and then pick up and return to where I left off.  Just K1, P1 ribbing; then some binding-off and weaving in of ends; and then finally a little steam-blocking.  Technically, it's still in the UnFinished Object column, since I haven't sewn on the buttons...haven't even purchased them yet.

I was flying solo this weekend because Mr. T had gone to Louisville last week to work for his company in a trade show.  Of course, since that's where Missy M happens to live, he was happy when they asked to work there.  Sure, no problem.  And, since he had already made the trip there, he might as well do a little DIY while in town, right?  Oh yeah...the Daddy Do list was both long and color-coded.  Am happy to report they got a lot of stuff checked off that list.

It was touch-and-go whether he would actually get to go.  On the eve of his departure (as well as my own planned business trip to Atlanta), my back locked up with one of the worst spasms I've had since my car wreck in late '05.  L-o-n-g story short, he went and I survived.  Better now, thank you.

So, back to that "It's November!"  I tried to get a lot of stuff out of the way (like catching up on emails, paying bills, etc.) today so that I could get started with the National Novel Writing Month:  NaNoWriMo.  Good news:  I did get started.  Better news:  I was able to write 2,336 words before the clock ticked over to a new day (which it has while I'm writing this post)!  Yee ha!!  Since the math says that to reach a goal of 50,000 words in 30 days (i.e., To Win), you must write 1,667 words a day, I'm thrilled at my count for the first day.  Plus, I got the file/document all set up in Word without saying too many of those words that I probably would be shame-faced to include in my novel!

I'll just say it here and now:  I'll probably neglect my blog over the coming days and weeks, because...although I treasure my time to write, I do occasionally require a bit of sleep.

Like now.  It's time to go recharge the batteries.  Too tired to spell-check or edit...hope this post makes some sense.  [Yawn.]