Finally figured it out

Dean (who was kind enough to take this photo for me out of the car window as we drove home from school last week) is relieved, as am I, that all the wild turkeys in the neighborhood finally seem to have gotten the memo about Thanksgiving and are laying low. They'd been prancing around without care, right in broad daylight, right on front lawns. "Maybe we need to put out a little dish of gravy to wise 'em up," I said, but luckily it didn't come to that.

And, I, too, seem to have gotten with the program. "Hey, maybe if I stop complaining about the fact that I'm so far behind in the holiday department and use that energy instead to start doing things then I'll feel better!" And what do you know? It's working!

Tote bags that fold up and can be tucked into your regular bag so that you're never without your own reusable shopping bag have been high on my to-do list for a while now, and I finally got out fabric and sewing machine and got to work.

I even went so far as to modestly decoupage a nice tin and have placed one of these bags inside, and tied it with a ribbon -- all ready for the staff gift exchange at work. Gosh that feels good. I wish I'd thought about the tin option earlier in the year, only because I know we recycled a few of these. I'm liking the idea, though, of converting them as I go so that I have alternative wrapping solutions ready at hand.

So even though Thanksgiving will be here before I know it, and I'm not quite in the place I'd like to be yet (no ironing done, no silver polished, no butter pats made, no rolls nor appetizers made and in the freezer yet), I'll get there one way or another and I'll simplify as necessary to make it happen. Feels better just being able to say that.

OH -- and I keep forgetting: Ken told me last week that on a radio news report he heard that sales at Joann Fabrics are up 18% over this time last year, and that the company attributes it to more people making Christmas presents! I attribute it to blogland -- truly I do! How wonderful is that?

And I just now remembered one more thing I wanted to share. Dean needed a plain, flat bedsheet to bring to school for a project (it will get made, by him, into a costume suitable for depicting a person who lived in the Middle East during the middle ages -- back when the Arab world was thoughtfully, purposefully holding onto great ideas and recorded history, after Rome burned and the darkness took over Europe). There was no such thing as an extra plain sheet in the closet to give him but I had the brilliant idea of stopping at Salvation Army on the way home from his Saturday morning soccer game. Brilliant for me, anyway, because I don't usually have reasons to thrift but I could just picture unused sheets, in packages, waiting for us there. Yup! Not only did I score the sheet for him, but I also found a never-used, vintage muslin sheet and it's gorgeous -- great hand, so ready to be made into...something. All for $5.