Deadly Dull Day.

 Across the street at our house: I didn't move fast enough to get a picture of the rainbow at its peak. It had already begun to fade. 

(A side note: see all that stuff in front of the house. The neighbor moved out. Within hours, someone else had pulled up in a truck and began to unload their things. I said to Tim, "No one has cleaned that apartment for the next tenant!" He told me that that particular property owner uses a property manager, and that they never clean between tenants. Ugh. The new tenants have been moving things to the curb. I feel sorry for them. It looks like a big job.)

anyways...

A football game generally takes a couple hours, give or take a few minutes. Today, Tim's beloved Pittsburgh Steelers played at 1PM. The game didn't finish until five or thereabouts. 

The weather was pretty bizarre today and the game was delayed due to weather. Tim was mystified by that until it moved from there to here. The sky got dark and the thunder and lightning started. In Pittsburgh, there was high winds and even hail on top of the thunder storm. The game resumed shortly after 3PM, and it was about the same time we found ourselves marveling over a rainbow stretching across a bright blue sky. My daughter had a double rainbow over her house, and got a nice picture of it. Directly after that the game was delayed once again in Pittsburgh, and before long, it began to get very dark here, and another thunderstorm moved through. Thunderstorms are not common at this time of the year, so it was an unusual day.

At my daughter's garage across town:

 

Eventually, the game was finished, and Tim's team was trounced. 

My big accomplishments for the day? 

I took all the styrofoam packaging from the kitchen island and used it to line a box and make a cozy insulated cat place. I have a black stray cat who hangs around. We feed him. We tried to bring him inside but he has no interest in being an indoor cat. This does not stop him from standing on his hind legs to gaze beseechingly into the kitchen when his food bowl is empty. We leave the mudroom door ajar so that he has a place to get out of the weather, and he has a cozy bed there. Now that cozy bed is inside an insulated box, which is covered by a by a old thermal blanket. 

It makes me feel less guilty about him. 

I also got my Christmas cards done, so another box ticked. 

And so another day passes quietly in an unquiet world. 

Another Box Ticked

 I knew that last night was a pretty shortsleeped night. I slept, woke up from vivid dreams, couldn't fall back to sleep right away, tried not to wake up Tim who woke up a couple times anyways and got up for a while. 

He went out hunting. I got up to pack his hot cocoa and make him a couple sandwiches. It was tempting to go back to bed, but I made myself stay busy and awake. I cleaned house and did laundry in the morning, and then sat down in the afternoon to tick another box: we bought a flat pack movable kitchen island. Reading the instructions, I saw that it could be completed by one person and that the estimated assembly time was one hour. 

That was sure optimistic. 

I started On Golden Pond. I haven't seen that in years. Armed with the proper tools, I sat down and went to work. The movie ended. I worked on. It took me 3 hours but it turned out nicely and it is a well designed and sturdy piece. No complaints from me other than the unrealistic assembly time. 

Another box ticked for Christmas. 

Tim came home to a hot meal. He did not see his buck, but he did not seem unduly concerned by that. 

Dreams

 Both Tim and I have had trouble sleeping for the last couple months, which is not surprising, I guess. It seems like one or the other of us is always getting up in the dark and padding around the house. 

I began taking melatonin to help. I don't know that it has, really, but I've been having some vivid dreams, which I read is a common side effect. 

Tonight, I was swimming in a stormy sea. I was holding on to a kickboard and I was kicking furiously, and I swam around the world! I was so exhilerated by the experience that I was telling a couple friends about it. I did not know who they were, but we seemed to have a good friendship. We all went out into the water chattering away, and we swam together, each of us holding our kickboards and laughing together in the waves and the foam as we went once again around the world. They were as exhilerated as I was. 

I woke up as Tim was getting out of bed. I lay there in the dark and felt the exhileration still. 

The Hunter

 Back in the 'old days', when a deer was taken, we processed it ourselves. We used a hand meat saw and a small grinder. We washed the meat and wrapped the meat. It was a big job. 

Now that we only have one hunter in the family, he has been taking the deer to be processed. It's a lot easier. We also do not have the space in the kitchen here to do that any more. 

The problem is that, one by one, the deer processers have closed down. We have two left in the county. Tim dropped off his doe during archery, and that went alright, but now it is rifle season and there are a lot more hunters out there, and a lot more deer being taken. 

When Tim got his second doe, he was surprised to find that they were not accepting any more deer that day. Tim hung it and skinned it out. It was cold enough over night to keep the meat. He took it in the very first thing the next morning. They accepted it, but a few hours later, they had once again stopped accepting deer for the day. 

We had been talking about using a corner of the basement in the new house as a 'chop shop', setting it up with a professional meat grinder and a professional meat saw and stainless steel tables and sinks so that we can once again process our own meat (and much more efficiently than we did it in the old days.) 

Yesterday, Tim hunted down a stainless steel sink with stainless steel wings to mount on the side, so we went and picked that up today. 

Tonight he has hunted down a combination meat saw with a grinder too.  We are driving out to bring that home on Sunday, provided that everything is as the seller claims. 

He came out to tell me about it, and I said, "Wow. You're a good hunter!"

And he is. 

Try again

 Boy, I can't even guess what's wrong with blogger tonight. Finally just deleted the last post and will try again. I did get the Christmas tree down, and all the boxes of lights and ornaments and crystal beads, and got it decorated. 

This is the world's worst picture, taken in bad light with a poor phone camera, but I couldn't quite get myself motivated to haul out the big camera. 

It is a nice thing to unload the ornaments and the memories that go with them. One from my parents' first Christmas. One from Tim's parents' tree. Ornaments collected over a lifetime, from different people, from different places, from different times. It's a little sobering how many of those people are gone from this world. 

I decorated the tree by myself. Tim was out hunting again. He's quite excited. He saw a buck. Even if he were home, Tim would not have been interested in decorating the tree. He likes it well enough when it's done, but not well enough to actually participate in getting it done. 

It's his nature. 

When I was done with everything, I hauled all the empty boxes back up stairs to pack into the steamer trunk. 

I got the box packed and ready to mail out to my son and his family. My daughter in law sent me a picture of their Christmas tree all set up and decorated. The big question? (drum roll, please): Does the little drummer boy ornament that his great-grandmother needle pointed probably 30 years ago still play music. Answer: yes. 'Toyland' still plays its tinny tune.

(It's Dylan's Christmas miracle.)

Next question: What does the baby think of the tree? Answer: She is fascinated by it, but afraid to get close. 

(Which is sort of another Christmas miracle, don't you think?)

I got the livingroom put all back together and admired the tree in the semidarkness while I finished wrapping and packing up all the things that are going to be mailed out tomorrow. I will admit to watching an episode of Dateline while I did that, Keith Morrison's creepy quiet voice not exactly adding to the Christmas vibe I was trying to kickstart. 

However: 

Quite honestly, after years of hearing him narrate episodes of mayhem and murder, I have to confess that hearing him reading children 'The Night Before Christmas' gave me the creeps. 

I got out Tim's bubble light candelabra and set that up. He came home from hunting with a good supper waiting and he happily watched his bubble lights in the dark while eating.

 This morning, we had snow on the ground. Not a lot, but enough to surprise Houdi when he meowed at 4AM to be let out. Silhouetted against the moonlit snow, he looked around before stepping off the porch. He walked off quickly, shaking his paws as he went. I knew that he'd be back in pretty short order, and when I opened the door 15 minutes later, there he was, ready to come back inside for the rest of the night. Yes, he has a litterbox. No, I don't know why he prefers the great outdoors. 

Today was such a gray day that even wrapping and ribboning could not cheer me up. I decided that tomorrow, I will put up the tree and scatter a few decorations around the house. 

I hope it helps. The black dog has caught up with me. 

Wait a minute!

It's snowing here, spitting flurries. There was enough that I did have to brush off my car when I went out this afternoon. 

I was waiting today. The mail man was late, which is to be expected at this time of the year but I didn't dare leave the house until after collecting the mail. William's tablet was to be delivered and I did not want to leave that sitting on our porch. .

Tim is waiting too, but he's outside sitting in his blind in the woods.  Now that he's got his second doe, he feels like he can sit back and enjoy the hunt. He is waiting for just the right buck to show up. It may never show, but he seems to find happiness in his waiting. 

I have a return. We saw something on clearance that was the perfect gift. We didn't dare wait for fear that by the time we were decided for sure and for certain, the item would be gone, so we bought that perfect gift.  Today, Tim found a more perfect perfect gift and ordered it, which meant the first perfect gift now needed to be returned. 

So, Tim's waiting on a buck and I'm waiting on the mailman so that I can run out to the store to return the perfect gift (not to be confused with the perfect perfect gift) Fortunately, I did wait to wrap it.