It was a busy week with lots of Christmas productivity, some social fun and progress on my car with cat stuff thrown in too.
When I left you last week, my car was dead in the garage for want of a nut. I called Ozzy, my mechanic, at 7:15 Monday morning and told him the specific size nut I needed, which he promptly found at the auto parts store next to his shop. I arranged for my friend Lorri to deliver them and after some fiddling around, I got the battery reconnected and it started! Huge relief. With a functional car again, I set off to the library to print labels and then dropped a couple of packages at the post office. Just 2 more to go. We had new people come to knitting that night and luckily the person I was helping took to knitting like she'd been doing it for years.
It was in the 50's on Tuesday so I did laundry and hung it on the line. I had 2 more packages and I got them both dropped off. I was done with shipping so it was time to relax and enjoy the season. First step was to make something to take to the food day I'd been invited to at work. Since it was a soup day, I made corn sticks using Jiffy muffin mix with my vintage corncob shaped pans. Fun.
I had a list of things to do in Lincoln around the food day. Before I went to campus, I dropped off the charity hats I'd been knitting all year, including a few from Goodwill bags that needed finishing, to the collection bin at the School of Natural Resources, which adopts a nearby low income school every year. Then I dropped a big bag of dead Christmas lights at the fire station for the boy scouts recycling project. I had collected them last year but missed the bins and added a few more this year. Do lights ever work a second year? Not for me. Anyway..... the food day was fun. I have always loved my work friends and count myself lucky that they still invite me to things. After hitting a few thrifts and Aldi, I headed home.
I was up and out early Thursday for a talk at the lake on planting pollinator gardens, which was right up my alley. I did another deposit of money from the library's decor sale and then went to Saunders County Lost Pets, which is our local animal shelter, to get trained on volunteering. They had posted that they were looking for help with their cats - another thing right up my alley. It was just filling food and water, scooping boxes, sweeping the floors and loving on the cats, of course. I signed up for a few more shifts and headed home for lunch. l ended up working with Dana for a couple of hours after lunch helping with minimum wage increase files for Payroll. When I was done with all that, I enjoyed an afternoon drinking tea and reading in the front room, which is lovely in the winter when the sun's shining directly in.
Friday was another up and out first thing day. I had an 8:15 haircut and was dropping my car off before then for a 100,000 mile check up. I walked to the library to print more shipping labels - for yarn this time - and Ozzy picked me up there and drove me home. It was bitter cold out so not a problem that I was car free for the day. I made homemade baked beans, which is an all day effort, and put up my Christmas tree. Of course last year's lights didn't work so after I picked up my car, which he only did an oil change on and said he'd send me an estimate for everything else, I stopped at Dollar General for more lights. Despite having no plans for the weekend that would require me to leave the house, it was good to have my car back.
It was still super cold and we'd had snow overnight and no sunshine at all. I ventured out despite that to pick up cookies at the Lutheran church in town since I'd done no holiday baking yet. I also finished decorating my tree (you can only do so much when it's dark) and called the vet. Sometime during the week, Pixel, my 17 year old cat, had gone completely blind. Like bumping into walls blind. They said it happens and there's nothing they can do so there was no point bringing her in, adding that it wouldn't take long for her to learn to navigate the house. I moved the litter box to right by the laundry room door because she had been making it downstairs but wasn't making it to the box. I have high hopes that she will do better and live awhile longer. She does howl like she's being torn asunder when she gets lost, which is usually in the middle of a room and the middle of the night. Oh well. She's still a sweetie and all my other cats love her.
The sun came out Sunday, which always makes me happy in the winter. I knitted in the sun all morning, getting up and down a zillion times to move ornaments on the tree. I did some final non-tree decorating and then made black raspberry jam with berries from Ed, my friend Donna's husband who does some handyman stuff for me sometimes. I will share some with him and have a few more small jars for myself and friends. I ended the day chatting with my friend Lori, who said she wants to host New Year's tea, which I happily agreed to. I haven't been doing a big event like before Covid but now I can be a guest and not have to host. Yay!
So that was a full week! While I'm sad about Pixel, at least she still seems happy and otherwise healthy. My car is back and my Christmas shipping and decorating are done plus I got to see all my work friends. Now to relax and enjoy the season.
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